Milestones

Baby rolls-over, baby sits up, baby’s first words, baby’s first steps. These are some highly anticipated milestones that D and are looking forward to. What no one told me was that there are quite a few milestones to hit before the baby is even born. Here are a few examples.

1) “First time your belt doesn’t fit.” I woke D up the morning this happened. He perked right up at the sound of my strangled cry. The poor guy thought something horrible was happening with the baby, and was not sufficiently apologetic to me that my belt was no longer fitting around my waist.

2) “First time you realize your ‘big girl’ pants don’t fit.” Okay, let’s just admit it, we all have them. That pair of pants in the back of your closet that are reserved for when nothing else will fit. Usually they are kept right next to the ‘skinny girl’ pants...the ones we wear when we are feeling particularly fine. So, there you are, getting dressed one morning and flirting with the line between regular clothes and maternity clothes. You decide to give the larger size pants a try and, geez, even they don’t fit! This event pretty much solidified my decision to wear exclusively maternity clothes.

3) “First time you wear your husband’s belt.” So we’ve determined that my belts no longer fit and I have to wear maternity pants, but unfortunately there is an awkward stage where the maternity stuff is actually a little bit too big; at least, a few of the pants I bought started out not quite staying up when I walked. What’s a girl to do? Wear the husband’s belt. Luckily, my husband is pretty conservative when it comes to accessories and I didn’t have to contend with anything too large or hideous.

4) “First time you experience the belly-stop.” One day, I bent over to pick something up off the floor and all of a sudden I felt my belly get in the way. I call this the belly-stop. Its only getting more pronounced as the pregnancy continues, but I remember specifically the first time this happened to me. I was just so surprised that my range of motion was being compromised.

5) “First time you can’t see your feet.” Yep, it’s happened. If I look directly downward, I can no longer see my feet. Who knew I was going to lose whole parts of my anatomy during this pregnancy process?

I’m sure there are any number of additional delightful “firsts” that I will get to experience. I’ve already been warned of the “first time you close your stomach in the refrigerator door” and the “first time you almost set your belly on fire because you get too close to the stove” (luckily I don’t cook much, so I’m hoping to avoid that one altogether). I guess I just have to wait and see what other milestones are going to come along.