Who, Me?

I've always wanted to be a mother.  In fact, if you'd asked me, in elementary school, what my goals in life were, they were to be an author and a mother (and after a few detours here and there, that hasn't really changed).  My biological clock started ticking loud and clear in college and I spent the better part of a decade watching A Baby Story and reading mommy blogs.  Doing other things, too, but that was always there.

That all being said, the emotional aspects of being a mother did not come easily.  When I got pregnant, I was actually weirded out because I didn't feel some immediate emotional bond.  Part of this was fear and anxiety and superstition, I'm sure - I knew everything that could go wrong and I didn't want to get attached, especially at the beginning.  I spent the first few weeks saying things to the Yeti like "it's still just a bunch of cells at this point" and "Now it's the size of a poppyseed" - all true, of course, but partly to distance myself.

It wasn't until my NT scan at eleven weeks, when the being on the ultrasound had transformed from a motionless blob to a barrel-rolling baby form, that I started to unclench.  And then it wasn't really until around 20 weeks that I really started to think of the pregnancy as a future baby (perhaps because my morning sickness finally abated around then and I could actually think a little).

Actually having a baby was a slow transition as well.  I consider myself a fairly emotional person, but I didn't burst into happy tears at Thumper's birth.  I was more in awe that he really existed, I suppose.  We'd kept his name a secret from friends and family (we did not need or want a peanut gallery on that one, but rest assured his real name is not Thumper) and we hadn't even really used his name between the two of us - maybe more superstition on my part I suppose.  So then we had this baby and I wasn't used to thinking of him by name.   For the first month he was mostly "the baby" or "he" (no ambiguity when you say, "I think he needs a diaper change").

Sure, I was overcome by love (sometimes ridiculously so - hi there, postpartum hormones!) but I had to get to know him, I guess.  Nowadays, he's a completely integrated part of our family, and in addition to loving him, I like him, too.  The Yeti feels the same way; sometimes I get texts from him in the middle of the day about how he misses Thumper.  It's adorable.

Similarly, I'd spent all those years waiting to become a mom, but when the time came it was difficult for me to process that I had finally stepped into those shoes.  I saw a press release about the new Jem movie, and it said something like, "All the cool moms would be interested in this."  I didn't connect it to me, even though I grew up watching the Jem cartoon, was a new mother, and was indeed likely the exact demographic they were talking about.  It wasn't that I felt I was too cool to be a Mom, or anything like that; it just seemed foreign to me.

Recently we went out to dinner with some friends.  I hadn't seen them since before the birth of Thumper.  We've kept up with family through Skype, but to friends we've probably fallen off the planet with the exception of Facebook.

Listening to ourselves at dinner, I realized that at some point in the last four months the Yeti and I have become Parents.  I don't know when exactly it happened; it certainly didn't feel like it was the moment I actually gave birth.  Still, somehow without noticing I've completely internalized the Mom title.  The Yeti has embraced the Dad role as well - not a surprise to me, but potentially to those who see a grizzly bear of a guy and don't know him as well as I do.

Maybe it's all part of the magic that is the end of the "Fourth Trimester."  When Thumper was a newborn, 12 weeks was held up as a perfect number.  Tummy troubles?  Give it til twelve weeks, maybe sixteen.  Breastfeeding?  You'll feel much better by three months.  Colic-like purple crying?  Many babies are over it by then.  

...It would be silly except it's all kinda true.

On top of Thumper settling into the world outside the womb, I've been feeling much better myself.  No, I'm not 100% like I was pre-pregnancy, physically, but I felt drastically more like myself starting at around twelve weeks.  The fourth month was even better.  You'll hear all about digestive issues throughout pregnancy and labor, but no one told me that stuff might not be working as usual for weeks after.  In fact, you could say it things were irregular until... around twelve-sixteen weeks.

Even my brain started to de-fog around then.  I think I was finally adjusting to my new sleep schedule and getting more sleep as well.  That's why this blog started around then - prior to that I was still on some form of survival mode.  

I have no doubt that others bounce back immediately after having a kid - my own mother is one of them.  And some start thinking of themselves as "Mommy" before they're even pregnant.  I just seem to need a little time to get used to everything.

Even when the 'everything' is super awesome.

