More than halfway! (Alternate title: I still have *how much* growing left to do...!?)

I have officially passed the point where I'm now obviously pregnant. No more tentative "oh my gosh, are you.....?!" comments; they're now all of the "oh look at you! When are you due?" variety. The stomach is large and in charge. It enters rooms before I do. I'm finding it harder and harder not to rub it absent-mindedly throughout the day.

The most exciting development, however, is I can finally feel baby girl kicking around in there! It took me until my last ob appointment to realize what it was I was feeling though, because I am apparently an idiot. The nurse asked during my check in if I had started feeling kicks yet, and I said no, not really, and she assured me it was totally normally for a first pregnancy this early on. But a few minutes later, while she was dopplering my belly for the heartbeat, she goes, "WOW! You couldn't feel that one!?"

You know, the one she saw FROM THE OUTSIDE of my belly.

I realized at that point perhaps I needed to modify my expectations of what I was supposed to be feeling in there. I had not been feeling any of these fluttery butterfly sensations I'd read about. No delicate bubbles popping gently against my stomach. I *had* been feeling some seismic shifting type jerks, which I had attributed to that feeling when you are, um, experiencing some gastrointestinal excitement? And you feel a large gas bubble suddenly shift into a new position? I started paying more attention to those, and realized slowly that... oh. Um. Duh. That's your baby, stupid.

I will say these kicks are certainly not gentle or delicate (or easy to miss, so I have no explanation for my thickheadedness). Over the last week they've become strong enough to feel from the outside and have become sharp enough that I occasionally stop in the middle of a sentence because it's so distracting. To me, it feels like she's doing that move that Olympic swimmers do when they get to the end of a lap - you know that sudden flip and then a hard push off the wall with their feet? That's what it feels like is going on in there, multiple times throughout the day (and night). Caffeine and sugar are the best ways to get her going, but each day I can feel her more and more, regardless of what stimulants I've recently provided for her. It's freaking awesome and I love it.

Other new developments: my hair continues to be fabulous for the first time in its life, and my only regret there is that I cut it short a few months ago because how great would this hair be if I had even more of it!? I went FIVE DAYS without washing my hair last week! I don't know if there are enough exclamation points on the internet to convey how amazing this is for greasy mcstringy hair over here. It has apparently stopped growing entirely, so I have no chance of this hair ever being in a non-short state, but I'll take what I can get.

On the bummer side: acid reflux has made a sudden and aggressive appearance. Tums have suddenly become a precious and irreplaceable commodity in my daily life.

But overall, I still feel pretty fantastic. I haven't had any hip or back pain yet - which I attribute greatly to my trainer, Tam, who has been awesome at adapting my workouts to my increasingly-lumbering physique while keeping my core in some semblance of in shape and intact. The only body part consistently suffering remains my poor ankles and feet, which have stubbornly refused to chill on the swelling front.

I am starting to realize just how much larger I still have to get, though, and it's making me nervous. Baby girl only weighs, like, a pound right now (the other 14 lbs are.. uh.. placenta? Let's all agree that I have a very dense placenta, yes? :-D ) and the thought that she is going to grow 6 or 8 times this size before she's done? Haaaa. Ack. (Send help!?)