Approaching Halfway

During the holidays I enjoyed two small milestones with Littlest.

The first was feeling the little flutters of movement at 15 weeks. I was having trouble sleeping one night and was laying in bed, listening to the silence when suddenly, there it was. A small but very definite movement that wasn't my own. I've felt more since, every one delightful, but they are still too small to be felt from the outside. At the moment it's still just for me to enjoy.

I had a check up at 16 weeks and as I was far enough along, the Doctor and I were able to hear Littlest's heartbeat. While I cried the first time I heard Leo's (it sounded like galloping horses), I was left awestruck the second time round. This heartbeat was different, healthy but slower. 

"They have their own heartbeat," was what I told Joel later that day. While that may sound like the most obvious thing in the world, it really struck me. I am not carrying Leo this pregnancy. I am carrying someone else, an entirely new and unrepeatable person who's heartbeat is their own. 

We've chosen to not find out Littlest's gender and that, along with the realisation that I am yet to really know this little one, has made the whole experience far more mysterious. It brings new meaning to the words of Psalm 139:

For you formed my inward parts; 

You covered me in my mother's womb. 

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; 

Marvelous are Your works, 

And that my soul knows very well. 

My frame was not hidden from You, 

When I was made in secret, 

And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. 

Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. 

And in your books they all were written, 

The days fashioned for me, 

When as yet there were none of them.

While I am savouring these days as a family of three, I am bursting with anticipation as we approach the day when will become four and meet the newest member of our family.