Adventures in Babywearing

Before I had Thumper, I was determined to be a babywearing kind of mother.  I got a stroller, yes, but I also got a K'Tan and an Ergo.  I had an infant insert for the Ergo, but I figured the K'Tan would be better when he was a newborn.

Well, unlike the sleeping situation, where everything we gambled and bought magically worked, this was not quite as smooth.

The K'Tan went smoothly exactly once: the first time I attempted to wear him.  He was a month old, and passed out minutes after I got him into position.  Yes! I thought.  This will be the magic baby bullet.   But the next time I tried, he freaked.  And the time after that.  And the time after that.

Meanwhile, Thumper was content in the Ergo probably 80% of the time.  Both the Yeti and I wore him on short trips around the neighborhood starting at around two months, and he was fine with either one of us.  I'd read some complaints about the infant insert being too hot, but Thumper was born in the middle of winter, so that suited us just fine.

Here's the problem: my back was killing me.  With the Ergo and without, my back was tired every single day, and wearing him was excruciating by the time I got back from a ten-minute trip to the grocery store.  I was baffled, because the Ergo is supposed to be one of the easiest for back problems.  I researched the proper way to wear the carrier, asked people how it looked, and adjusting helped it somewhat, but it was still a pain.  Thus, more often than not I was putting him in his stroller - it was faster, there was no question about whether he would fight it or not, and it was easier on my back.

But I felt guilty.  Like a Bad Mom.  So he might have been 100% fine in the stroller, but it was really more of a neutral state - he didn't dislike it, but he didn't seem to really like it.  In contrast, there might have been a 20% chance he'd fuss in the Ergo, but when he was settled he seemed to actually like it.  He could look around with more ease, he could hide his face if he wanted, he could chew on the straps.   And here I was, letting the Yeti wear him or sticking him in the stroller because my back was apparently too weak.  Also, while the stroller definitely came in handy in some situations (I love the giant basket underneath, we've fit so much takeout food in that thing) there were definitely others in which the Ergo was a superior choice.  And I wanted it to work.

Now flash forward to this past weekend.  Thumper's about four and a half months old, and he's had great neck strength for awhile, so it occurred to me that he might be ready to try out the Ergo without the infant insert (great timing, too, because the weather's been getting warmer).  The Yeti had made plans for us to eat brunch with a friend of his, and the restaurant was a tiny hole-in-the-wall where a stroller would not be appropriate, so it was a great opportunity to try out the Ergo sans insert.  Since it was the Yeti's friend, I volunteered to be the babywearer, and the person who would step outside if he started fussing.

Since Thumper's a peanut of a baby, we still needed the little cushion to let him sit high enough, but we ditched the larger part of the insert.  And... choirs of angels sang.  I don't know if the insert was somehow distributing his weight in a weird way, or if my back is just finally strong enough, but the difference this time was night and day.  I put Thumper in, adjusted the straps, walked across the bedroom to put on my shoes - and Thumper was already smiling.

He smiled almost the entire walk to brunch, looking around.  He was patient and interested through the meal; I stepped outside a few times, but it was mostly because I thought he was getting too warm and the air outside cooled us both down.  We had to run some unexpected errands after, and all told he spent about three hours in the carrier, but we both felt fine (albeit tired).

Not only does the Ergo make him happy, it makes him sophisticated

The only problem we still have is that he seems to have a hard time falling asleep on me when I'm wearing him in the Ergo, even when he's tired; he's much more likely to do so on the Yeti.  Oh, a note on the Ergo and the Yeti: he's a larger guy, with really broad shoulders, and we were afraid the regular Ergo wouldn't be comfortable for him.

We wound up getting the Ergo Original X-tra for him - basically it's the same as the original but with more room to adjust in the shoulders and waist.  I mention this because I basically stumbled upon this; it's newer and most hadn't heard of it (Ergobaby's new site design is now much, much better than when I was pregnant).  If you're interested in the X-tra, it's only available in two colors - gray from Diapers.com, and black from REI.  We went with black.   Since we didn't want to wrangle with the substantial adjusting we'd have to do between the two of us, I got an original Ergo for myself (black with stars - okay, I loved that design and really wanted it, which contributed to us getting two).  It means we have to stick the extra Ergo in the diaper bag, but in my opinion it's more convenient to do that and swap out with ease than adjust the fit from scratch each time.

(Side note: little old ladies love seeing a big, burly Yeti wearing a baby.  It's adorable.  No one cares when I do it, but you'd think he was the first dad ever to think of this.  Guess they haven't seen What to Expect.)

