I touched her foot.

She kicked me so hard at work a few minutes ago I let out an audible gasp and my boss asked "What's wrong?" thinking some breaking news had come across the wires.

She kicked me so hard about two inches to the left of my belly button that I saw my stomach shapeshift through my black dress and sweater. And then I put my hand over the part that was bulging and did my best to send telepathic messages to my daughter to calm down, to stop whatever it was she was trying to do because the movement felt somehow riddled with fear and anxiety.

"Shhhh," I said, quietly this time to keep the coworkers' nosiness at bay.

And she pushed back against my hand, and I felt the indention of a foot--not a vague, fluttering in my lower abdomen but a human FOOT, my daughter's toes, her heel--resting against my palm. And she released, and relaxed, and fell back asleep.

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Feeling the baby kick.

I felt the baby kick yesterday right before I fell asleep. I've already felt the gurgly, tickly movements in my uterus-area, but this was the first deliberate PING. It felt like a tiny little finger flicking me. From the inside.

I'd just started to doze off when I felt it, and it woke me with a start. Yeah, it's "special" and all, but more than anything it really just felt like someone shaking me saying YOU SERIOUSLY ARE PREGNANT!

I've felt it maybe three times since then, only when I first lie down, and while it does give me a latent, warm-and-fuzzy kind of feeling, I can't help but thinking of the alien from Spaceballs every time. I try to ignore the image, but there it is, in all its tap-dancing glory.

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