16 weeks, Hubby feels my fundus.

If the question is "Do you feel pregnant?" The answer is no. I have developed a little tummy pouch that may easily be mistaken for a beer belly, so I try to keep it covered with scrubs, or baggy clothes. Once this week I was rolling over in bed and suddenly had the sensation that I was being stabbed in the groin. "Ah, there is that round ligament pain that everyone complains about." Coworkers remind me what a bad mother I am for eating feta cheese on my salad and not taking vitamin supplements. However, my labs came back yesterday and assured me that, despite my vegetarian diet, I am not anemic. My blood is as strong as a lumberjack's.

We saw our midwife (my coworker and friend) yesterday and she showed Daddy how to measure the top part of the uterus, the fundus. His eyes really light up when it comes time to hear the baby's heart beat. It was so loud and clear, click click clicking away. Our midwife asked if I have been doing ultrasounds on myself at the clinic but I told her that Daddy and I are wary of ultrasound, as there are few, if any studies documenting the safety of bombarding our tiny babies with ultrasound waves repeatedly during pregnancy. She wholeheartedly agreed. I didn't know that those same high frequency ultrasound waves are used to strip paint off of ships! "Think about it, if you have a baby girl in there, she has all the eggs she is ever going to have right now. We know radiation causes those eggs to die. I don't know why people treat ultrasound like it is nothing at all. Some babies will move away from the waves, it can hurt their ears." Poor little babies. My theory is that, in our screen-oriented society, we interact with experiences via screens: smart phones, TVs, iPads, Facebook, etc. For many people, seeing their baby on that screen is how they bond with Baby. But should it be as such? Maybe moms and dads could learn to bond with Baby in other meaningful ways like talking to baby, singing, there is a hypnobirthing baby bonding track (on CD) that is quite good too. So we discussed with our midwife if we should even do an ultrasound at all. The issue out here on a tiny island is that if there is a serious problem detected, a heart defect for example, we could then choose to fly off island for the birth to be near a pediatric cardiology center. Thus, we are still considering. It is likely we'll do one quick peak around 20 weeks just to look things over, make sure all the requisite parts are perfect. Then we'll leave our wee one alone until he or she makes his/her debut.