Sixty Eight

I just came back from a prenatal checkup. Pee on a stick, get weighed, take blood pressure, and get reprimanded by a nurse. It took about ten minutes.

I was shocked-- just floored to discover the enormity of my weight gain since my last visit. I clocked in at 68 kilos-- a whopping six kilos (that's about thirteen pounds)more than I did at my checkup one month and ten days ago. You're supposed to go up-- what? One pound a week? My friends, I more than doubled that. No wonder I feel fat. I AM fat. The proof is in the pudding.

The nurse yelling at me, by the way, was not about my weight gain (nobody believes me) but about not drinking enough water. She's right. It's my own fault that I've been getting these headaches. I need to drink more.

ULTRA ultrasound

So we went to do a systems scan the other day-- on the fetus, not on our car. That's what they call it here. They have this fancy new technology called 4D ultrasound which shows you basically a photograph of what's going on inside. You can take 'portraits' of the baby. I think it's less practical for medical purposes and more useful just for kicks. Maybe if there is something on the surface of the baby that he is trying to determine, it would be very practical. But mostly they're checking to make sure that all the organs are in place and the right size. Stuff like that.

I was a little disappointed to find out the sex of the baby. I remember that in my last pregnancy, I wasn't sure that I would love the kid-- and I certainly didn't until he was born. I feel the same with this one but with the added anxiety (is there a less potent word to use here than anxiety) of how the birth will affect my DS. He is my favorite child. Of course, he's also until now my only child but what difference does that make? Why does sibling rivalry only belong to siblings? Hopefully he won't be a jealous brother. My brother was quite jealous when I was born but he was a little older. Also, DS doesn't seem to mind when I hold and play with other kids, though he does sometimes demand equal attention.

The little fetus inside me is, however, quite cute(pupupu)if I do say so myself. These pictures aren't entirely telling, since there is a lot of movement and the pressure of amniotic fluid (not to mention layers of skin an fat) floating around between the 'lens' and the subject, but DS, once he un-squished from the birthing process, looked quite like he did in the 4D-- and since he was born a bit early and I had oligohydremanaise (don't ask me how to spell that), he was skinny and bony when born, as opposed to nice and round during the systems scan when I still had enough amniotic fluid to sustain him. But when he filled out again, he started to resemble his ultrasound pic. So there is some truth to the technology.

Still Fat But Better

I know I've been going on a lot about body image lately but I guess that's where I am right now in my pregnancy.

I took the opportunity to evaluate where, exactly the fat problem is happening on my body. I know that I'm bigger and heavier, and a lot of it is just baby belly (or baby bump as the celeb papers annoyingly call it) but there was certainly something else happening. I had seen a video and pictures of me and things didn't look right.

Now, I think I tend to glorify my last pregnancy, but I don't remember this particular shape issue happening last time. I remember my shape last time as just plain old me with slightly bigger boobs and a volleyball-sized bloop protruding out the front of me. Photographs of the time more or less affirm these memories. However, if I'm completely honest with myself (it's rare but it happens), I can dig up memories of me sitting around an complaining to my husband about being fat last time around also. I just don't really remember where all this alleged fat was.

This time, I have located the source of the problem and now I can better hide it if not immediately eliminate it. It seems that what used to be the nice curve of my back-- right up above the butt-- has all but dissapeared. I look more like a guy from that angle now except that guys are still pretty rectangular back there and my butt still has the upside-down heart shape (though it's a bigger heart nowadays, seems to me). Is all this getting too graphic? Skip to the next post.

I vaguely remember someone telling me last time around that when you get a baby belly, it kind of pushes all the fat (as much as there was anyway) to the back of you. So if I remember this from last time, it must mean that I was having the same problem then too.

Other than that, it's not too bad of a prognosis. Maybe a little bit extra on the thighs, but not really. Maybe a little more of that 'skinny girl double chin' thing going on that I hate (you know what I mean? When skinny girls have this incongruous extra fat at the top of the neck? It's worse if you slouch like me.) But overall... well, I think it's mostly stuff that will go away when I start breastfeeding, assuming that breastfeeding goes as it did last time.

Leg Cramps & Pins and Needles

I remember a difference between this pregnancy and the last one. Last time, I kept getting horrible foot and leg cramps. I would bend or flex my toes and they would just lock painfully in that position. It lasted for a couple of minutes each time. I think this is a fairly common symptom of pregnancy-- something to do with potassium? Maybe having a 'nana' obsessed toddler at home that has helped me keep the house stocked with bananas has aleviated the symptom this time. I have gotten a couple of cramps but minor ones.

