Sweet Night

I've been worried off and on about Ivy since my weird sickness a couple of weeks ago. Even though the midwife told me to expect a slowdown in movement after the first signs, it seemed weird that it practically disappeared so abruptly when I started feeling icky. A few days ago, I even complained to my friend about it online. When I'm tired, my imagination kicks into overdrive and I start thinking things like "what if I killed her by being sick?!" (Of course, after a night of sleep everything is better.)

The night after my chat with my friend, I dreamed that Ivy gave a great big kick, and my hand had happened to be on my belly so I felt it that way too, so in my dream I rushed over to the computer to tell my friend about it. And then the next afternoon, Ivy had a dance party. I drove to rehearsal an hour away, listening to music the whole time, and then sang for two hours and drove back, and particular songs were apparently more fun to dance to than others. (She was super active during our run-through of Tomkins' O, Let me Live!) She's been pretty active ever since.

Last night, Cory finished a big project that had taken months of work and a lot of stress and long hours, and so he finally had the time and brain capacity to just lie in bed with me for a little while instead of working into the wee hours and falling asleep apart from me. I had something weird going on with my stomach (not heartburn, but it felt like lying down was a bad idea) so I was reclining on a few pillows in the dark with my hand on my belly, and Cory was talking to me about random work-related things... and Ivy kicked my hand. It was just a little kick, but it was obvious that it wasn't my heartbeat or digestion or something, it was a definite kick. So I grabbed Cory's hand and put it on my belly as he talked, and tried to listen to what he was saying, but I was so over the moon that it was hard to concentrate. When he was done with his story, I said "I put your hand there because I just felt Ivy kick my hand." He said "oh, really? Wow!" and then got really quiet, concentrating. He fell asleep like that, without feeling anything, and when he finally rolled over and moved his hand I put my hand back on my belly and fell asleep too.