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"What&amp;amp;#8217;s it like the first time a father feels his baby kick?I don&amp;amp;#8217;t really remember waking up this morning. But there I was, my eyes open, with Blossoms grabbing my hand. There was some light under the window shades, so it must not have been that early. We were still entombed in the warmth of sleep, still mostly sleeping really, under white sheets and white comforter, with soft white light beginning to creep across the floor into our bedroom. She said, &amp;amp;#8220;You can feel her.&amp;amp;#8221; I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t register what that meant. Blossoms backed into me, warm and smelling of grapefruit lotion from Whole Foods, and pulled my hand lower on her belly. I was a little more cognizant now. My hand was spread on her abdomen, and I was waiting to feel our daughter move, but I was not hopeful. For a while now, Blossoms had been telling me she could feel little stirrings inside of her. Nothing more than a flutter, really. The feeling you get when you see someone you have a crush on in the hallway of your high school. But I could never feel anything. I was secretly, irrationally afraid that I would never be able to feel her, that her existence would somehow always be remote from me, theoretical, like Schrodinger&amp;amp;#8217;s Cat or something. That her life was a private situation between her and Blossoms. That&amp;amp;#8217;s how it feels a lot of the time when you are the husband to a pregnant wife. Like you are visiting someone you love in jail, with a thick pane of Plexiglas between you. There&amp;amp;#8217;s a certain loneliness to it, to be honest. &amp;amp;#8220;She always stops moving as soon as I get someone to try to feel it,&amp;amp;#8221; Blossoms said. &amp;amp;#8220;She&amp;amp;#8217;s trying to hide from me,&amp;amp;#8221; I said. &amp;amp;#8220;It&amp;amp;#8217;s a game we play.&amp;amp;#8221; The day got a little lighter. The TV sat in the corner, peaceful and dead, an inert piece of plastic. I began to fall back to sleep. Then: a punch (a kick? an elbow?) right to my hand. Like she was high fiving me. It was surprisingly strong, fierce. Man, I thought, my daughter is a little badass. I&amp;amp;#8217;d kept thinking I felt her before but somehow didn&amp;amp;#8217;t register it, that the touch would be so subtle I wouldn&amp;amp;#8217;t know if it were her or my imagination. But there was no mistaking it. Then she went bananas, shifting and pushing and kicking with great energy. It&amp;amp;#8217;s like when you&amp;amp;#8217;re fishing, and you don&amp;amp;#8217;t think you&amp;amp;#8217;ll ever get a fish in your life, and then suddenly your pole goes live. Anyway, it was about the most exciting thing I&amp;amp;#8217;d ever felt. I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t want it to end. It made me very eager to meet my little girl, and it was a shock to realize that she was already making her own decisions in there. It also terrified me. She felt suddenly real, flesh and bone, and that made her seem suddenly vulnerable. When she was theoretical, the idea of something bad happening to her was very very awful, but also abstract. But now everything was real. She settled back down, we went back to sleep. I could still kind of feel the sensation in my hand where she first touched me. Have you ever felt a baby kick? How did it make you feel? What can a father do to feel less far away from the pregnancy besides cooking and cleaning and rubbing her feet? Photo: iStock "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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