Matryoshka

This is my (Jessica's) favorite of the 3D ultrasound pics. You can see Kate's precious little profile, and those legs that blocked her face during much of the ultrasound. (She's essentially sucking her knees in this pic, and those are her feet on the right edge of the image.) For those of you who've asked, yes, it is "definitely" a girl. I hesitate to say that without the quotes because I still fear we'll get thrown a curveball (or two :0) at birth, but two ultrasounds have now shown the telltale "three lines" that indicate girl parts, and the technicians were quite confident.

Baby Kate is about fifteen inches long now, weighs around two pounds, and recently has begun keeping her foot (or elbow, or something) up under my bottom rib. Our little girl has been kicking like crazy, doing somersaults in my belly, and I have to say it's the most amazing feeling ever. I can't believe I have a little person inside of me! What's even more amazing is that she has a million little proto-people inside her too, as she has more eggs now than she will ever have in her whole life! Microscopic halves of our grandchildren are already there, inside our daughter, before she has even been born. Generation upon generation are nested inside one another.


I have long loved all things Russian, and have a modest collection of matryoshkas--nesting dolls. Matt even proposed to me by putting the ring inside one of the innermost layers of a matryoshka. That one was painted with the story of the Ugly Duckling, and nowadays you see them decorated with faces of Communist leaders, U.S. presidents, Hollywood stars, or any number of other things, but the traditional design has each doll painted to look like a babushka (Russian grandmother) or other woman in traditional Eastern-European dress. The word matryoshka, in fact, is derived from the word for mother (mat). So here I am, less than three months from becoming a mother, and I am a matryoshka of sorts, nesting within me my child and even her children and beyond.