Oh, by the way, after all our recent success with the Ergo I decided to give it another shot with the K'Tan.  Still no dice, and my back hurt almost immediately.  Can't win 'em all.

I Think My Baby Might Like Scary Stories

So for the past month or so, Thumper has really liked action songs.  You know, the ones with movement, like "Itsy Bitsy Spider."  In fact, the very first time I sang that one and did the motions, his eyes lit up and he smiled.  It's still a favorite - he likes the parts where the spider gets wiped out and then the sun comes up.  I guess it is pretty epic.

One of his other favorites is "Little Bunny Foo Foo."  I wasn't sure if he'd like that one - it was long, and repetitive - but he warmed up to it quite quickly.  I've had some experience with babies before, and usually they tended to like the "bopping them on the head" part (such violence).  Thumper has never particularly responded to that, not even if I exaggerate it.  In fact, he's pretty blase through the whole first verse.

Where he does tend to perk up is where the Blue Fairy comes in.  First I thought it was because it's similar to the rain coming down in "Itsy Bitsy Spider," and that's certainly part of it.  But the grinning continues through the entire second bit, even though it's almost exactly the same as the first.  He's smiling broadly as I get to the talking part: "I'll give you three chances, and if you don't behave, I'll turn you into a goon.  But the next day..."  We're talking laughing and squealing by now.  In what is melodically the most boring part of the song.

Eventually I realized I slightly lower my voice as The Blue Fairy, even in that second singing verse.  When she speaks, it goes even lower.  So I began to experiment.  The Blue Fairy got even more spooky, more menacing.  The part where I say "But the next day..." would now fit in to a campfire ghost story.  There's now whispering involved.

And Thumper totally loves it.  The more dramatic and spooky, the better.  He even gives a satisfied smile at the end, when I say, "Hare today, goon tomorrow.  The end."  I mean, it's a pun he can't even understand.  Still, he digs it.

(That reminds me: am I the only one who talks through the end of that song, when the fairy finally gives Foo Foo his comeuppance?  If there's a melody there I don't know it.)

So I wonder if this is a sign of things to come.  Nowadays I don't really watch horror at all, but when I was in elementary school I just loved the show "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" and the Goosebumps book series.  Or maybe it just means I'll be doing many more voices as we read books.  I'll have to work on that, because "Little Bunny Foo Foo" displays pretty much my entire repertoire.

he's coming to turn you into a goon

The Year of the Christmas Tree

Back when I was pregnant, my energy levels fluctuated wildly - within the "low" range.  By the time I was in my third trimester, I was feeling all right, and like I had more energy than I had previously - but not enough to, like, do anything.  Unfortunately, most of my third trimester was spent around the holidays.

I love Christmas time.  The Yeti and I aren't religious at all.  However, I was never raised in a particularly religious household.  We celebrated Christmas and Easter, but we didn't go to church at all and I don't even know how old I was when I realized there was a Biblical component to Easter (it's all bunnies and eggs and springtime, right?), but it was well into elementary school.

Thus, I have no internal conflict in maintaining a totally secular Christmas, and like to milk as much joy and magic from the season as I can.  My plan this past year was to put the tree up a little early, my rationale being that as time went on, I'd only get more pregnant and more tired.  Any time after November 1 was fair game, I decided.

As it turned out, though, I was feeling pretty tired then.  And the next week.  I caught my terrible cold from Hell around then, too, so I was too busy hacking, sneezing and immediately making a mad dash for the bathroom after either activity.  Though I intended to put the tree up as soon as possible, I didn't actually get anything up until the beginning of December.

With this track record, perhaps I should taken the tree down immediately after Christmas.  But I thought it might be fun to leave it up until Thumper was born, to take him home to a nicely lit Christmas tree.  And it might be easier to take it town when I wasn't big and pregnant anyway...

...Perhaps you can see where this is going.

Oh, look!  You can see the lit tree in the background of this pic of Thumper... taken in the middle of February.

And oh, there it is peeking out again! ...in a picture taken sometime after St. Patrick's Day.  

The problem was that whenever I had a spare minute in which to take down the tree, there was always something more valuable I could be doing instead.  At first, that was sleep.  Then it became stuff like laundry or dishes or just sitting a moment.  

