A Good Week

I was telling some friends earlier that this has been a good week, pregnancy-wise. We had a prenatal visit with our midwife (or, rather, our apprentice midwife and her preceptor) and we finally caught the baby's heartbeat on the doppler! I was lying there tearing up because it was such a relief to have this reassurance that he* is really there and doing well.

This week also marked the first little wiggles from in there. I spent three or four nights in a row poking and prodding at my belly trying to see if I could feel anything. A couple times I felt something but had trouble distinguishing whether that feeling was really teeny-tiny baby kicks or just a random gas bubble. I felt silly to be on my fourth pregnancy (though only the second to make it this far) and not be sure what baby movements feel like.

Still, with my daughter, I had an anterior placenta, which "muffled" the kicks quite a bit. One of my midwives told me it was like feeling her move through a shag carpet. I didn't actually get any for-sure baby kicks until I was in my 26th week (18 weeks is about normal).

In other news, my back is feeling pretty good. I'm actually at my own computer typing this and I'm reasonably comfortable sitting here. Both of the last two visits to the chiropractor didn't require any further adjustment to my spine. He recommended a few additional stretching exercises to keep everything where it is supposed to be, but otherwise says my back looks great.

Now, if only the rest of my issues had such a quick fix!
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* Just for those of you who didn't know me during my first pregnancy, we don't know the gender, but have chosen to refer to the baby as "he" rather than "it" or some complicated contraction of gender pronouns.