I felt the baby for certain for the first time last night. I was pretty certain I felt it about three weeks ago, but last night as I lay on my back in bed I felt the unmistakable fluttering of another little being rolling their way around inside my belly. It went on for quite a while and has been with me all day today as well.
I lay there, not moving in case shifting around made it hard to feel, this person is not yet large enough to make me pay attention with every single movement, and I said hello to my third child for the first time. To me it feels like our first meeting, the moment when we first connect and our relationship is forged. I pushed and prodded at various little tiny parts that pushed back as we had our first silent conversation, and the mommy tears trickled down my temples and into my ears before finally wetting my hair.
And then I marred it by getting up to tell the Genius Husband about it.
“I can’t feel it yet you know.”
“I know, I just thought you’d like to know that I did.”
“Sure, cool…” in a vague and dismissive tone.
“Well I’m excited.”
“Of course you are, you’re a chick.”
“Well the reason I thought I’d let you know is because two babies ago you would have been excited and said hello to the baby and told it daddy loves you. Actually three months ago you were doing that, so I thought you cared.”
“Yeah, I guess I did.”
“Goodnight.”
Tomorrow I will tell you about my blunder and how he was angry with me, and maybe it will look to you like he does on some level care about this child, just not all that enthusiastically at 1:00am.