I also have fewer episodes of my various appendages falling asleep. I still get pins and needles if I'm sitting at my desk or on the toilet too long or sometimes in my sleep, but last time I remember waking up with completely immobile arms almost every night. But last time I was also sleeping on a rather hard mattress and I think that contributed to the problem a lot.

Coffee Break

I'm drinking coffee this morning. Decaf. Since I first became pregnant, I have had almost no desire for coffee. I've taken to drinking tea with milk. Coffee didn't nauseate me or anything like that. In fact, I wanted to want coffee. I like the smell and the taste... I just didn't have the desire to make and drink it. Can't explain it. I've had it a few times but only when we go to a restaurant or out for coffee or something like that.

Aside from the coffee thing, I'm trying to eat more healthy foods lately and less garbage. I don't mean a fat-free or junk-free diet. I just mean that I eat a meal of real foods first and then I'll indulge in a chocolate after instead of gorging myself on chocolate and then filling up whatever leftover space there is with salad. In civilian life (okay, in non prego life) I eat pretty well, but I definitely consume my share of junk food. But when I feel like things are getting out of hand I easily transition to healthy foods. In fact, if someone was to prepare nice, healthy meals for me on a regular basis, I'd be very happy to eat those most of the time. I just hate preparing and then especially cleaning up after cooking. I hate it. I prefer to eat toast and butter on a napkin five times a day.

Butter, by the way, is considered a whole food on my list.

Giving In To My Size

I've been resisting pulling out my maternity clothes. I'm not exactly sure why. I remember being very excited to finally get some last time around because I was so darn uncomfortable already in my regular attire. "But you're barely showing" people would say. Well, that may have been true, but the fact was and is that my regular clothes just weren't fitting me comfortably. I had an embarrassing incident today which I already wrote about in my last post but which bears repeating. I was wearing a golf shirt-- the kind with three or four buttons on top and a collar-- only this one is made for hoochie ladies. It's tight and a tad long, which would normally be good for pregnancy. In fact, I bought it during my last pregnancy and wore it until the last month, though not that often, I think. Anyway, when I put it on this morning, I prudently buttoned up until the next-to-top button, as I am not into bearing all, even though what I've got now is more worth bearing. When I got home from picking up my son, going to the organic market and then the grocery store, I realized that all the buttons had come undone and my rainbow bra, not to mention generous sections of my breasts, were available for all to see. It was certainly the most embarrassing thing to happen to me in a while.

Anyway, I did pull out my fave maternity skirt a couple of days ago, to mixed feelings of dread and relief. I have been wearing the oversize hooded t-shirts that my mom sent me, but I'm in denial that they are maternity clothes since, technically, they aren't. But they sure are comfortable. I have a couple of maternity dresses that I'm waiting to get big enough to wear. Some things look OK when you're really protruding, but really grandmotherly-like otherwise. I gave in and wore a skirt that my mother-in-law sent me to a wedding the other day, even though it was literally falling of me the whole time. It was a medium, and I'm a medium but for some reason it was made really big. I pinned it to my tights and then those started coming down from the weight too. I spent a lot of time rearranging my attire that night.

Foreign Body

I'm trying to remember if I felt this way last time. Certainly, there were times during the pregnancy that I felt 'fat', but now I'm convinced of it. Looking at my thighs, the word 'thunder' comes to mind. Where did they come from? How can I make them go? I feel like my lower back, where my waist used to be, has merged with my buttocks. In fact, I'm convinced of this since I shot a video of myself and my son hanging laundry today (he's very helpful with the clothespins) and caught a glimpse of the wide expanse I used to be so proud of. Interestingly, since we are discussing my butt, it was only a few months ago that I noticed it had disappeared altogether. My body has gone through some really radical changes in the past two or three years since I first got pregnant. I was much more accepting of it last time around. Maybe this time I have the expectation of fitting right back in to my regular clothes after I give birth the way I did last time. Okay, it took me 4 months, but that's pretty fast, they say.
Because of the shape I'm carrying in (wider as opposed to the beach-ball-in-my-shirt look that I sported last time), it's suspected that I'm having a girl. Of course, that's an old wives tale, but even old wives are right at least 50% of the time when predicting gender, right?
I know for sure I'm getting bigger up top. This morning I was horrified to arrive home and see my bra and part of my enlarged breasts hanging out of the top where my buttons had popped open. For someone who's been an A-36 most of her life, this new development can be both warmly welcomed and also a bit alarming. It took me until the 9th month last time to figure out my new bra size wasn't a B-36 but an A-38. Try finding THAT size at your local Sears. Nursing bras were an even bigger challenge, but I digress. I think I'm even bigger this time because even the two A-38 bras I managed to find last time around aren't so comfortable right now. Talk about a foreign body-- who ever heard of gaining three inches of fat on your back??

