22 weeks (and 2 days)

I have a suspicion my crampy feelings from Thursday morning were the screeches of my round ligament as my ute burst into the next dress size - because I am feeling ROUND. This poor striped tank is ready to give up the ghost. My original intent was to wear this for my blog photos throughout the pregnancy, because I thought that would be fun... but I warn you, there may come a day when it covers my boobs and that's about it. I actually wore it to bed last night with pajama pants and I was totally rocking the belly cleavage - a sliver moon of skin hanging out between shirt and pants. Sex-ay.

Somehow despite feeling rather roly-poly most of the time, there are still moments where I "forget" I'm pregnant, like the one yesterday when I drove up to the book return boxes at the library, but not quite close enough. So I leaned out of the car to reach, resting the weight of my body onto the top of my abdomen just below my boobs - hellooo? Baby on board? I am so stupid sometimes. I'm assuming baby's okay since he was kicking around in the evening like usual.

And now he's back to being called "Baby" because he's reverted to a nameless state. I told Mr. I a couple of days ago that I think I could live with Julius/JJ as long as JJ was just Daddy's nickname for him and I would never call him that or put it on his school forms, etc. This has thrown the whole topic into limbo as we go back and forth and back and forth. One minute he'll say it's Julius, the next he'll say it's my decision. Yesterday when I drove him to work we saw a billboard that said "Miles under your belt" and he said, "there's your sign." But then he changes his mind again. I prefer Miles as a name, and I think he does too in one sense, but he has this dream, and I hate the idea of barring him from naming his son after his dad. We consider John Julius instead, but there are too many Johns already (my dad, two cousins, our two friends here). We consider Miles Julius but he loves Allston too much. Allston Julius - Allston's too mod for a first name. Julius Allston - no more JJ. We are stuck. And the kid is now anonymous.

As for how I'm feeling at 22 weeks... physically fine, aside from the cramping episode. But mentally I'm a wreck again. My zen grooviness has totally slipped from my fingers. In fact at this very moment I'm sitting here chugging a glass of cold water and worrying because I haven't felt baby move yet today. (Update: he started moving soon after that.) Maybe I squished him when I leaned out of the car - yes, I am actually wondering that. I'm crazy, what can I say. On days like this I wonder if we can ever have another biological child or if I'm too much of a basketcase... if I actually make it to the end and give birth to a healthy boy, will that be enough of a confidence booster to help me get through this one more time (we probably want two kids)?

I seem to continually underestimate my ability to freak out over nothing. When I was in the first trimester, I thought I'd chill in the second trimester. When I was early in the second tri, I thought I'd chill later when I could feel baby moving. I never thought I'd worry about preterm labor because that hardly happens to anyone and I would obviously be fine. Right now I'm convinced that I will be a total rockstar during childbirth and I'm not going to be nervous about that at all - ha. To be fair, I think that as time goes on I do spend more and more time being fairly cool about everything and feeling good, but when I'm in this state of fear it just seems so eternal it's hard to remember that I'm not always this way.