Whoa. There's a PERSON in there.

So I know this is obvious - comes with the whole pregnancy territory. But it has really hit me today that there is a baby - a little, tiny person - in my stomach. How do I know this?

Exhibit A: One of my tickers says "Less gymnastics, more kicks and elbow jabs." Uhhhh, holy understatement, ticker. I'm getting serious rolls, jabs, pokes, shifts ... Elle is not playing around anymore. No gentle nudges, no tickling flips - we're hard core now. Every movement is like a tidal wave or a mallet.

Exhibit B: I am a heavy sleeper. But over the last few days, I've struggled a bit to get to sleep because I've been entertained by the karate tournament in my stomach. A few mornings ago, the baby was awake - apparently the snooze alarm doesn't work in the womb - and kept me up with kicks and bouncing around. (This morning I woke up to at least 15 minutes of baby hiccups, which was wayyy cool. Tim even got to feel them!)

Exhibit C: I can feel body parts now. I don't usually know what I'm feeling at the time, but there is definite bone/muscle/tissue/fat in my belly. Sometimes it even feels like limbs are tangled and she's struggling to get comfortable. And the body parts often come in to contact with my hand, which I rest on my stomach frequently to feel these unique movements. While it creeps me out a bit to feel it from the inside and outside, I wouldn't trade the movement for anything.

It's amazing how quickly the time has gone from when I felt the first solid kick (10 weeks ago) to feeling body parts and undeniable, entire-stomach moving movements. And luckily - so far - she's stayed away from my ribs for the most part, but it appears quarters are quickly getting cramped, and I have no doubt that soon I will be getting even more jabs and kicks as she tries to eek out more room at the expense of my body's organs.

Baby video

I've been trying off and on to capture Elle's movement on video. She seems to sense when she's being taped and starts kicking super low any time I record her, so last night's video was the best video I've been able to get. And I'm not taking the time to edit it, so really, you only need to watch the first five seconds or so. There's one big kick near my belly button, then a ripple of movement to the left of my belly button. Then about 50 seconds of me waiting again to see if there was more :)



I've also noticed that I can feel her on both sides of my belly now at the same time - I think she's playing around with stretching out!

Redecorating

Tim and I just ate lunch and I was telling him how Elle had been really active today, even when I was standing, which is new. I felt a hard kick near my belly button and pulled my shirt up so we could see if my tummy moved.

Tim said my stomach looked like a weird shape - I told him it was probably because the baby was up high and on one side. Tim said, "I wanna move her." So he gently nudged the one side of my stomach, trying to get her to center herself ... and she kicked him, good and hard. Our daughter has a mind of her own, folks ...

Baby aerobics

I believe I will declare it official: I have started to feel the baby :) I felt little tickles last night, but I thought it might just be gas. Then on the way home from work, I felt more - it really felt like when I'm nervous and my stomach is all fluttery. But I couldn't really focus on the feeling because I was driving.

But today I've felt it several times - it feels like someone is tickling me, or there's a tiny bit of pressure floating around on the inside of my belly. Tim and I had talked about what it would feel like - I said I imagined it might feel like a tiny goldfish darting around. And to some extent, it does. Except it's like a goldfish with the softest of butterfly wings, wrapped in cotton, flitting around.

In other news, I'm wearing my first maternity shirt today. I'm not *that* big yet and will have many opportunities to wear the maternity clothes, but I have short legs a long torso to begin with, and my regular shirts are getting short. Added to that is the fact that I have been needing to get creative about ways to keep certain pairs of pants "buttoned," and I need shirts that are long enough to cover the pants and creative buttoning techniques (be it rubber bands or BeBands), and I willingly gave in to wearing the maternity clothes.

Oddly enough, when I was at my highest weight a few years ago, I wasn't able to fit in to pants that I still fit comfortably in now, at 15.5 weeks pregnant. That disgusts me about the past and makes me feel good about the present and future. The weight gain goals my doctor set for this pregnancy will still leave me lower than my highest weight.

And because I was planning to post this today before I decided to post about feeling the baby move substantially for the first time, I will leave you with my newest size comparison, which feels more substantial than it might look (and I switched my outfit up a bit, too!):