Tag Archives: second trimester

Getting scratched with colored pencils

One of the common things that happen to pregnant women (I prefer not to use the term ‘symptom’) is that the round ligaments that you never knew you had will protest as they stretch to cover the increasing distance between their points A and B.

I read that it’s usually a low groin or thigh ache. For a few months (mos. 3-5) I had a really strange sensation just to the left of my belly button. It felt exactly like a beam of sunburn the size of a quarter was being aimed at my belly. (Or, the sensation of being tattooed.) It recently went away.

Now, mirrored on the other side, but still way up high next to my belly button (which is way up high, far from where it lived before), I occasionally get the sensation that someone is poking me gently with a colored pencil.

Strange, that I so specifically recognize the feeling as a colored pencil. There must be something about the sensation that matches some childhood memory of the feeling of sharp colored pencils against the skin.