Uterine Symmetry And Other Matters

My midwife tells me not to count down to the due date, but I have a counter on my desktop that tells me I have 41 days to go. I can’t help it. Braxton-Hicks contractions have started and before dawn this morning, it hurt for the first time, just a little. It’s getting harder by the day to eat or sleep, heartburn comes and goes 24/7, and the dreams are weirder than ever.

Baby Girl is growing daily, too, quite visibly. She used to kick a lot but probably with less and less room, she’s given up on that. This morning, she squirmed and wriggled for hours. It’s a weird tickly stretchy feeling. You can put your hand to your cheek and use your tongue to push your hand to sort of replicate the feeling. Sort of.

And speaking of stretchy, my baby has no concept of uterine symmetry. Until a couple weeks ago, it never occurred to me that when this pregnancy is over, I could just be saggy on one side but now it looks like that’s what’s gonna happen. She likes the right side and the right side only. My belly is lopsidedly stretched out during the day and it looks and feels weird. When I touch the right side, my stomach is really hard. I’m guessing I’m feeling her back. She likes to tuck her feet over my ribs and nudge from time to time. Sometimes she pushes the ribs and I can feel the right side of my rib cage opening up. Aaaaaaaaagh. The other day, I heard about a baby who broke the mother’s ribs during pregnancy … but except for one day, my baby has been gentle with my ribs so far. The left side is just empty. I can push my hand way in and there’s just liquid, no baby.

Here are some pics from a couple weeks ago that Mama took while she and Papa were visiting. The baby is a lot bigger now but I haven’t taken any pictures since they left. (The woman in the fourth pic is my midwife.)