21 Weeks, 4 Days

A word used to sum up this pregnancy so far is...tired.
Of course I'd use others too:  sweet, comfortable, hopeful, excited.
But I don't think I've ever been this tired before while stitching together a baby.

I suppose there's an argument to be made that I'm a bit...more mature (read: older)... this time around.
Certainly that rings true when comparing your pregnancy with me at 33 and Chas's when I was 20.
Yes, there is a difference.
But I wouldn't necessarily say it was better that time around or that I felt stronger or healthier.
I was just younger.
And my God, he had to fight for every smidgen of space.

But I just had a baby two years ago and I haven't turned 90 since then.
My pregnancy with Creux was not this exhausting and I attribute that directly BACK TO CREUX!
I'm used to a bit more space between my babies.
Though Greer and Creux are the closest in age at 26 months, Greer was just easy on me all the way around.
She was a good baby, happy to just be in contact with me, content to spend her days doing whatever I said we were doing.
I don't think she's ever run away from me in her life.
Hmm.  I really don't.

But Creux is another story, a very cute, very, very ornery story.
Raising a "spirited" toddler while schooling two big kids plus meeting all of Greer's imaginary friend requirements PLUS running a house, tending a marriage, being daughter, sister, friend (and not completely sucking at those jobs) and actually sometimes stealing three minutes to shower ALONE...I'm feeling it.

Even more to the point, my body is feeling it.
I'm sluggish in the afternoons, I almost always need a 2:00pm break for myself (and I do not count falling into a exhaustion-induced coma mid-day as "free time") and though I have the best of intentions, I don't get to half the things I set out to do.

Plus, my body has given up, thrown in the towel, is offering up no resistance at this point.
So maybe I feel more expectant than I really am, maybe my 21 weeks and 4 days actually feels like 29 weeks and 6 days.
Which means by 38 weeks, I'll feel like the most pregnant person EVER.

You've jammed something up under the right side of my ribcage and I foresee this going way bad for me.
I slept in the sitting up position the other night and that scared the crap out of me.
Why?
Because!  Because I am only 21 weeks!  You aren't even smooshed yet, you have gobs of fantastic play space and for some reason I've got an organ in the wrong place and you're going to smash it to bits in the next four months.

My slipping pelvic bones?
Yeah.
Can't lift my left leg in the shower to shave which is lovely.
My right leg is as smooth as silk and my left one looks like Edward Scissorhands got a hold of it.
Right now I'm just bending over you which must feel as fantabulous to you as it does to me.

My "skinny" pregnancy jeans are hateful pieces of scrap at this point.
They groan when I pick them up in the morning, determined to stuff myself in them another day.
Oh, they fit fine under my belly, it's the rest of myself that's not quite so "skinny" anymore.
I'm going to set them on fire in the woods behind the creek when the season changes.
Skinny maternity jeans were made by the devil himself, mark my words.

On a happier note, you are big enough now that you're no longer tapping, you're thudding.
You delivered a kick so swift yesterday that it startled me.
I think you're up about six to seven times a day or so that I can feel you.
You seem to wake when I do in the morning, when I start stirring in bed, or when I curl into a ball in order to protect you from Creux's flying "good morn-ying!" leaps.
You're usually up when I sit down to school the boys, or really anytime I finally stop moving.
Lunchtime, dinnertime, evening relaxing time.
You'll play around for maybe 20 minutes or so before settling again.
It's rather adorable! 
(And it takes me a good month to stop feeling for you post-partum.  I grow so used to sharing my body and being so aware of someone else that it's very..quiet and almost lonely after you babies leave me.)

And though I spent a good 15 minutes complaining about my body issues (sometimes that's just going to happen), I have to say...you're VERY cute, little round you. 
You're the perfect little beachball, a comfy wee watermelon, only just starting to peek out from the bottoms of my shirts.
I have staunchly resisted maternity clothes (other than those wicked skinny jeans which were needed like Day Three of You) up until now and I'm not feeling like I need to change just yet.
Lucky for me, a lot of my winter clothing is lounge-y--pants I can tie under you or just stuff like yoga wear, super stretchy.
The shirts I'm willing to stretch out for the sake of just feeling like me still.
On the rare occasion that I go shopping, I'm just buying larger sizes of the things I normally would wear.
You still fit nicely.

I tried one of my maternity bras awhile back but immediately yanked it off and stuffed it deep in my lingerie drawer.
I just couldn't handle the...bigness..quite yet.
Tonight though when I was getting ready to step in the shower, I noticed that my regular super-dainty Victoria's Secret one had left an IMPRINT on my chest.
I looked like I was still wearing it even though it was laying on the floor!
Time for THAT change? 
Maybe.
(But surely I must have a somewhat less dainty Victoria's Secret one stashed even deeper in that lingerie drawer?  This isn't my first baby rodeo.  Where the hell is everything???)

I'm mentally tallying my list of Things For You:
your blankey
your cap
a few new sleeping gowns
a new infant sling (am rather addicted to babywearing)
perhaps cloth diapers?  (Is this crazy?  They just seem so very comfy for wee tushies.)

I'm having some conflicting feelings on your boyishness and it sort of revolves around your...boyishness.
Mainly, what to do with your boyhoodedness.
All of your brothers are circumsized and this has always taken place in the hospital.
With Creux, I was squarely on the fence with this practice, to the point of NOT researching it because I did not want to read what I figured would disturb me greatly as I suspected that we would have it done and I couldn't face it.  (Which is, admittedly, really kind of messed up logic.)
In the end, I deferred to Daddy and made my peace with it.
I'm waffling again.
I'm still not researching but the very thought of handing a Maybe Boy You over for a procedure that doesn't exactly sit well with me is starting to eat at me.
I won't let some baby nurse scrub you at your first bath because I hate to bear your outraged wails but I'll let someone cut you and it's better because I am not subjected to your pain?

I don't know what to do with this just yet.
And it's not my sole decision to make. 
I think I'm going to face some opposition here.
Will test the waters soon.

One more thing--
He can feel you now.
Daddy.
We hadn't even tried until the other night but you woke up and he was sitting near me.
He placed his hand on my belly and you whacked him a good one!
He can't always feel you yet (you hit him several times but he wasn't able to tell though I could and would ask, "Did you feel THAT?" every 12 seconds) but he will be able to soon.
Once you get better at that game, I'll invite little hands to play along.
They'll all get a "kick" out of that.
(Corny, I know, I know.  That's my "wrap it up" cue!)

Loving you already,
Mama (who hopes you are not somehow sensing my concerns over your Maybe penis and are not sitting with your hands no longer touching your sweet face but with them now clamped down guarding your boy bits)