the quickening

Mommy first felt you move in her tummy on 11 May 2012.  You were about 18.5 weeks.  What a wonderful present for Mommy and Daddy who were celebrating their 6^th month Adelaide wedding anniversary that day!

Your Tita Bing gave Mommy this book called, “What To Expect When You’re Expecting”.  It says that while you may have been making movements since your 7^th week, Mommy will only feel these movements when you’re somewhere between your 14^th and 26^th week (the average is between the 18^th and 22^nd week).  The technical term for these first movements is “quickening”.

Mommy was quietly reading Steve Berry’s “The Romanov Prophecy” which is about two Russian royal children who some people still believe didn’t die on 17 July 1918 when the entire family was murdered (I know, this sounds ghastly…). Anyway, Mommy suddenly felt that her heartbeat has moved down to her tummy. This was around the part where the hero, Miles Lord, was being hotly pursued by thugs out to get him. Mommy dropped her book. That’s when she realized that you were moving! Mommy tried to stop breathing so she can feel your movements better. And there you were, giving a couple more pokes!

I think little pebble, you like books where there’s a whole lot of running around going on.

P.S. Mommy used to watch this TV series called, “The Highlander” in the mid-1990s (Mommy was in law school at that time and had a lot of angst).  These were about people who were virtually immortal; they can only be felled by a fellow Highlander.  A Highlander, who cuts off the head of another Highlander gets stronger… and in the end, “there can be only one”.  Thunder and lightning come together when a Highlander’s head rolls, signalling that the beheader has become a degree more powerful. That particular instance is also called a “quickening”.  The whole point of this postscript is, while you may not be a Highlander, little pebble, Mommy could almost swear there was thunder and lightning when we had our own version of the “quickening”.