Bloop.

Number Four is no longer a quiet orb of life that makes my belly swell. Number Four, is making a presence known. We've started the blooping.

Lots of people talk about flutters. I've never understood the flutter description. It has always felt like a "bloop" to me. At an early 14 weeks and 4 days (plus the additional week and 2 days that passes before we evict my children), the bloop is still occasional. But every mother would agree that babes that go bump and kick in the day, are a great relief to a pregnant mother. A confirmation that life inside her belly is as it should be. This is the point in my pregnancies where my relationship with my unborn child begins. Since 8 weeks, Number Four has listened to the conversations of his mother. And as the weeks have passed, I have started to listen for my child. A language of bloops is developing. These are his first words to me.

It is something a mother can hardly explain. How she already knows so much about her child, before the child is born. The activity of the child has spoken to her. Revealed much to her, about the personality that has developed within her. It is a language that takes experience to learn. When the child is your first, everything is new and embraced, but it is difficult to distinguish uniquenesses in the child, because the pregnancy is all you know. But then your second comes along, and the differences in utero between the first and the second reveal themselves. A third child, amplifies differences, and hones your skills to distinguish the individual dialects of your childrens' language.

Faith, my third child, had an unusual amount of activity. She was full of spunk. A movement that was different than my first two. More determined. She exuded a strength that was missing from my other two children. I knew before she was born, she would be my active child. I also knew, with little doubt, she would be my first child to cry when she left the womb. I already had a sense, that she would be demanding. Her language in utero, prepared me for the year ahead. Gently showing me, that this child would be a challenge. That I would need to match her strength. And I did.

Number Four is growing big enough to make his words heard. The conversation is beginning. Legs, elbows, arms and hic-ups choreograph the personality of the fresh soul inside of me. I am a captive audience of one, wrapped around a foreign body, whom I love. He will learn my language. I will learn his. Before we study each other's face for the first time, we will already have the peace of knowing each other's spirit. The color of our souls. The part that never fades and withers away with age.