At around 18 weeks, everyone and their mothers started asking me if I'd felt any kicking yet. I hadn't felt a thing - which of course, sounded the alarms and so I did what any standard neurotic would do... I Googled.
I must've scoured about 30 websites, stem to stern, all of which said that most first timers feel the baby move anywhere from 18 - 22 weeks, some later.
I breathed a sigh of relief, although I was greatly looking forward to the day when I'd feel her start moving in there, seeing as how I am constantly worried about the prospect of something going horribly, unspeakably wrong. Feeling her move would be a pretty good indicator that everything is A okay and likewise, I wish for this pretty much all day every day.
A few weeks later, I was starting to feel anxious again. I still hadn't felt anything and friends of mine who are pregnant and due within mere days of me already had.
WTF!?! Had my worst fears been realized? After what seemed like an endless weekend, (I was battling a cold along with my neurotic fears), I decided to call the OBGYN to see if I could get my next sono bumped up. Once again, they accommodated me, and gave me an appointment for the next day. That evening, as I lay on the couch, I felt something kind-of funny. Sort of like a little tickle, or fluttery feeling... something. Wasn't really sure what it was. Hoped it might be Little G, but I wasn't convinced. When I went to bed, I tried to lay perfectly still in the hopes that I'd feel it again - and I did. In fact, I felt it repeatedly for a few minutes. Nevertheless I still wasn't completely convinced that it was Little G - and was happy to be going to the doc.
And there, on the table with that all-too-familiar goo all over my belly, I was completely elated to hear her widdle bitty heartbeat again - and to watch her move around like a lunatic. Why couldn't I feel that? I wondered. She is, after all, pretty much the size of a spaghetti squash. Shouldn't I be able to feel that?
Anyway, they reassured me that what I felt may have been her, but that many women confuse gas with movement at this stage - and that it was still pretty early for me to be feeling anything at all. They even question whether or not their patients are actually feeling the baby move or just experiencing some gastrointestinal issues - but of course they just nod in agreement. As for me, they said that I would likely start feeling more activity, (that wouldn't be confused for anything else), in a week or two. They were quite confident about it actually, so I left feeling about a zillion times better.
That feeling lasted all of a week.
Despite trying on numerous occasions, I have yet to feel that fluttery sensation again, or anything else for that matter - and again, I'm starting to feel anxious.
Maybe one of those at-home Doppler thingies isn't such a bad idea after all!
I've Googled again - to ensure that the lack of feeling is still within normal range:
21 weeks don't feel baby moving...
22 weeks don't feel baby moving...
22 weeks pregnant how to get baby to move...
And about 25 or so other permutations of the same paranoid thinking, hoping that one query might deliver the magical mother lode of data on the subject that would either enable me to rest easy or send me running to the ER.
No such luck. This time, I found a few sites that said it's normal not to feel anything until 23 or even 24 weeks, telling me not to panic.
Easy for them to say.
It doesn't help that I have a friend with a 5 month-old who didn't feel anything until about the 7 or 8-month mark of her pregnancy. If that becomes me, I will almost assuredly be institutionalized.
And so it goes.
I'm thrilled to be distracted by work at work - but horrified to come home to summer television programming - which is virtually nonexistent, because I have way too much time on my hands to sit around and worry about why I'm really not feeling anything at all.
It's why I'm writing this at 5 a.m. knowing that any attempt to get that last hour of sleep will be futile anyhow and perhaps getting this down on paper will somehow help.
*Sigh*
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