Hi Everyone -
Yes, the Paris Letter is back, apologies for the hiatus - I was traveling in the US for the last five weeks or so, and ended up being too busy to really get it together for this letter. But now that I'm back in very quiet, vacation-emptied-out Paris, I have lots to catch you up on.
One dramatic thing that happened during my time in the US is my belly really popped out and I began to look pregnant. This seemed to me like it happened in the course of a week - one week I was in London and having to tell people in meetings that I was pregnant, and the next week I was in LA and when I would explain that I was pregnant people would all look at me like "Yes, we KNOW". It may have been that I was more covered up in London because it was cooler, but it still felt like I went from "possibly pregnant or just chubby" to "definitively looks pregnant" in a very short time. It was definitely a shock for Matt, who said "wow, your belly is ENORMOUS" when I got back to France.
I left France at about 20 weeks of pregnancy, and returned at 25 weeks. During this time I also started to feel the baby move, which at first feels curious - in the sense of "Is that the baby moving, or just my stomach rumbling?" way, very hard to tell. People basically start asking you around 18 weeks if you're feeling the baby move, and I think women who have been pregnant before can tell the difference between their own body and the baby more easily, but for me it wasn't until around 22 weeks that I could definitively say "Ah, yes, that is not me, that is another person moving around in my body!" It had been variously described to me as "feeling like a bird is trapped in your stomach" or, less poetically, "feeling like you might have gas"...what it really felt like in my case was like small bubbles or involuntary muscular pulses that eventually coalesced into feeling like 1) the baby was rolling around (sort of a ripple across the whole abdomen) or 2) the baby was punching me with its fist or foot (a more directional, lighter pulse)
I thought this would be really creepy and kind of like the movie ALIEN, but actually it's really cool - it's nice to definitively feel like there a person there, after 5 months of physical changes which at least for me were much more annoying than magical.
Another funny thing about France, though, is that they don't tell you the sex of the baby until 24 weeks, as opposed to 20 weeks in the US. So the whole time I was in the US, people kept asking me if I knew the sex, and my friends who were due around the same time were finding out, and I had to keep explaining that we wouldn't be finding out until I returned to France. Meanwhile, I actually enjoyed the HUGE amount of speculation, particularly from the grandmothers out there - most of whom agreed I was having a girl because, variously 1) The way I was carrying the baby (of course) 2) the fact that my skin looked great (apparently when you're carrying a boy your skin darkens and looks terrible?) 3) the fact that I'd been very sick in the first trimester 4) something else about how much energy I seemed to have? I don't know. Anyway, the consensus seemed to be GIRL from very early on, though I had no particular feeling about it.
AND - In fact, all the grandmothers were correct - we are having a girl! We just had the full scan/sonogram on Friday, and - most importantly - everything was normal and the baby looks great. AND its a girl. This was Matt's first time seeing the baby on the sonogram, which at 25 weeks is super detailed - you can see all four ventricles of the heart, and many structures in the brain, as well as the baby moving its (her) hands around and opening and closing her fists. This was completely fascinating to Matt, who looks at cross sections of the brain for his research - he was able to orient himself to what we were seeing on the screen much faster than I was, and was also able to tell it was a girl earlier on than I was (the telltale lack of penis was more obvious to him ...).
We also saw that the baby is currently in breach, with her head up by my boobs - this isn't really a cause for concern since she has 10-12 weeks to turn around on her own before doctors have to get involved, but it was fun to see where she actually is in my body. And now I know that she is really KICKING me in the bladder all day long. Or sort of dancing on it like she's in Riverdance. I wasn't sure before what position she was in but now I know she's just trying to get comfortable - right on top of my bladder.
I had a fantastic baby shower in New York, thrown by my friend Nicole - It was very lowkey, about a dozen of my best girl friends, who all gave great tips from small to large on motherhood - though I think the discussion of the physical side of post partum and breast-feeding may have traumatized a couple of my childless friends who were there! Of course, for the two of us there who were pregnant, it was totally fascinating. And I want to say thank you to EVERYONE who has given us baby clothes, toys, and newborn care items while I was in the States- we've got so much great stuff for the first few months, she will be a very well dressed newborn.
I also fell out of a kayak twice, proof that my center of gravity is shifting. Don't worry, it was while I was trying to get into the kayak on Cape Cod, it didn't just spontaneously happen, but each time my belly pulled me forward unexpectedly and I ended up in the water. Oh well. Thank goodness for my maternity swimsuit.
There's lots more to say about my time in the States - I will say that I ate a lot of Mexican food, turkey & veggie burgers, and -somewhat surprisingly - bagels, which I didn't know how much I missed until I was back in New York. I also enjoyed the much greater variety of vegetarian options everywhere, since I still pretty much can't eat red meat. And I drank some really good American beer - though, of course, in MODERATION. Sigh. Matt is going to be in New York the last week of August and has already told me he will be drinking American beer and eating barbecue NOT in moderation, and more power to him.
How have all of your summers been? It was great to see many of you while I was in the States, and there will be more stories from the epic USA trip next week !
Until then, lots of love,
Claire
No comments:
Post a Comment