Baby's first kicks

Somewhere between weeks 18 and 22, after a few days of wondering if what you're feeling is gas bubbles or some kind of strange muscle spasm, you'll feel tiny flutters as your baby moves. I had my very first experience on 16 January, 1AM to be exact. Dev was in Frankfurt then. I felt it again at ten that morning, and I was so excited I wanted to pick up the phone and call home, but it would have been 5 in the morning Malaysian time. I decided to enjoy the kicks until I fell asleep.

There's something really special about feeling your baby's kicking, squirming and hiccups. Your baby goes from being an abstraction to a real moving, stretching, living little person. You begin to realize that somebody is really inside you, and that can be just as exciting as the first time you heard your baby's heartbeat or caught a glimpse of her moving during the first sonogram.

"Quickening'" is what sensing first movement is called. It was once believed that mother's first feeling of movement was when the baby's soul descended down to earth. But pictures inside the womb show that babies are actually very active long before their moms ever realized it. You just begin to be able to feel the movements as your baby's bones harden.

First-time moms usually feel their babies move weeks later than experienced ones, and if you're overweight it may also take longer to detect movement. Sometimes, the placenta can be located toward the front of the uterus, making it harder to feel baby movements until the baby gets larger.

As mischievious as our son already is, he refuses to let his daddy feel his kicks. Last night while we were laying down in front of the tv, I felt his gentle kicks, so I told Dev to quickly place his hand on my belly, but as soon as his daddy put his hand on my belly, our boy decided not to kick. Moments after giving up on feeling his kicks, baby decided to kick. Our baby could have heard our conversation and decided to play a trick on us.

I feel his kicks several times a day, every day. It is just amazing!