The summer that I was pregnant with Grace was the Summer of Weddings; I think Matt and I went to six or seven in three months. In late July we drove to southern Connecticut for Schuyler’s wedding, the first big reunion of my group of college friends since I’d gotten pregnant. I was glad to be noticeably,undeniably pregnant, after months of just being vaguely chunky and puffy.

At the Friday night rehearsal dinner there was much oohing and aahing over my pregnancy cleavage, which was markedly different from my normal state. I laughed along with the jokes, but when someone aimed a camera across the roundtable at my chest I jumped up. “Hey!” I surprised myself with my reaction. The person behind the camera–and I can’t remember which of my friends it was–looked quizzically at me. Hadn’t I just been laughing? “I’m not a zoo animal.” I crossed my arms across my chest and sat down, cheeks burning, embarrassed to have made a scene.

On Saturday afternoon, as Matt and I were sitting in the living room of the house we were staying in and reading our books, I realized I hadn’t felt the baby move for awhile. I stood up and jogged gently in place. Matt looked up at me like I was nuts. “Trying to make Finny move,” I explained. A dear friend’s husband had nicknamed our baby Finbar, his family’s traditional name for unborn babies, and it had stuck. I still have several children’s picture books, gifts during that first pregnancy, inscribed with messages of love and welcome to Finbar.

“Are you worried?” Matt frowned, putting down his book.

“I don’t think so.” I jogged for a moment, my hand on my belly. “I don’t know.” Do you mind checking if there’s lemonade or something in the fridge?”

He took off toward the kitchen. After he came back with a glass of orange juice (I hate orange juice, and choked it down with a dramatic grimace that seemed to say, ‘the things I do for you,already, baby’) we sat side by side on the couch, silent.

I prodded at my just-rounding belly with a zeal that revealed my anxiety. This was the first time that I can remember that feeling I’ve felt countless times since, of the entire world contracting into a single point of light of concern about my child.

For a supremely distractible multi-tasker like myself, this kind of laserbeam focus is rare and disconcerting. All that mattered was feeling Finny kick. When I felt the movement, finally, that still-weird, alien sensation of something turning over inside my body, I leaned my head back against the couch with a deep sigh. I grabbed Matt’s hand and put it against my belly, and he, too, felt the knobby body part (a knee? a fist?) glide across the surface of my stomach.

We both sat, in silence, hands touching, flat on my bulge of a belly, breathing, realizing that we had been holding our breath.

***

About the Author

Lindsey Mead

Lindsey Mead is a mother, writer, and headhunter based outside of Boston. She writes regularly at .