Pregnancy Journal: Front-Heavy

From 5 Minutes for Parenting

By Kelly

My two-year-old walked up and poked me right in the belly.

“Baby, Mommy?” she asked.

I sat, struggling to pull on my jeans, and agreed.

“Yep. That’s the baby, honey.”

She reached a little higher and poked with both hands.

“More babies, Mommy?”

“Ummm … no honey.”

But her confusion is understandable. I’m so front-heavy these days, I’m lucky I don’t tip forward and get stuck to the floor, like some sort of bizarrely drawn cartoon character. Besides the usual growth of the girls, my stomach is nearing watermelon-like proportions.

(There’s a picture on my blog today, if you’re really that interested. But trust me – it’s not for the faint of heart.)

Waddle, waddle.

The funny thing is, I swear that bump is all baby. He is SO STRONG these days. He can wake me up with a well-placed kick to the hip (interior hip, of course), and he can make my abdomen look like a tent set up by a Boy Scout. There are points and angles and, sometimes, origami.

Pregnancy books say the average 35-week-old baby is roughly five pounds, give or take a few. I asked my OB last week to take a guess what he might weight at birth.

She shrugged her shoulders, glanced up from the clipboard and said, “He could be 9 pounds.”

Help. Me. Now.

Thankfully, those crazy doctors don’t know what they are talking about. Right?

Kelly is 35 weeks pregnant with her fourth baby, a boy who has more muscles than she does at the moment. You can find her blogging at Love Well.