Cool movements!

Last night, Paul and I were sitting at our patio table and Brooke decided that she wanted to kick the same place over and over again on the left side of my belly.  So that part of my belly kept raising up and going down repeatedly.  This happens fairly often, so it wasn't as bizarre for me, but it was really cool for Paul to get to see since he doesn't always get to see her move.  But what was really cool for me was that I pushed down where she was kicking and it was super hard right there.  When I pushed in the same area on the right side of my belly, it was much less hard!  So one of Brooke's body parts must have been just resting right against my belly.  It was so cool!

Then, she started making movements all over my belly really fast, so my belly looked like it was vibrating in various places, first on the left side and then on the right side.  I have no idea what she's doing when that happens, but it's so nuts!  It's such a weird feeling, and it looks really bizarre too.  Paul got to see and feel that too, which was great!  Brooke is just such a mover.  I really wonder if that will be indicative of her personality or not.  We shall see in a few months!

It's also so weird that my belly is sometimes rock hard and sometimes much mushier.  The books say that the uterus has contractions throughout pregnancy, so I think when it's rock hard, it's having a contraction.  It makes sense, but it's still really weird how it changes so much.

One of my books says that Brooke is now around 2.5 lbs and 15.75 inches long!  Wow, that's just amazing to me.  Since most babies average around 21 inches at birth (according to this book), then she doesn't have much more to grow in length.  But she has about 4.5-5 lbs to gain in weight.  According to another one of my books, I'm supposed to only gain 3/4 lb each week at this point and then later in the third trimester (can't remember which week), it tapers down to 1/2 lb each week, which is about how much Brooke will be gaining each week.  So I guess it's saying that all of the things that contribute to the weight gain (uterus size, amniotic fluid, etc.) have almost gotten to their max amounts, so I should mostly only be gaining Brooke's weight gain at this point or somewhat soon.  I hope that's the case!

My sweet tooth has become stronger lately, so that's not helping, and I'm not riding the bike or lifting weights anymore (since it's so hard to sleep now, I think lifting is just going to make me more uncomfortable).  But I have been swimming every day and this morning I took Macho for a 30 minute walk.  I'm trying to increase my endurance for labor, but unfortunately I find myself just getting lazier, which isn't helping the cause.  Oh well, I'll do my best but I won't force myself.  Hopefully it goes well.

I bought a book on the Bradley method of natural childbirth, so I'm really excited to start reading that and practicing the techniques.  I've read so many good things about it, so I'm really hoping I can motivate myself and Paul to really practice it so that we can use it during labor.  I decided against taking the classes because it's so much time investment and we just don't have that kind of time.  We are both good self-studiers, so I'm hoping the book will be enough.  We shall see.