Bump!

Ever since the word was out about our baby on the way, people have been asking me for "bump pictures." As much as I love seeing other people's growing bellies on Facebook and Instagram, I just couldn't bring myself to post any myself. My superstitious side, which I didn't even know I had until this pregnancy, was like an ever-present, loud, scary superego (yes, I'm using psych terms, if I can't do it on my own blog where else can I?!) that yelled at me hourly. I kept worrying, if I post this on Facebook, something bad will happen. Or, if I text this picture to too many people, something bad will happen. Eventually, I had myself convinced that something bad would happen as a result of even the slightest move on my part.

Luckily, the more my bump grew, and the more weeks that passed, the less I've felt this way. Especially in the last two weeks when I've felt the little monkey moving around, I've been much more at ease with it all. And with that, came my newfound courage to post these pics. This blog to the rescue again as rather than having to make this public to EVERYONE, I can instead post them exclusively to you lovely readers :)

Here is where we are currently - 20 weeks (well, tomorrow it will be!). Its getting harder to hide under my normal clothes and my pants definitely no longer fit. Like I'm talking don't even fit if I'm using a fabric belly band to cover up that my pant's button is undone and the fly wide open. However, I'm still not giving into maternity pants just yet. Mom and I found some awesome regular people pants with elastic waist bands that I hope to rock all the way into the home stretch. One pair is patterned and another is electric blue. I love them. 

But enough about my un-maternity pants, here is where we started: the first bump pictures. This was back 5 weeks ago, at 15 weeks. I've heard that you just wake up one morning and boom! Baby bump! But for me it was more that around 6pm at night I suddenly had a beer belly that would retreat inward overnight only to perk up again the next evening. Even today, if I squint in the morning and don't look too closely in the mirror, I can still pretend no bump exists... that might be a lie. As I typed it I was thinking to myself, "Is that really still true?" I think in the last few days the bump is a permafixture. I'll have to pay more attention tomorrow and report back. 

Here is the bump at 17 weeks (and is also depicted above, covered up, in the aerial perspective shot with Charlie boy).

Today was my first time taking pics with my camera instead of my iPhone. I liked it better and think I'll continue to do it that way from here on out. It makes me feel more legit, like I'm really documenting the life of my little girl already whereas taking iPhone selfies feels more like I'm merely deciding what to wear (does anyone else do that? take pictures of what you're wearing so that you can see if it looks the same in pictures as it does in the mirror? Clueless was filled with life lessons).

Also, sorry for the delay in posting these pics to whom I promised them to days ago. Turns out that first-trimester flashback feeling was actually a stomach bug that ripped through the Selim family. I was knocked out from Friday night to Saturday night (though still managed to get to Babies-R-Us despite needing to dry heave in the washroom there, I'm sure they're used to it) and then a busy Mother's Day on Sunday left me quite incapacitated. Headed to bed tonight feeling better than I have in days, which is such a relief.

After all, my new pants wouldn't look quite so good on a sick person.