Do I have a baby in my tummy too?

I haven’t talked much about the baby in my tummy since I first told River and his reaction was pretty noncommittal. He hasn’t asked much about it since, nor has he commented on my growing belly.

But this afternoon he asked me for an airplane ride, where I balance him on my feet and raise him up in the air. I’m afraid I’ve moved beyond my capacity to do that for another few months and wanted to explain to him why.

I showed him how big my stomach is and told him there is a baby in there. “When it moves, I’ll show it to you,” I said. For the first time, it really seemed to register that he understood.

“We have to find the baby inside,” he said. “We have to look for it.”

I told him it would come out in three months, after his birthday, and he raised three fingers to count the months. A little later, he lifted his pyjama top and looked at his own belly. “Do I have a baby in my stomach too?” he asked. I told him no, that his belly was small, and mine was big. Mark insisted I explain that only women have babies, which I added on.

Though I think I’m still just shy of the third trimester mark, for the past week or two, I really feel like I’m there. I’m having trouble sleeping, I have to push myself up off of chairs/sofas, usually at an angle, and I’m generally feeling large and not very flexible. I’m spending a lot of time shopping online for maternity clothes (or at least looking), hoping that if I get things I feel good in, I’ll be better able to handle what I think will be a rough three months. But then, there is that part of me that thinks it’s crazy to spend money on stuff that will last a maximum of three months. So I picked up a few things from freecycle, am going to scout out maternity clothes at a big used children’s product sale next weekend, and am treating myself to a couple of used quality items on Ebay. I may even allow myself the splurge of two new shirts by my favorite manufacturer.

Last pregnancy I was a fan of the Gap. I loved how I could order by mail and return for free anything that didn’t fit. It was inexpensive and looked decent. But I found that some of the pieces didn’t hold up so well with time.

This time around, I’m a big fan of Isabella Oliver. It’s very expensive (thus my Ebay scouting). But so beautiful. Some mothers on a parenting group recommended it, saying that the clothes worked well in the fourth trimester, which was a period in which I struggled to find things to wear last time around. Today I wore the black portrait top I picked up on ebay and for the first time, felt good about myself while showing my bump. Here is a picture in a lovely urban parking garage – somewhere around 26 weeks.