Tomorrow will mark 8 weeks until the Baby Boy is due. 8 WEEKS! And by my calculations:
# of Kicks per Day Acceleration of his Movement
Rate of Growth Speed x Deacceleration in My Movement + Heartburn
divided by the “My Pubic Bone might Fall Out Feeling” = there’s a good chance that I might take this kid out myself.
I try not to think too much about the insanity that will descend our household for the next incalculable # of days/months/years since if all goes according to plan, Rafaella will be one and a half when Baby Boy is born meaning she won’t be potty trained, she’ll barely be eating on her own, she’ll just be mastering walking, starting to communicate well, and still licking the occasional flip flop. I try just to concentrate on having a new baby and a boy at that.
I can’t help but wonder, in the same way I did with Rafa, what he will be like and look like. Will this one look more like Husband? Will Baby Boy and Rafa look alike? Will he be a sensitive artist type or a whirlwind athletic chap?
At the doctor last week, Rafa weighed in at 26.2 pounds, putting her in the 90th percentile for weight and measured 33 inches, above the 100th percentile in height.
She’s a big kid.
Will he be big too? Will Husband and I have two dinosaurish children roaming the Earth?
With how my body has been feeling these days, I have a feeling he’s going to be an amazonian mammoth. I’ve only gained 14 pounds during this pregnancy and feel like 13.5 of those pounds is all Baby. He jabs like a boxer at night and moves like Jagger all throughout the day but I’m much more relaxed this time around.
In 8 weeks we will have Baby Boy in our arms: tiny, fragile, and new to the world who we get to rock and feed and wake up with at all hours of the night. I can’t believe we get to do this all over again. I’ll be eating my words, soon enough but for now it’s pure excitement.
With Rafa it all went so fast. That first month was so hard that like a roller coaster at the top of that first fall, I closed my eyes and hoped God would get me through it. Moments were like flashes. Some days I couldn’t be sure that I had brushed my teeth and leaving the house and facing the sunlight felt a lot like a Gremlin, I imagine. Her morning naps gave me just enough time to shower and make breakfast (but not eat it) and the struggle of breastfeeding was real.
I remember all of these things clumping into one moment of lightning. Poof! They’re gone.
My hope for Baby Boy is that we can take it in more, experience the fall instead of holding on for dear life and being worried that we’re not properly buckled in.
As I say this he throws a seriously hard jab to the left rib. Oh boy… this is going to be a fun ride.
