Sixteen weeks

Since the awesome day on Tuesday, I have been miserable with a head cold. No good day goes unpunished, I guess.

But the misery of the head cold disappeared into the aether late this afternoon while I was tutoring one of my SAT students, a really good kid who wants to get into Princeton. We were at the office, and suddenly I had to stop talking about logarithms because I had tears welling up.

"I just felt my baby move for the first time," I told him.

It was a quick little fluttering low in my belly. Pina (who had her baby last year) told me a few days ago what to expect, so I knew exactly what the feeling meant.

J. is about seventeen, less than half my age, but he still got it. He was of course a little shocked to see his teacher being so unexpectedly emotional, but he collected himself quickly and immediately congratulated me a few times, then, and again when we were finished for the day. I too collected myself as quickly as I could, and soon we were back to the logarithms, but my mind kept drifting back to my belly. "Hello!" I kept thinking. "Hello! You're really there! Hello! How are you doing? Are you getting everything you need? Hello! Are you healthy? Will I ever get tired of your kicking? Hello!"

I knew the quickening happened at about sixteen to eighteen weeks, and had been envisioning where I'd be when it did. But I hadn't imagined it would be at the sixteen-week mark on the nose.

There really is somebody in there. Wow, sez I.