"Flutters"

I've been discovering that I think a lot of the pregnancy terminology is silly. I've already posted a blog about "showing," and everyone always talks about "nesting" (more on that later). Now that I will be 17 weeks tomorrow (over 4 months pregnant), I'm in the phase of my pregnancy where I'm supposed to be feeling "flutters."

For the past few weeks, I'm pretty sure I've been feeling the baby moving. My midwife asked at my 15 week appointment if I had felt the baby, and I responded that I had been feeling something but I thought it was probably too early to actually feel the baby move. She assured me that those feelings were more than likely baby...especially since our baby is a jitter bug (he/she does not like to sit still to let us hear the heartbeat with that doppler).

Now when I tell people I have been feeling the baby move, they always respond with the same question. "Does it feel like flutters?" All the pregnancy books and websites tell you that the baby's early movements will feel like "flutters". Even my friends who are mothers refer to these movements as "flutters." But I don't think the movements feel like flutters at all. My friend who is 10 weeks ahead of me with her pregnancy put it better by describing the movement as feeling like someone is moving a knuckle around inside of your stomach. "Flutters" sound like such soft, delicate movements. The description of knuckles is much more substantial and much more accurate for what I am feeling. Now that the baby's cartilage is turning into bone, that baby could actually be knuckling me from inside. Maybe I've finally come up with a nickname for our baby...our little knuckle-head. Or maybe I'll just wait on the nicknaming thing! :)