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.