To make matters worse, I had our stockings hung from little bookend-type hangers on our bookshelf.  That bookshelf just happened to be in the background when we Skyped with family.  And without fail, someone always noticed it and commented on it.  I should have just taken the damn stockings down, but I had half a brain and was usually lucky if I was clothed and coherent.  

At some point I had had enough of the Christmas tree.  The Yeti suggested I leave it up 'til next year - "It's been up this long," he said - but I stubbornly wanted to maintain the specialness of Christmas and, let's face it, that dusty tree was not very magical at this point.  Plus, "The Year of the Christmas Tree" sounded like a bad Hallmark movie.  So I had intentions of taking it down the weekend after St. Patrick's Day... but you know how that goes.  

And then it was Easter.  

We Skyped with both sides of the family on Easter.  Both sides commented on the stockings.  

The next day I had all the ornaments off the tree and the other miscellaneous decorations packed away.  The tree itself took another week or so, because retrieving the bins needed to store it required the Yeti, and he's worse than I am.  

But it's been up, and done, for a little while now.  And good thing too, because we're getting a jumperoo and we can use the space (baby stuff is like The Blob - it just keeps growing).  

Next year I'm thinking I might do something entirely different for our Christmas tree - like getting all plastic and wood ornaments that are safe from mobile near-toddlers.  Maybe I'll even get one of those little, brightly colored trees from Target while I'm shaking things up.  

Then the next year, by the time I pull out our traditional decorations, I'll be ready to look at them again.  It wasn't The Year of the Christmas Tree, but it was long enough.  

The Glorified Drawer

Newborns pretty much only do three things, and one of the most appreciated is sleep.  Even now, my day seems to hinge on the sleep I got the night before - too little and everything feels twice as hard.  Granted, my definition of what "too little" is has certainly changed!

The hardest part of shopping before a baby is born is that you have no idea what type of baby they'll be.  You'll hear about babies that refuse to sleep anywhere but their (fill in the blank): stroller, swing, co-sleeper, parents' bed.  You're not a fortune teller, but at the same time, a place for the baby to sleep is definitely on the list of must-haves for that first day home.  Thus, I decided to hedge my bets a little.

Currently, we're living in a one-bedroom apartment with a den (which currently functions as an office).  If we're still living here when Thumper is a bit older, that den will certainly turn into a nursery for him, but we're actually in no rush to do so.  Even when we had more space, I always planned to have our (at the time) future baby sleep in our room for the first several months; it's recommended to prevent against SIDS, and it just made more sense to me when it comes to waking up in the middle of the night for feedings.

So I knew I wanted to have Thumper in the bedroom with us.  I also knew I wanted to avoid bed-sharing if at all possible.  I know myself, and my anxiety, and I knew I would never get a good night's sleep with Thumper in the bed with me, not as an infant at any rate.

(Random aside: one of the nurses in the hospital encouraged bedsharing and actually said putting the baby in the hospital bassinet was a good way for the baby to not get any sleep.  I did try sleeping with him in the hospital bed with me, and neither one of us really slept.  But he conked out in the bassinet.  The opinions fly fast and early.)

At first I looked at the co-sleepers that were open on one side, but they seemed awfully expensive for such a limited use.  Then I realized that thanks to the layout of our bedroom, we can only put the bed on one wall and the space on either side was too narrow for a co-sleeper.  Well, that decided that.

Eventually I started looking at deluxe pack'n'plays that had a bassinet setting.  I didn't want to use a pack'n'play as a crib, but looking at bassinets in person made me realize that there's really no mattress in any of them to speak of - newborns are practically sleeping on boards - and the options in the pack'n'plays were as good as any.  And a pack'n'play could be useful down the road, for traveling or containing Thumper if I need to.  Like Alton Brown, I love a multitasker.  We wound up going with this one, the one with the Newborn Napper Elite, and put it at the foot of our bed.

However, I wasn't sure if Thumper would actually sleep in it.  So, to hedge my bets, I also bought a Fisher Price Rock'n'Play as well.  People rave over them, and I liked the portability and versatility of it.  My hope was that at least one of them would work.

As it turns out, both worked splendidly.  Thumper tended to sleep in the Rock'n'Play, in the living room, for naps, and in the Newborn Napper section of the Pack'n'Play at night.  Both have a vibrate function, and man did we fly through the D batteries in those first few months.