Warmer

I spent most of December and January on the couch under blankets. That was partly because of my tiredness and partly because I just couldn't shake the winter chill from my bones. Well, it's still relatively cold outside but now it's DH who is cold and turning up the heat. Maybe pregnancy is making me warmer.

Getting Cleaner All The Time

I'm no neat freak -- which is a blessing since I have a toddler who habitually dumps the contents of his dinner bowl on the floor and likes the sound of his toys falling off the bookshelf more than he actually likes playing with some of them -- but I do try to maintain some sort of order and hygiene in my home. You know, making sure that surfaces aren't grubby from neglect, washing out the fridge shelves when they get grimy... that sort of thing. These are the kinds of things I take care of on a regular basis as I notice a need for them, but not with any sort of regularity. This is in contrast to more regular chores like washing dishes or scrubbing the floor which I try to do every day and every week respectively.

Well, in the last couple of weeks or so I've been battling some serious buildup of mess and dirt in our house. It's due to the first few weeks of my pregnancy when nothing got done unless it was an absolute necessity. Anything that required getting off the couch, would've had to have been crucial or acutely important to take care of such as a sink overflowing with dishes or laundry when DH was down to his oldest, grungiest pair of undies. Of course, I had help from him but housework takes second place to his schooling with regards to priority setting, and I'm party to that decision. So what had to get done got done, but things like washing the cupboard doors of those mysterious drippings or cleaning the fridge handles didn't happen for ages.

It's only now, about a month after my last terribly nauseous spell, that I'm feeling as though I'm starting to get a grip on the situation. Sure, things get messy around here, but they don't stay that way for long. And the messes don't build up on top of each other, resulting in a pile of work that is as intimidating as it is large. We have manageable disorder.

It Kicks!

I felt it for the first time last Wednesday, 5 days ago. Well, to be more accurate, it was more of a poke-- a series of them. And they've been coming on strong ever since. I was lying in bed reading when I first noticed it. Who knows, they might have been going on for days already but I was never still for long enough to pay attention.

I don't remember when I started feeling kicks last time around (hence the need for a blog this time around) but I do remember that it was much more gradual. In the beginning I felt a kick here and a kick there. It was a while before I was really sure what it was. If they started out as a ballet, they ended up as a parade towards the end of the pregnancy. This time it began as a good, fast paced walk. That's what it feels like when he (she?)'s active.

The pokes made me feel... something towards the fetus. I know that until the birth of my DS, I wasn't entirely sure that I was going to like my offspring. I mean, there is a pretty good historical precedent that parents tend to love their kids, but I wasn't entirely sure it would apply. Now that the kicking has begun, I can't help but feel a little bit connected at least. I mean, all of a sudden there is living proof-- more so than an ultrasound-- that a little baby is growing inside. Everyone loves a baby, right?

Itchy Scratchy

In this hot climate, checking for lice on your kids is a fact of life. When my scalp started itching during my last pregnancy, I was sure I'd somehow picked up some bugs from somewhere or other. But DH checked and didnt' see anything. Neither did the nurse and the doctor at the doctor's office, and neither did various relatives and friends who I recruited to go bug hunting on my head. I didn't have lice. It was official. And yet the itching persisted. It lasted a couple of months, as I recall, or maybe more.

Right now my scalp is scratchy. Very scratchy. And it can be quite embarrassing. Like I said, this is a lice heavy place and when people see other people scratching their scalp, they are probably thinking what I think they're thinking which is: I'd better stay far away from her head.

This time around, it's not just my head but also other parts of me. The back of my neck, my back, my shoulders sometimes my chest. My sister-in-law was really itchy all over for her entire pregnancy. She said it was horrible. Nobody seemed to know what to make of it and they actually worried for a while that it was some sort of warning sign of something gone wrong. People tend to overreact a little bit about pregnant women.

