Stretching and managing

There have only really been very normal things going on. Noah (still not entirely convinced about that name, but it's in use for now) is quite active - enough that he was kicking around on the GO train the other day and I looked up and 3 people were smiling at my belly.

So I did too.

This morning I had a bit of a first. I woke up just before the alarm and stretched out, and then I felt and watched as Noah had *his* stretch, sticking what was clearly a foot way out through my midriff; higher up than I really thought my uterus would be right now. And then, for good measure, he gave a couple of thumps with his foot while I tried to poke it, and then we had a game of poke the foot while I was talking to him.

This is one of those good memories already, but I really hope this time it does not turn out to be one of the most significant interactions. It's weird how now I know to pay close attention to these things and store up the experiences, just in case.

It amazes me how different babies are in utero. Emily was active and we had some games like that too, but not in the morning, and not perhaps quite so overwhelmingly wriggly. Noah's activity is not quite like clockwork, but close. When I start moving around in the morning, he moves around in the morning. After meals he has playtime (energy rush!) His other favourite playtime is 2 in the morning, for no reason I know of. If I roll partly onto my stomach or get on my hands and knees he tends to go into a flurry; my interpretation is that he hates it if gravity is coming from that side.

The house is slowly coming together - more at my other journal, really - but I am finding it hugely frustrating to be so limited in what I can do. Last appointment my obstetrician gave me a really firm talking to about it (totally different from my last ob, who was joking about how she took a bathroom wall down 4 weeks before her twins were born). He explained that he deals a lot in pregnancies where people are fighting to keep their babies from being born too early, and that it frustrates him hugely if someone who's having a relatively healthy pregnancy (mine is relatively 'cause of the weight and the bleeding earlier) goes and puts themselves into labour early because they "just have to" lift something or reach for something.

Normally I might dismiss that as slightly overcautious, but this pregnancy my focus is not on being fit or proving some point about resilience: it's just on producing a healthy breathing baby. So, I am not hauling around lots of cans of paint or moving the previous owners' crap myself, and I'm kind of at peace with that in the sense that when it comes to doing something that I perceive as being for my child, it's not hard to do.

At the same time it's a daily exercise in frustration.