All things considered, he slept great in the Newborn Napper.  I'd put him down when we were ready for bed and I didn't even have to rock him; he'd conk out on his own after a few minutes (he's not quite as good at that anymore).  He has always managed to work his hands out of swaddles, even in the hospital, so after awhile I started wrapping the blanket under his arms.  That way, I figured, he wouldn't be able to scrunch down and get the blanket over his face.  And since the napper was relatively small, I felt comfortable in the knowledge that he wouldn't somehow wiggle out.  

At two and a half months, we tried the bassinet setting on the Pack'n'Play.  It didn't go well.  I think the bassinet platform was too springy and unstable-feeling, not to mention a bigger space; he went to sleep, but woke up 20 minutes later and freaked out.  We reinstalled the napper and decided to keep him in it until he was ready for a full crib.  He was a small baby, but growing quickly and we knew soon he'd be rolling over.  The Napper recommends stopping at 3 months, and he was a week or two past that when we put together the crib.  

Towards the end, he'd scrunch down and stick his feet up

It was fairly nerve-wracking (for us) transitioning him into the crib; because he didn't have his own nursery, we'd basically be swapping out one structure for the other, cold-turkey, instead of slowly introducing him with naps the way some do.  We didn't want to fold up the pack'n'play altogether, as we still use the diaper changing table, but we moved it to another location, and we left the napper in place... just in case.  

I was actually really excited about the new crib.  I didn't really get the nesting bug when I was pregnant, and didn't decorate a nursery, so I guess I'm doing that now in small bursts.  I've always liked modern and mid-century modern furniture, and I was instantly drawn to the Babyletto Hudson crib, two-toned in wood and white.  I especially liked that there was no "front" and "back" to the crib, which made it ideal for being at the foot of the bed.  

no, the blanket doesn't stay there. safety first!

I knew that once Thumper had more space and started rolling, he'd probably manage to get out of his blanket, so I switched over to sleep sacks a few weeks before we put together the crib.  I loved the Aden and Anais blankets for swaddling, and Thumper loves to chew on the muslin whenever he can, so I got their sleep sacks as well.  

As far as how the transition went: surprisingly, really smoothly.  He woke up an extra time or two that first night, but he didn't seem scared the way he had in that bassinet.  I don't know if it really was an issue of stability, or if he was just "ready" to be in a bigger space.  The transition was probably helped in general by the fact that he was in the same location, in our room, and he could see us easily.  

In the last few weeks he's had more difficulty falling asleep at night.  Even his most difficult is maybe ten or twenty minutes to fall asleep, though, so I'm not complaining.  And though he's not consistently sleeping through the night, stretches of 5-7 hours are becoming increasingly frequent.  I'm sure there will be new sleeping obstacles in the future, but for now I'm taking my victories where I can get them.  Naps, too.  

commemorating the night he slept from 11:30 to 6

12 in 2014: May

I'm a bit late in hopping in on this linkup, but I'm excited to finally have a blog and join in.  So Thumper has been fascinated with mirrors lately, and occasionally I turn the camera on my phone and let him look at himself (and then surreptitiously take pictures while we're at it).  On this occasion, however, he reached out to his reflection and wound up taking his first selfie.  And naturally it's better than anything I take.  

When Eating is Hard

Once my milk finally came in, I thought breastfeeding would get easier.  It didn't.

What follows is not specific to breastfeeding, though; it's my impression this happens to many babies, regardless of how they're fed.

So, Thumper was a few weeks old when feeding time became an absolute nightmare.  He clearly had gas; about midway through a feeding he'd start to cry.  Sometimes he'd arch his back.

Here's what I did:  I burped him constantly.  I bicycled his legs.  I massaged him.  I tried gas drops, and gripe water, and probiotics drops (not at the same time).  With the possible exception of the probiotic drops, nothing helped.  I was exhausted after every feeding because I was constantly moving: burping, turning him this way and that.  A while after he appeared to be done eating he'd calm down.  Sometimes night feedings were better, but he was still crying.

Naturally, the first place I turned was Google - not just Dr. Google, but the crowdsourcing of countless forums, anything I could find that sounded similar to what he was doing.  I also asked his doctor about it, at more than one appointment.

