Difference Between Gas Bubbles And Baby Moving

It was 11:42 PM on a Tuesday, I was wearing Dave’s stained college sweatpants that smelled vaguely of old laundry detergent, and I was absolutely convinced there was an alien trying to claw its way out of my lower intestine. Or my uterus. Honestly, at 19 weeks pregnant with my firstborn—who I had taken to calling Baby M at the time because we were paralyzed by name lists and Maya wasn't Maya yet—the geography of my internal organs was a complete, terrifying mystery to me.

I had just finished a massive plate of leftover spicy jalapeño nachos, because pregnancy cravings are a cruel joke, and I was lying frozen on our terrible IKEA couch. My stomach did this weird, hollow flip. Then a gurgle. Then a sharp little tap. I totally panicked. I shoved Dave’s shoulder, knocking his phone out of his hand, and whisper-yelled that the baby was either doing martial arts or I was about to have a catastrophic gastrointestinal event.

Telling apart the digestion drama from the actual kicking is, like, the most confusing part of the second trimester. You want so desperately to feel those magical little butterfly flutters that everyone talks about, but you also haven't gone to the bathroom in three days. It's a very unglamorous guessing game.

The great nacho incident of 2016

So there we were in the middle of the night, Dave rapidly Googling things to watch for with the brightness on his screen turned all the way up, blinding me. I was just lying there holding my breath. My OB, Dr. Evans—who honestly deserves a medal for dealing with my late-night portal messages—had casually mentioned at my last appointment that the pregnancy hormone progesterone basically paralyzes your entire digestive tract. Which is just fabulous.

So the bloating is real. The gas is SO real. You constantly feel like a human balloon that’s been left out in the sun too long.

Dave kept reading from some random pregnancy forum where mothers who clearly had their lives together were describing their babies' movements as "angelic little butterfly wings" and "tiny fish swimming." I was so annoyed. I didn't have butterfly wings in my stomach. I had rolling thunder. I had deep, uncomfortable pressure that felt like a bad decision at a Mexican restaurant. I remember thinking, oh god, what if this is the baby and I'm just completely misinterpreting my own child's existence?

Anyway, the point is, nobody warns you that those first few weeks of feeling movement are mostly just you hyper-analyzing your own bowel movements. It’s definitely not the glowing, hand-on-the-belly maternity shoot moment you see on Instagram.

What the fluttering actually feels like (according to me)

When I finally went to my 20-week scan and practically interrogated Dr. Evans about how I was supposed to know what was going on in there, she broke it down for me in a way that actually made sense. I'm pretty sure she said that because everything is so squished together, the sensations are overlapping, but there are definitely distinct profiles to what you're feeling.

Here's my highly unscientific translation of what my doctor told me:

The digestion rumbling: This feels like a heavy, rolling pressure. It gurgles. It shifts around like a slow-moving storm cloud, and usually, it's accompanied by that gross, heavy, bloated feeling. You know the one.
The actual baby m movements: Popcorn. That’s the best way I can describe it. It feels like tiny, rhythmic kernels popping just beneath your skin. Or like an involuntary muscle twitch, like when your eyelid spasms from drinking way too much coffee, but in your pelvis.
The sweet relief factor: If the feeling magically disappears after you burp, pass gas, or finally manage to poop, congratulations, it was the nachos. The baby doesn't stop kicking just because you went to the bathroom.

Location is literally everything

I'm terrible at biology, but from what I haphazardly gathered staring at anatomical charts in waiting rooms, the location of the tapping is a huge giveaway. Your colon is apparently hanging out a lot on the left side of your abdomen. So if you're getting deep, shifting pressure way down on the left, it's very likely just the burrito working its way through your system.

The baby, especially early on around 18 to 22 weeks, is hanging out right in the center, usually below your belly button. When Maya finally gave me a definitive, undeniable kick, it was right in the middle. It didn't roll. It was just *bloop*. One tiny, sharp little poke.

Later on, they move to your ribs and it feels like someone is trying to aggressively rearrange your lungs, but we don't need to worry about that yet.

Buying things at three in the morning to cope

Because I was so anxious about whether or not the baby was okay in there during those confusing weeks, I did what any rational millennial mother does: I online shopped in the dark. I figured if I couldn't definitively feel her kicking, I could at least buy things that proved she was coming.

I ended up buying this Sleeveless Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit from Kianao. I know it seems ridiculous to buy tiny clothes when you're still not even showing that much and you're mostly just bloated, but holding this incredibly soft, tiny little piece of fabric made the whole thing feel so much more real. It’s un-dyed and made of this stretchy organic cotton that actually holds up really well (which I found out later when Maya had her first blowout in it). Just having it folded in the nursery gave me something tangible to look at when my stomach was just making confusing noises.

During that same 3 AM panic spree, I also threw the Waterproof Rainbow Baby Bib into my cart. Look, it's cute. It has little clouds on it. But I was 19 weeks pregnant. Why in the hell was I buying a silicone food catcher for a baby that wouldn't eat pureed carrots for another ten months? It’s a totally fine bib, it wipes clean and catches the mess later on, but my god, the pregnancy brain really takes over your wallet sometimes.

If you're also awake at an ungodly hour overthinking your stomach noises, you might as well look at the baby collection Kianao has right now, because at least their stuff is honestly safe and won't give your future baby a rash.

The freezing cold juice experiment

If you're losing your mind trying to figure out if it's a foot or a fart, Dr. Evans suggested this very specific ritual that I ended up doing almost every night for two weeks. It's supposed to wake the baby up and give you a clear answer, and I swear it genuinely works.

