Battle of the Bulge

Okay, that subject line is kind of misleading. Fortunately for you readers, this post isn’t about my up-and-down feelings about gaining weight (again). It’s more about that fact that all of a sudden, seemingly out of nowhere – though obviously this has been a long time coming – I feel noticeably large.

Others are seeing it, too. I was in my boss’s office the other day and she says, “Wow, you’re really getting huge all of a sudden!” Jarring as that can be to hear (pregnancy is truly the only time ever that anyone could get away with saying such things to someone else, isn’t it?) I didn’t take it the wrong way because I’ve been thinking the same thing myself. Even though Andy and I have been watching my belly’s daily outward progress, I haven’t really been FEELING big. But in the last few days, I’ve just really been noticing how different feels to carry around this extra weight.

When I was bemoaning this fact in my facebook status the other day, a friend commented that I shouldn’t really start feeling big until I can’t see my feet. Well, guess what – I can’t! Yikes.

I’ve always been a bit of a waddler – unfortunately, I never really had one of those sexy, sashaying walks – but it’s getting worse by the day. Putting on shoes and socks is increasingly difficult, though still doable on my own (though I did warn Andy over the weekend that he’s either going to have to start cutting my toenails for me soon or sending me out for more pedicures. Shockingly, he chose the latter). Getting in and out of our new car, a Ford Escape hybrid that’s higher than what I’m used to, also takes a little more effort than before.

It’s hard to imagine how it will be when I’m REALLY big – after all, there’s almost four more months of growing left to do. My doctor (and all the baby literature) says that the measurement in centimeters from the top of your uterus to the pubic bone should equal the number of weeks you are, and at my last visit it was right on – 22. It boggles the mind to think about that number reaching 40! I’m unsteady enough as it is (Andy might say unbalanced) – I just hope I don’t fall over!

Random Pregnant Thoughts

No big story or thought for today, just a stream of consciousness kind of post … (Warning: some of this gets a little personal.)

I wore a tighter shirt today and a co-worker saw me and said “Wow, you’re really packing on the pounds!” Despite my recent breakdown over my latest weight gain, I was more pleased than offended …

I’ve already been to the bathroom like 15 times since 7 a.m. today (it’s 8:20 p.m.). I thought this part was supposed to get better in the second trimester!

I’ve never been a sweets person, but lately, everything from ice cream to M&Ms to Cinnamon Toast Crunch (mmmm) tastes so incredibly good it’s like I’ve got a constant case of the munchies …

I don’t know what’s more unpleasant, an itchy stomach or itchy boobs. Actually, yes I do …

I’m thinking about trying a prenatal yoga class but am a little nervous about anyone else seeing my novice attempts at the poses. My trainers on Wii Fit can be a little judgemental, but at least they’re only digital …

People keep telling me that the people you meet once you have kids – the local parents and neighbors – often become your closest friends. I wonder if that will happen. It seems so odd to think about now, but then again, most of my close friends now don’t live nearby and many aren’t parents yet …

I feel kind of guilty about having a baby shower since technically Jewish people usually don’t, but I’m not into all that superstition. But it still makes me a little nervous … Damn that Jewish guilt!

I can’t seem to stop touching my belly, and it’s not even that big yet …

I can’t believe how much darker my nipples have gotten. Guess the baby won’t have any trouble finding them!

I kind of wonder if I’ll feel some sort of disappointment at hearing what the sex of the baby is next week that will reveal which one I “secretly” want, but at this point I don’t even know which one that might be …

I might consider being a stay-at-home mom if I weren’t completely afraid of leaving the workforce for a few years and not being able to come back … and equally afraid of going utterly nuts being home all day long …

And the last thought of the day: I wonder how long I’ll hold out before I have some ice cream or cinnamon toast crunch tonight.

Of Baby Brain, Nannies and other Miscellany

I locked myself in my pants today. Seriously. I was literally stuck in my khakis.

It was the rubber-band trick that got me. I figured I’d wear these non-maternity khakis since they’re one of the two pairs of pre-pregnancy pants I can still get over my butt, where apparently half of my pregnancy weight is going, and my stomach, where the other half is (more understandably) showing up.

So it’s mid-morning and I make one of my many trips to the bathroom, but instead of unwinding the rubber band from around the button of my pants I somehow keep winding it around instead, and I keep doing it until it’s so tightly wrapped around it that there’s no way I can get it untangled. I actually had to leave the bathroom and cut it off. I blamed it on baby brain, since I obviously just wasn’t thinking during what should have been a fairly mindless task.

In other (better) news, I know I wrote recently about the challenges of researching good daycare. That whole issue was made even more frightening the other day when that news story came out about the 22-year-old local daycare worker who killed an 18 month old when she literally slammed him to the floor because she was frustrated with him. How utterly horrifying is that? I know a girl who actually considered that very same place for her son, who is the same age, and she was incredibly shaken by the story. Any parent would be. I mean, it’s hard enough to send your child into a stranger’s care, but many, many families don’t have a choice but to do just that, and then you hear about something like this.

Of course, even with a nanny you aren’t completely escaping that problem. But when you’re picking a nanny, the search and interview process is much more about the person herself (or himself, I suppose, but let’s be realistic here) than about the place, which is where most of the research for daycare centers focuses. I bring up the nanny thing because the other night out of the blue, Laurie called and said she and Jeff have decided not to send their girls back to his sister for another year after all. They’re going to get a nanny instead, which puts our old idea of nanny sharing back on the table.