Pregnant or Just Fat?: In the Mirror

So I'm at the point, more than before, where friends or people who know me pretty well (hopefully those people are friends) can tell that something is up with my belly. Maybe people on the street would think that I'm just carrying a bit of a tummy. I'm still fitting in to a lot of my regular clothes, but they're getting to be more and more uncomfortable.

My worry, however, is not what other people think of me at this point. Pregnant? Fat? Whatever. I'm a skinny person and when I put on weight, it doesn't sit very well on me. People with fuller figures can afford sometimes to put on an extra five or ten pounds-- it gets distributed. A bit in the thigh, a rounding of the butt, some extra flesh on the cheek. But on me, it just kind of conglomerates in the most unfortunate of places. My chin, for example. Or my tummy. You see a skinny girl with wierdly unflattering pockets of fat. At least, that's how I view it.

And that is why I am concerned about putting on weight that is not pregnancy weight. In other words, weight that is much harder to get rid of after having the baby. It's really hard to know which one it is at this point, and it will probably also be hard to know for maybe another year. Last time, it took me until about 4 months after birth to return to wearing all of my pre-pregnancy clothes comfortably. That's not to say that I didn't wear ANY pre-preg clothes until four months post. It's just that 4 months is how long it took for me to decide on what to wear based on whether or not I want to wear it and not on if it fits. I actually put away my nice, roomy preggy clothes after about one month to force myself back into the old ones.

But I digress. I am writing about body image here; how do I feel about this little belly o'mine poking out from underneath my outfits? I remember this stage from last time as well. It's just a little scary knowing that as I fold up another skirt or tight shirt, I might not ever look good in it again. Last time, turns out that I was able to get back in to shape fast, but I have a lot of friends who simply balooned after having kids and just stayed that way. Healthy people. Who eat better than me. who are more active than I am. I guess a lot of it just comes down to genes.

I.P. Freely

Last round, we named the fetus (who was to become our darling son) Shrimpy at first because that's what the drawing in the pregnancy book made him out to look like. A deep-sea dweller with a curved spine and only the bittiest little appendages to speak of.

Then he became Kicky, because that's what he did. Kick. Kick. Kick. I'm here, he said.

I think that in round 2 now I'm going to name the yet-to-be-born one I.P. Freely, because that's what he's been causing me to do. I remember having to go to the bathroom a lot in my last pregnancy but not this much. Also, the increased frequency in urination only lasted through the first few months last time, if I remember correctly. Now I'm in my 4th month and I'm still up two or three times a night. Of course, that might partly have to do with the fact that I get up with the baby so I just head for the toilet on my way back to bed so that I don't have to make the trip later. It might also have to do with the fact that this time around there is someone who tends to sit on or lean againt my stomach on a regular basis.

There is a certain sensation to being roused from sleep by your bladder. You grope your way to the bathroom, sometimes getting the lights on the way in and sometimes not. You spin so that your back is to the toilet seat, which causes more than the anticipated amount of inertia so that your eyes and brain keep going to 270 degrees while your body stops at 180. You aim your butt for the toilet and usually hit it, and then hunker down for the pee, search for the toilet paper through slitted eyes, flush or not if you're saving water, and run your hands under the tap. Then you stagger back to your bed, hoping not to trip on any obstacles planted by your 1-year old, and collapse back in to your bed. This is how the story goes. Trust me.

Breast Changes

When I was pregnant last time, my nipples got all dry and cracked. I think I now know why. It was the chlorine in the pool where I swim. It doesn't happen to me when I'm not pregnant, but it happened to me after just one time in the pool now. It doesn't hurt, but it sure looks wierd to me. I solved it last time by putting some baby oil there.

Sympathy Pains

It seems that DH has begun experiencing some of the pregnancy symptoms that I've been exhibiitng, only his are much more difficult to attribute to a particular source.

I get these gassy stomach pains, and this week so did he. It was really bad for him. He gets headaches and I get headaches. He even had some back pain... hopefully not a sign of things to come for me. I did have bad sciatic nerve pain, though. It's passed for now and hopefully it won't return.