Get the coldest, most ridiculously sugary drink you can find. I used freezing cold apple juice with actual ice cubes in it.
Drink the whole thing pretty fast.
Go lie down on your left side in a quiet room. Not the couch with the TV blaring. A quiet bed.
Put your hands flat on your lower stomach, right below the belly button, and just wait.

The sudden spike in blood sugar combined with the icy temperature is supposed to make them wiggle. I remember doing this while Dave was loudly snoring next to me. I drank my freezing juice, lay on my side, and waited. Ten minutes went by. Nothing. Fifteen minutes. I was about to cry and call the emergency line, and then... *pop*. A little twitch right against my palm. Not a gurgle. A distinct, localized little spasm. I literally gasped out loud.

Lying there on your side with a stomach full of freezing juice while trying not to breathe too loudly is pretty much a rite of passage in the second trimester.

When the timing makes you crazy

The timeline of all this is what really messes with your head. If you talk to a mom on her third kid, she'll swear she felt the baby doing jumping jacks at 14 weeks. And there you're at 21 weeks wondering if your baby is just incredibly lazy. With Maya, I was a first-time mom, so my abdominal muscles were supposedly tighter, meaning I couldn't feel crap until much later.

Plus, Dr. Evans casually mentioned during an ultrasound that I had an anterior placenta. Which basically means the placenta attached to the front of my uterus, acting like a giant, fleshy airbag between the baby and my stomach. So Maya was probably kicking the hell out of me for weeks, but I just couldn't feel it through the cushion. It drove me insane. Why do our bodies do this?

When I was pregnant with Leo four years later, I felt him way earlier, around 16 weeks, mostly because I finally knew what to look for and my stomach muscles had already given up the ghost.

My ultimate comfort item for the waiting game

Since I spent so many hours just lying on the couch waiting for Maya to prove she was in there, I became obsessed with being comfortable. I had this Rainbow Bridge Bamboo Baby Blanket that I bought specifically to wrap around my bump. It’s this deep, rich brown color with these tiny delicate white lines and rainbows. I know you're not supposed to use loose blankets with babies when they sleep, but I basically used it as my own personal security blanket during my pregnancy.

The bamboo fabric is ridiculously soft. Like, so soft that Dave tried to steal it to use as a neck roll. I'd drape it over my stomach while I drank my decaf coffee (which, again, is a travesty) and just sit in the quiet. I really spilled half a mug of coffee on it right before my third trimester, and I almost cried, but it washed completely out. By the time Maya was born, it smelled like our house, and I ended up using it as her main stroller cover. It’s easily my favorite thing I bought during that entire chaotic period.

When you should seriously panic

I hate giving medical advice because I'm literally just a writer who drinks too much coffee and yells at my kids to put their shoes on, but I do remember the safety lectures clearly. Confusing your digestion with a baby kick at 20 weeks is totally harmless and normal.

But the rules change later on. I'm pretty sure Dr. Evans told me that if you haven't felt *anything* by 24 or 25 weeks, you should probably just call the doctor so they can check, because sitting at home spiraling is absolute torture. And once you're in the third trimester, the movements become a big safety thing. If the baby is usually doing a gymnastics routine after dinner and suddenly you realize you haven't felt them all day, you don't wait to see if it's gas. You just go in. Call your provider, drink the cold water, but go in.

By 28 weeks you're supposed to do kick counts, which is just counting to ten.

Pregnancy is just this wild, uncomfortable, deeply weird journey where you've to constantly question your own body. Sometimes it's a miracle of life, and sometimes it really is just the jalapeño nachos. You learn to live with the mystery.

If you're trying to prep your nursery while riding this emotional rollercoaster, definitely check out Kianao to stock up on things you'll seriously use.

The frantic midnight questions I googled

Can gas seriously mimic a baby kicking perfectly?

Oh god, yes. Especially early on. Gas bubbles moving through your intestines can cause these sharp, sudden pops that feel exactly like what people describe a baby kick feels like. The main difference I noticed was that gas usually comes with that gross cramping feeling, whereas Maya's early kicks were just isolated little pokes with no pain attached.

When will my partner be able to feel the baby from the outside?

Dave literally hovered over me with his hand on my stomach for weeks. It took forever. Usually, it's around 20 to 24 weeks before they can feel it from the outside, but for us, because of my anterior placenta, it was closer to 26 weeks. And of course, every time he put his hand there, the baby would immediately stop moving. They know. I swear they know.

Does drinking coffee make the baby move more?

In my highly caffeinated experience, yes. Any stimulant or cold drink usually wakes them up. I tried to stick to one cup of regular coffee a day, and I'd always notice a flurry of tiny movements about twenty minutes after I finished it. Though half the time, the coffee just made me have to go to the bathroom, bringing us right back to the gas bubble confusion.

Is it normal to feel movements one day and nothing the next?

This was the worst part of the second trimester for me. Yes, it's super normal between 18 and 24 weeks. The baby is still pretty small, so if they flip around and decide to kick backward toward your spine instead of forward toward your belly, you won't feel a thing. I used to lose my mind on the quiet days, but my OB swore it was just Maya repositioning herself.

Should I stop eating spicy food if it confuses me?

Look, if you want the nachos, eat the nachos. Pregnancy is hard enough without denying yourself the one food that sounds appetizing. Yes, it'll give you epic heartburn and make your stomach rumble like a freight train, making it harder to feel the baby, but you'll eventually learn the difference. Eat the food.