When I come back, I'll wear your wedding ring

(To which I say, Ha! Like you could take it off while you're gone.)

I got out of bed at 6:30 this morning. That is very very early in the morning. I don't care for it. Especially when I am getting up to drive my husband to the airport. It is only for four days, but I am a needy, co-dependent sort of person. Also: pregnant.

Last night we lay in bed talking and smooching (interest in trying to have sex around my physical deformity was nil) and froggy started to kick like crazy. I could again feel it from the outside and I put Will's hand on my belly.

Can you feel my heartbeat? It will be only that strong, but off-tempo. Did you feel that?

I don't know. Maybe. Did it kick there?

Yes. That's your baby.

My baby?

There. That was nobody's business, was it? And yet, I shared it with the whole internet. I must be lonely.

Diane comes next week for our 24 week checkup. According to some website or other, the baby is nearly a foot long. I look at my belly, huge though it is, and cannot imagine that much baby fitting inside. (It seems that Froggy doesn't think there's enough room, as I've been getting thumped too high up in my abdomen. I think this means s/he is headbutting the 'roof' of my uterus and it is echoing through my intestines. Ewww! And also worrying, as froggy has about seven pounds to gain. That's eight hundred percent growth.)

And now, I want a nap.

But instead I'm going to keep talking about baby stuff.

I seem to be missing the part of my brain that fears birth. I hear from other women that it is "nothing but pain," that our bodies are hardwired to forget so we'll do it again, that it is indescribable...and the last one is the only one that makes sense to me. Of course it is indescribable, it is unlike anything else that our bodies do. Look, I know I'm talking out of my ass here, having never had a baby, but I just don't believe that something necessary for the survival of the species would be designed as pain. Will pain be part of the process? Probably. My body has never moved its parts in the way it will for childbirth. My parts are stubborn. But they're designed to do this. [rant about other women's experiences deleted because it was unfair] Do I think this will be easy? No. But I am not scared, either.