Getting Better All The Time

I know I keep saying this, but I really am feeling better all the time now. Looking back, I can't believe how... how bleh... how utterly useless and floppy I was. I still get tired in between things-- picking my son up from kindergarten, cooking a meal-- and I sometimes need to sit down and have a bit of a rest. But last night I stayed up 'till past eleven! And also the night before! And I didn't have to fight to keep my eyes open, though right now I'm feeling kind of sleepy and it's quarter to 4 in the afternoon. I'm hoping DH comes home soon so I can have a little nap.

Although I've been going to the obstetrician as persrcribed, I'm also supposed to be going to a nurse once a month or so to get weighed and to pee on a stick and stuff like that. I still haven't done it. My baseline weight was 58.8kg and when I went to the pool a couple of days ago and weighed myself on the same scale, I was 61.5kg

Pregnant or Just Fat?

I thought that I was showing, but after my shower this morning I was rubbing cocoa butter lotion on my tummy and realized how mushy it is. A pregnant belly is hard. I think I'm just getting fat.

There is, however, a baby growing inside of me. I saw it on the ultrasound machine the other day. They're crazy for ultrasounds in this country. Thank goodness I've gotten to the stage where they can do it from my belly as opposed to AHEM.

Anyway, the doctor also looked at the results of my latest blood tests. It was the second test of it's type. I had to redo the first one after my platelets appeared dangerously low on it. This is somewhat normal for me. My platelets and iron always show up somewhat low. That's why I was surprised when, on the redo the tests came out without a hitch-- normal platelets, normal iron. I'm convinced the tests must be on someone else's blood. I also appear to be CMV negative, which means that I've never had that particular virus. This is slightly alarming (though apparently doctors here tend to be alarmist about it) because if I do get the virus during pregnancy, God forbid, it can seriously harm the fetus. In non pregnant people or non immunocompromised people, it's just a regular flu. He advised me to be extra hygenic and not play with other people's kids. Which would, in theory prevent me from sending my kid to nursery since they all pick up germs from each other there. He also told me to avoid changing diapers. I can handle that.

Five Barf

The exhaustion has all but subsided. The nausea has almost completely receded. I say 'almost' because this morning, for the first time in what must be weeks, I had myself a nice, burpy barf. I felt a little nauseous last night and then again this morning, but the kind of nauseous which is usually helped by eating. Well, I was in the middle of buttering my toast when I got that 'must sit down now' feeling and then in the middle of sitting when I got that 'must get up now and run to toilet' feeling. It's the one where saliva starts filling my mouth. Then I know it's coming and there is nothing I can do about it. I almost didn't make it, but fortunately the first retch was an empty one. The next one, however, was disgusting.

Remember When...

All the little things from my last pregnancy are coming back to me, though I feel as though they're coming on earlier in this pregnancy. When I lie down, I feel as though I have blood pooling in whatever side I'm lying on. So I flip and then I get the same feeling on the other side. It happens on my back too. This is especially problematic because of another pregnancy thing that has greeted me in Round 2. The sciatic nerve. OW. DH thinks it's actually a pulled muscle, but I don't remember pulling it, and I only had it last pregnancy and never before and never since until now. Sometimes it's very mild but, like a pulled muscle, it really hurts terribly if I do something to exert it like pushing a heavy shopping cart or lifting groceries or, when it's already bad, I can hardly lift the baby. It also tends to get aggravated when I lie on that side. So I have to be very careful when I'm doing my night-time flip-flops not to put weight on that specific place. And it's pretty specific. A kind of line that runs from above my right butt cheek and down through to the top of my thigh. At times it can be excruciating. A few days ago I could hardly get out of bed.

Another symptom that comes out mostly at night, besides frequent urination (but not as frequent as last time) is that my arms tend to fall asleep. I'm not even lying on them. Often, I sleep with my elbows pressed against the mattress and that's enough to provoke this phenomenon.

Pregnant women are supposed to be gassy, but I'm not. That is, I'm not except for about once every couple of weeks or so when all of a sudden I get this enormous stomach ache. The first time I had it, I just sat around, suffering for hours and trying different self-treatments before I came upon the solution. I just need to curl up in bed and, let's just say, let loose. Takes a little while, but then I'm as good as new.

And with that pleasant thought, I end this post.

The Big News

Well, we finally told our parents on Friday. We are thinking of waiting a few days to tell everyone else, though. DH hasn't actually had a chance to talk to his mom yet. She doesn't get up early enough for them to speak on Fridays because of the time difference.
So the word is out... should I make this blog public now?