Quickening

It feels mostly like little muscle spasms, but every once in a while there's an actual tap or bump. I do believe there's something in there. It makes me so happy, especially since I've been starting to feel like I've somehow gotten a small bowling ball lodged down there that sloshes around whenever I get up from a chair.

("You see?" says Eric. "Everything's fine. You were worried for nothing." Ha! I have not yet begun to worry.)

We took the Toledo Hospital maternity tour last night, with five or six other couples and an assortment of friends/sisters/grandparents (I assume). Normally the tour is recommended in your seventh or eighth month, I believe, but we went early because we're still researching hospitals. I was slightly embarrassed to be in the company of all these obviously pregnant women, one of whom had already been to the hospital for a false alarm and another of whom is due next week, with no discernible bulge under my sweater.

I was more embarrassed when we gathered in one of the labor and delivery rooms and I started getting dizzy and had to sit on the floor before I fell over. All these women in their third trimesters and I'm the one who can't handle standing in a room for ten minutes. I don't know what caused it--too much dinner, not enough air in the room, thinking about "the equipment" in the room's closet, instinctive reaction to hospitals? If I have the same reaction when we look at the other hospitals on our list, maybe we'll consider a home birth. We can refinish the bathtub by July, I'm sure.