Just over two weeks ago, at 21 weeks pregnant, my wife felt
the baby move for the first time. Out of respect for her privacy and just the
fact that this is not my narrative to process and share, I will just say that
she struggled a bit with insecurities in the beginning, not only as the
nonbiological parent, but also just as the one whose body this was not happening
in, which made her feel a bit excluded. I knew she had reached a point of
connection when I woke up one night, around two or three months pregnant, to
her hand rubbing my belly. I pretended to still be asleep so I wouldn’t
embarrass her because I didn’t want her to stop and I wanted her to have that
private moment of connection. But I brought it up sweetly and gently the next
day, and she had no memory of it! She must have been doing it in her sleep,
which is even more significant to me.
Then within a few weeks of my feeling the first flutters of
movement, she started getting really antsy to feel the baby move. She would ask
me at least once a day, “Can I feel it yet? When will I be able to?” and would
say almost every time I remarked on movement, “Can you feel it on the outside?
But just put your hand there in case. Just try.” This was inevitably followed
by disappointment when I broke it to her that the baby could still not be felt
on the outside.
About two weeks ago, after battling a cough for some time,
my wife finally agreed to take the day off work to go to the doctor. I had been
sleeping very poorly, as it is taking a while for me to adjust to sleeping on
my side instead of my back, and decided after my alarm went off that I would
take the day off as well to accompany her to the doctor. My wife was sleeping downstairs
on the couch in an effort to keep me from catching her cold. I got up to use
the bathroom, and when I returned to bed, I lay on the opposite side from the
side I had been on before, and almost immediately felt some serious thumping. I
knew as soon as I felt it that it would be able to be felt from the outside, so
I put my hand down the waistband of my low-rise pajama pants where I had felt
it, and sure enough, there was one and then two big throbbing motions. My heart
racing, I walked downstairs, calmly fed the cats, and then woke my wife. I
said, “It may have stopped by now, but I just felt the baby from the outside,
if you want to come upstairs and lay with me to see if you can feel it.” She
eagerly jumped up and followed me upstairs.
Assuming that the baby had been moving so furiously after
being sloshed around with my getting up and then back down on a different side,
I swished my hips around while standing and then moved from side to side a
little once I got into bed in an effort to agitate it again. I lay on my wife’s
side of the bed because I knew I had to be on my left side in order for her to
have her hand on my right side where I had felt the movement. I told her to be
patient and warned her gently that it may not happen again, maybe not even for
days. We just lay there in bed, without the pressure of having to get up and
ready for work, her hand on my lower abdomen and my hand over hers. After just
a minute or two (that felt like ten), there was one, big, very distinct THUMP
on the palm of her hand before it settled back down and nothing more was felt
like that for almost a week. The smile on my wife’s face was priceless. She
said, “Oh my God, what WAS that????”
I felt so, so grateful that this happened while we were both
home to share in it. If it had happened while I was at work and then not for
another week, I know my wife would have been so frustrated and antsy. She was
eager to feel it again, but was content with having felt it this once, and
earlier than we had braced ourselves for. Since that morning, she has been
talking to my belly nonstop, putting her face right next to it and saying, “Buuuuuuuggy,
wake up, Bug! I love you!” It has happened a few more times (and mostly at
home, luckily!) where I’ve been able to call my wife over to feel the baby move
just a few times before it settles down again, and it provides such powerful
connection for both my wife and the baby, as well as for the three of us at
once.
