A perfect moment in time.

head is lower left. arms, body, and legs go diagonally upward and right. 

I keep replaying it in my mind, trying hard to remember every little detail. I'm afraid that I'll forget what he looked like. How I felt.

I saw my baby today. Something that almost all pregnant women do. But for me, in my world, no one had ever seen their baby before. This was happening in my universe for the first time ever. Everything that happens to me seems to be happening for the first time ever.

My first ultrasound went something like this.

Look at baby, listen to heart beat, look at baby, print pictures, ask questions, get dressed.

I looked at that little body, wiggling and squirming and kicking like crazy. I smiled and laughed and watched, and wished Conrad had come with me. One moment, I was grateful that the doctor was taking her time, letting me look as much as I wanted. When it was over, I felt like I hardly got to watch. I wanted more.

You know when you miss someone, you think about them a lot, and you start to worry that you're forgetting what they look like? I feel like that. I miss my kid. He's literally with me all the time, but I can't feel him or see him, and I just want to look at him and never forget how his little limbs kicked and how his belly is as big as his giant head, and how he wiggled like a fish. I'm afraid that I'm already forgetting those little movements.

I've talked before about how I haven't felt bonded with the baby, and how I don't feel particularly excited. I've mostly been sick and tired. People said once I see the baby and learn the gender, I'd start to bond.

Folks, they weren't kidding. I fell right in love. While I wish Conrad had been there, I also recognize that that first moment with me and baby was SO STINKING SPECIAL. Seeing the picture of the shape of the baby wasn't what did it for me. It was seeing him wiggle. The moving. There it was. A living, moving baby.

*Note: we still don't know the gender, but I find myself saying "he" because I don't want to call it an "it" anymore.