Why I love the hiccups

I worry about our baby a lot...still. I know I just need to relax and enjoy this pregnancy, but I still seem to just be a little uptight.

I've been feeling her move around for quite some time now, at least since I was 18 weeks pregnant. Now that she's bigger and stronger and her movements are more coordinated, she is a very good kicker. I don't feel little whirls and swishes. Instead we both feel feet and knees and elbows and all sorts of little body parts poking around in there. Sometimes she'll push up so hard with her fist that Andrew swears he can count her knuckles.

Although I complain about baby keeping me awake at night because she wakes up to kick around every few hours, I really do love it. I love it because it is great reassurance that she is, indeed, still there.

Sometimes, though, I think she kicks so much that she wears herself out. She won't kick for what seems like a long, long time...and I start to get rather emotional. Andrew tries to reassure me by reminding me that "just yesterday" she was acting like she was about to burst through my belly button...but it rarely helps to make me feel better because I'm worried about the baby right at that moment...not yesterday.

Earlier this week I was having a few of these troublesome days all in a row. I was contemplating calling the doctor because I really wasn't feeling her move around very much at all.

"She's just squished," Andrew would say, "She doesn't have enough room to move around like she used to."

When I would dismiss that idea, Andrew would say, "She's just tired...sleeping...babies do that."

Not good enough. I don't think I will rest about this baby until she's in my arms healthy and breathing.

I thought for sure, after yoga, she would be really active. She always had been before.

Andrew asked me about her when I got home from yoga. The report was that she had shifted around a few times but that she really didn't get very excited at all. Just little movements.

I was terribly, terribly worried...and then my baby got the hiccups. That's always reassuring because only live babies can have the hiccups. She had the hiccups for hours and hours and hours....She was probably the most uncomfortable baby in the world, but I was probably the happiest mother in the world.

For the last few days she has been kicking non-stop once again. Kicking so hard it hurts--but I love it...most of the time.

And, thinking back on the week, I suppose I was being a little paranoid. It really was only about a day and a half that I didn't feel her move much before she was back to her regular energy-ridden self.

Who am I to complain, really? My mom only remembers feeling me move a couple of times. She thought she was going to give birth to a heart...no baby, just a heart, because that's all the doctor could ever reassure her about. "Don't worry. There's a nice, healthy heartbeat." I suppose if my mom could not worry about me when I didn't move for the entire pregnancy, I can not worry if my baby doesn't move for a few hours.

If she's not moving though, I really do prefer her to have the hiccups.