1. Is there still a baby in there?
2. Why am I gaining so much weight?
3. Why am I not gaining any weight?
4. What the hell did I get myself into?
5. When will my husband start reading all of the very important articles, books and blogposts that I've been placing in front of him?
6. Is this really the most convenient way that God could figure out how to do this?
I had my second DR appointment on Wednesday so I have at least answered question #1 for now. For a few days until I start wondering again.
I am currently into the beginning of my second trimester, at 15 weeks of this slowly progressing journey. And for all those who've traipsed this road before me, I am officially into the "when will I start showing instead of just looking fat?" phase.
I'll paint the picture. I (still) do not have voluptuous breasts to give me the illusion of an hourglass figure. My belly is protruding, though it is not much past the "pooch" effect, you know, where you just look bloated and/or constipated - which of course I am as well. And my hips have widened enough (refer to question #6) to protest the putting on of my pants. Not that it matters because I couldn't button them anyway. Basically I just look like a girl who ate too many chocolate chip cookies. Though...I swear I didn't eat them all.
As far as my Dr goes...I'm not totally impressed. I suppose after years of seeing normal women turn into nutso knocked up freaks you develop a sort of armor. I would call it losing her bedside manner. I'm supposed to be seeing a rotating group of 3 female OB/GYNs in this practice so that I get to know each of them because I won't know who actually will deliver me. But I've met with the same one twice so far. She's by no means horrible, but she literally stands with her hand on the door as she asks me if I have any questions. Um, YES! I, for the first time in my life, have an alien being growing inside of me that is making my body do things that seem to defy physics! I have questions! But you standing with one foot out the door puts me under a lot of pressure so I can't think of any of them. Crap.
Not that it makes a difference, because apparently the standard response they teach you in OB/GYN school is 'yes, because you're pregnant.' As in, 'Is it normal to have all of this strange stuff coming out of different orifices?' 'Should my heart feel weird?' And 'Why is my butt acting funny?' She looks at me as if I were Jessica Simpson waxing on about Chicken-of-the-Sea and says 'because you're pregnant, Dumbass.' Well, she didn't say that last part but you know she's thinking it.
Currently the baby's heartrate is 143. She says it typical to be in the range of 120 to 160. The old wives tale is that the lower the heartrate, the more likely a boy, the higher, a girl. And of course I'm right in the middle which tells me nothing. Except as Mat says maybe we're having a hermaphrodite. Elisabeth has been pressuring me to do the Crystal Draino test which I have not done yet. Apparently you pee on caustic and dangerous chemicals and the toxic foam created will miraculously predict what gender you're having. Which of course leads to the question...who was the smarty pants that figured this out in the first place? (A nutso knocked-up freak is my guess.) I head back to Phoenix next week where I am positive Elisabeth will hold me down and squeeze the pee out of me so that we can see whether it turns rust brown or putrid green. I will let you all know the results.
I've been thinking a lot about question #4 lately. I wonder if it's because this pregnancy is my first, and it wasn't planned, waited for, tried for, that I'm still sort of in disbelief. I don't really feel like I'm bonding with the baby yet. It is so hard to imagine a life with another little human in it. One that is totally mine, totally dependent on me, totally the love of my life. I'd love to hear from my other ladies who've been through this. When does that part start? When I imagined myself being pregnant, I imagined singing to it (though it's probably best not to bring that idea to fruition) talking to it, rubbing my belly all day, feeling the love start to grow and grow immediately, with stars in my eyes and a Donny and Marie Osmond soundtrack playing in the background. I feel sort of disconnected, quite frankly. And it's not that we're not thrilled, because we SO are. Impending motherhood to a newborn seems incredibly scary. I haven't started sketching nursery layouts yet. I haven't registered for baby crap yet (I know several who had by this stage in pregnancy, yikes.) I haven't gotten his/her name on the best private preschool lists yet. Maybe I've just got my head in the sand.
I'm really excited for my next Dr appointment though, because it's then that we will do the ultrasound and find out the gender. And we definitely want to know, we've decided. So do we tell people the names we're working on, or not? I've heard horror stories from so many friends who told and had names stolen (that's just wrong, BTW), comments, eye rolls, catfights and duels to the death over names. I may just keep it to myself for a bit....
Other than all this, I'm starting to feel much better. I probably could start another ongoing debate about which is worse: throwing up throughout your first trimester or only feeling like you have to all the time without the release. I was not a happy camper, to the point where I convinced myself (I do a lot of this) that my current state of dis-ease was just becoming the standard for the rest of my life. I never thought I would feel better. Seasickness without the pleasure of the view. Even weird non-food things made my stomach turn, like thinking about checking my email or going to the grocery store. Anything that required a thought process was enough to make me woozy. (the phrase nutso knocked-up freak comes to mind again.) I can see why a lot of women, myself included, don't gain very much during the first 3 months.
I read about how really, all you need is an extra 200-300 calories. And my first trimester I was like, yeah, psshhht, of course, that makes tons of sense! It's almost hard even to get that many extra calories when everything makes your stomach lurch. This'll be a cinch! But now I'm feeling a TON better and I am hungry CONSTANTLY. I wake up in the middle of the night with hunger pangs. I eat a meal and then an hour later need another one. 200-300 calories, who are they kidding?! That's only maybe two chocolate chip cookies. Which is insane, because I'm like, 10 chocolate chip cookies hungry. And that doesn't even sound like enough. Good thing I just made a fresh batch...think I'll get on that.