I’m excited about it for a lot of reasons. First, because the attention is much more personal, and the kids would be at ours or their house rather than somewhere that could be farther away. Also, they can do personalized outings, there won’t be a room full of kids who will be getting sick all the time, and the kids can all get to know their cousins (well, as much as an infant can “know” people, I suppose).

So the four of us are going to get together next Friday and talk details: how it might work, what kind of person we’d want to find, what hours we’d want them to cover, and of course, how the finances would work. We touched on this a little in our initial conversation. On one hand you could say they should pay 2/3 and we should pay 1/3 because they have two kids and we’ll have one. But one of their girls will be in kindergarten half the day. And babies demand a different level of care. But babies also spend a lot of time sleeping. And so on. The four of us have a very good relationship so I think these discussions will go smoothly, but I hope it doesn’t end up being the kind of thing that we could eventually fight about. Laurie has a very strong personality, but then, so can I. So we’ll see. Nothing’s definite, but I’m excited about it.

In other news, we had a doctors’ appointment this morning. Now that we have our fetal doppler, the excitement of hearing the baby’s heartbeat there isn’t as big of a deal, but it’s always nice to have the chance to ask the doctor my random questions. Unlike last time, when literally the only thing I could think of to ask was whether I could eat sausage, I had a small list this time:

• Were these new and changing moles I was getting normal or should I see a dermatologist? (They were fine; I’ve read in multiple places that moles can get darker or more numerous during pregnancy, but it’s always good to have them checked out).
• Were there any yoga moves I shouldn’t be doing during pregnancy? (My doctor asked if I was doing prenatal yoga classes and I said, no, just the yoga on Wii Fit. She said the poses should be fine unless they put too much pressure on my abdomen or cause me to really bear down. As far as poses that start on my back, she said I’d feel it when I shouldn’t be doing those anymore).
• Should I stop drinking my two caffeine-free Diet Cokes a day and cup or two of decaf coffee because of the artificial sweeteners in the soda and small amounts of caffeine in the coffee? (No and no).
• Was my 10-pound weight gain at 16 weeks and 5 days too much? (For now it’s fine, she said, but she added that it should start to taper off. I wonder how or why that would happen, though, since I can’t see myself starting to be less hungry…)

And that was it. The really big part of the visit came at the very end, when we scheduled our next appointment. Yes, four weeks from today, on Feb. 19, we’ll find out the answer to that eternal question: pink or blue?

Pound for Pound

So I’m kind of freaking out about my weight gain so far. It all started out so positively. At my last appointment two and a half weeks ago I’d gained 3 pounds, which from everything I’d read was right in line with what was good for the first trimester. At that point I was just a day shy of 11 weeks, so I figured it was pretty close to the end of the first trimester and maybe I’d gain another pound or so in the next couple weeks after that.

Two days ago, earlier in the day before my doctor’s appointment, I’d even responded to a thread on the Babycenter forum from another mom-to-be worried about her early weight gain and reassured her that it sounded fine, and while I was a little worried about the coming weight gain, I was trying to avoid stressing about it by not weighing myself too often. Even at the doctor, I tried to escape without a weigh in, but in the end the nurse got me. On the scale the weight kept sliding to the right, all the way to 138. That meant not only have I gained 7 pounds since my first appointment on Nov. 14, but I’ve gained four pounds in the past two and a half weeks!

I know that later in the pregnancy this rate of a pound a week can be normal, but yowsah, I don’t think it’s supposed to start happening this early! When I bemoaned the situation to my sister today, she offered some helpful rationalizing – was I at my summer weight or my winter weight when they did the first measurement, she asked? And it’s true, I was at my more active “summer” weight – I was 2 or 3 pounds below what I usually am. So I keep telling myself that I’m only up 4 or 5 pounds from my normal weight, which sounds somehow better, but really it’s just splitting hairs because no matter where I started, I’ve gained 7 pounds in 7 weeks!

On the other hand, if I gain a pound a week for the rest of the pregnancy (theoretically, about 26 weeks), then my total would be 33 poounds, which is still in line with the 25 to 35 pounds they advise. And I know that a lot of women do gain more than 35 pounds, especially with their first. But I also know that the more I gain, the more I’ll have to lose, and starving myself on salads and water for 6 months after I have the baby will never be an option for a food lover like me.

So my plan going forward, ideally, is to try not to obsess about the weight gain and still eat when I’m hungry, but try to make sure I’m really still hungry when deciding whether I need to finish that burger and fries or slab of ribs or chunk of lasagna (hey, I eat healthy breakfasts, lunches and daytime snacks!). I’m also going to try to eat even more healthy snacks and keep fewer indulgences like candy and ice cream and chips close at hand.  But the biggest thing is probably getting back on my regular exercise schedule. Keeping my heartbeat below 140 has made the elliptical a bit of a drag, but to be honest, I’d been slacking off from my usual 3-4 times a week a good two months before I found out I was pregnant, and it’s time to get back on track. I’ve been doing more Wii fit and keeping to my regular Saturday walks with my sister, so that’s a start.

Wish me luck … and bring on those carrots!