this week in pregnancy (focus on the fetus)

Roughly the same level of shit-feeling this week, but instead of details there, I’ll just share a more pleasant entry from my journal:

Good heavens, this fetus is mobile! All day I’ve been having little simultaneous pushes in two spots at once (as though it were popping me with a foot and a hand at the same time, stretching big, high in my uterus a bit to my left and low on my right), big scraping/churning motions, all sorts of interesting sensations. Right now there are repeated bouts of a strong churning/scraping feeling just inside my left hipbone and, simultaneously, just up and to the right of my belly button. Sometimes it’s as though the fetus were windshield-wiping quite firmly across my belly at nearly its widest point, back and forth an inch above my belly button (parallel to the floor if I were standing).

What are you doing in there, little fetus?

I think of and speak of it as “the fetus,” as I did with Noah. With Noah, Eric and I also jokingly and privately talked about “the fetus” with a longer, soft E sound as in “fetid,” vaguely Scottish-sounding, but not this time. I don’t remember how I directly addressed fetal Noah in my head or aloud, but with this one, when I respond to its motions or am just generally thinking/talking to it, I tend to think “little fetus” or “sweetheart.”

Totally separately from all the physical shit I’ve been struggling with during this pregnancy, I really do love and cherish this little fetus, and I really do love feeling and enjoying its mysterious movements inside me.