The advice I got and found can fit into a few groups.  From the doctors, and sources with background and training in such matters, I heard: his system is probably immature.  Nothing appears to be physically wrong.  Give him a few months and he'll outgrow it, probably by six months.  You can try the drops/gripe water/probiotics, and they probably won't help but they won't hurt.

From the forums of mothers, this is without exception the first comment I would see: It's probably an intolerance to something you're eating.  Cut out dairy, then everything else.  I always knew when I ate something wrong because the results were immediate.  If you're on formula, switch to something that isn't dairy first, then go from there.

Other tidbits I heard on the elimination diet front: It'll take a few weeks for every trace to leave your system; you might have to cut out anything from strawberries to gluten to sugar to caffeine, giving a few weeks to check for results each time.  Once you get everything, though, he'll be a different baby.  Oh, and it's not forever; most of these "intolerances" go away by six months.

There were also those who said it was likely reflux, and their baby was on a medication for it.  Besides frequent burping and holding upright, which I was already doing, most of the home remedies involved having the babies sleep on an incline.  Between the newborn napper of our Pack'n'Play and his Rock'n'Play, he was already on an incline most of the time anyway.  Actually diagnosing reflux is pretty invasive; it would appear most doctors just prescribe the meds to try out.

Then there were those who claimed all the issues were related to foremilk/hindmilk imbalance, or maybe oversupply.  I became convinced I had this problem, though in retrospect I'm not sure if I did. Regardless, I switched to feeding him on one side only at a time.  He didn't seem hungry, but he didn't seem any better, either.

Here's the thing: when your child visibly looks like they're in pain, you'll be willing to try pretty much anything to make it go away.  Double that when you're sleep-deprived in those first few weeks of hormonal hell.  When Thumper slept, instead of sleeping myself I went back over the same pages and searches, trying to find the situation that fit just right, find the solution.

Even asking my mom for advice wasn't very useful.  "In my day they'd say, 'What did you eat?'" she said.  She didn't seem to be familiar with anything I described.  "He's crying in the middle of the feed?  Oh, my," she said.  "Yes, feeding him is miserable.  It's not some magical bonding experience, trust me," I replied.  I'd read about women nursing their bouncing babies to sleep, and feel jealous.

Even in my fog, though, some of these anecdotes seemed a little fishy.  Everyone has a baby with a food intolerance?  Everyone had to eliminate a litany of products but their baby got better right around the time their system would be maturing anyway?

One of the most helpful pages was this one from KellyMom.  It confirmed a lot of what I'd read about dairy staying in the system for weeks, but more helpfully, included a list of actual symptoms for babies with intolerance.  With the possible exception of the occasional (bloodless) green stool, and the fussiness,  Thumper didn't really have the signs of a food intolerance.  Plus I had the assurance of his doctor that nothing was visibly wrong.  So I did something that was actually really difficult: nothing.

I didn't eliminate every food I was eating.  I did stick with the probiotic drops for a little while, just in case, and of course I kept up with the bicycling and burping and whatnot.  At first I still went to Google at every nap, still searching for that magic answer.  Eventually the Yeti reminded me that I wasn't going to find anything, and the most likely answer was time.  It was hard to break the habit, though, especially after a particularly tough feeding.

And here's what happened: he got better.  Just before the three-month mark, he got notably better.  He actually was falling asleep after eating on occasion.  Even better, eating was no longer a time for crying.

He got bigger, and calmer.  Now he's just over four months, and would probably drift off after eating about half the time, if circumstances allowed.  I'll feed him on one side most of the time, but I always offer both sides, and he'll take both also about half the time.  Burping is minimal; recently he's started waving his arm in the middle of a feed, which I've been interpreting as a need to sit up and take a break (usually burp).

Sometimes I'm clearly just a food source.  Sometimes any sound is far more interesting than milk, and he'll look around at the slightest thing that grabs his attention.  But sometimes, feeding my baby really does feel like a bonding moment - and it almost always feels relaxing these days.

It just felt like when I was trying to find an answer, I never found the accounts of parents who said, "He just grew out of it."  Just the other day, I saw a distant acquaintance asking about this very issue on Facebook.  Three guesses what advice she got.

This is not to say that food intolerances don't exist; I just think they're also accompanied with more physical evidence, and maybe not quite as common as we're led to believe.  So I'm just adding my story to the cacophony of personal anecdotes, to say it is entirely possible a baby can just grow into their stomach.

I think Thumper would agree with me.