This week brought to you by three hysterical breakdowns, one sainted husband and three consecutive hours of sleep. This is a long post because I have a lot to discuss. Nursing. Weight gain. Blood sugars. Emotional breakdowns. All covered today.

Stats:

Weeks pregnant: 17 weeks. ON THE NOSE. Look at me posting on time! Woot

Weight: 186 lbs  A note on gain: After our long bike ride last week my weight popped up 3 lbs. OVERNIGHT. (This always happens when I exert myself. It’s a fluid muscle storage thing). I panicked. I didn’t think about the ride only OMG WHAT DID I EAT? anyway. I’ve done a LOT of research about weight gain in pregnancy. I feel like I should devote a post to it. Suffice it to say NO MATTER your starting BMI (even if it’s >30 which is considered “obese”, mine was 29. Do I LOOK obese? Don’t answer that.) to gain zero weight has adverse outcomes for baby. My goal is to gain 15-20 pounds. I’m probably right on track to do that.

Gain: +3 lbs total overall (I haven’t gained a pound since week 8)

Waist :  35 at the skinny (I’m going to stop including this) 44.5 at the bellybutton

And bust/hips (just for grins and giggles): 44″ and 44″.

Average number of times I get up to pee per night: every time I get woken up. Probably because I am drinking a gallon of water at night.

Size of the baby bean: 5.5 inches SWEET POTATO

Weight: 5 ounces. Whoa.

Other pregnancy related crap:

Emotional crap: I’m not going to sugar coat this week. IT SUCKED ASS. Matt was gone to a big conference in the big City and I was alone and EX.HAUS.TED (because Ella is cutting molars and therefore sleeping like CRAP) but also alone and exhausted while he was getting to have fun. And by fun I mean DRINKING ALCOHOL amd SEEING THE SHINS in concert and running in a hamster ball and staying at the awesome Hilton. I really struggled with this because it’s part of his JOB to have fun (and he works REALLY hard) and he’s not TRYING to make me miserable. It’s not his fault. Really. It just seems to happen. And I assume it’s natural for me to be envious of his getting a break while I get perpetually MORE exhausted, but to have a hysterical breakdown? THAT’S probably hormonal. I’m just guessing. In any case, that was an ugly personal moment for me crying to my husband about how UNJUST AND UNFAIR life is for me right now, but I’m sharing it with you because i want YOU to know that PREGNANCY MAKES WOMEN INSANE SOMETIMES. Totally. Batshit. Crazy. He took over night duty two nights this week with Ella and even though I woke up every time she woke up not having to GET up and stand over her bed made a HUGE difference in my energy and attitude. Not that I don’t still want a martini.

Physical crap: One word: Prevacid. I COULD NOT take it anymore. The reflux was killing me. I didn’t want to eat anything ever. Not that I’m trying to gain weight, because I’m not, but there were two days this week where I just forced food down.  Also my belleh? It’s getting big. Like in the way big. I measure about 22 weeks right now and reaching the floor is a challenge. I’m picking up a lot of crap with my toes. I cleaned behind the fridge and under it and mopped the kitchen on hands and knees. Not sure how much longer I can do that. Also. HEADACHES. Bullshit. Period. Nothing works.

Also, this week I started checking my blood sugar both fasting and 1 or 2 hours after eating. WHY? Well after careful consideration and research I decided that I didn’t feel like one snapshot (the glucose tolerance test) of my sugar after fasting and then drinking something SUPER SUGARY was enough. Nor was it accurate. With Ella I opted out of the glucose testing completely because I honestly don’t feel like it’s super accurate and I know I’m not diabetic. BUT then she was HUGE and my midwife was like wellll hey maybe we should check and I was like wellll  let me think on that. Conclusion: I would rather have a big picture of what my sugars look like than a one day image. Here’s what I’ve found. My fasting sugars run anywhere from 63-85 (70-110 is normal). Postprandial (after meals) runs 85-94 average. I had ONE reading of 113 and hour and a half after I ate a banana. Normal is < 120 1 hour after and < 105 two hours after. Anything > 140 is considered a danger zone. The diagnostic numbers are basically anything higher than 180 at one hour or 153 at 2 hours. WELL, as you can clearly see I am NOWHERE near those numbers. If anything I’m a little on the hypoglycemic side. SO take that. It looks like maybe I just make big babies anyway. That all being said, I AM going to watch what I eat. Limiting simple sugars and carbs (white flour and sugar mostly) and watching my overall gain. But this whole fear factor of OMG YOU’RE A DIABETIC? Bull. Crap.

What I want to devour: I’m not overwhelmed with any “I MUST HAVE THIS” feelings. I’m grateful. Because usually those cravings are for things I should’t eat. I did eat a whole box of Special K red berries this week though. And vinegar-y things. Pickles. Olives. Pepperocinis. YUM.

What makes me want to hurl: not much thankfully

Supplements: Red Raspberry Leaf (2 caps). I haven’t been taking this AT ALL because I can’t STAND the taste of it. Prenatal (from trader joes). Calcium-Magnesium (with D) pills (2). Papaya enzyme for the reflux/heartburn. It is actually quite helpful. And my friend, the Prevacid.

Activity: We took a long hard bike ride last weekend. HARD. With hills. It was rough. I won’t do that again. I’m doing some yoga but need to pull out the DVD to be legit I think. Right now I feel like the stretching and chasing after Ella is enough. I’ve been too damn tired to do much more.

Boy? Or girl?: Boy. Still boy. STILL. BOY. 3 weeks, people. THREE.

Names: Boy: Maxwell {insert exciting middle name here} Girl: Maggie Anne. Done. Picked.

In other news: Um not much to report. I’m obsessing about not feeling this baby move a lot. And when I can’t sit still and GET a movement I freak out and grab the doppler (twice now). He’s in there. Still 136-144 BPM. But I get paranoid. I am assuming this lack of constant kicking is a feature of the fact that my uterus is a CAVERN. I mean it’s 22 weeks huge with a 17 week fetus baby in there. As Matt put it, “He’s kicking into thin air honey.” Probably true. Still worrisome.

BABY PREP: I’m still working on the wool soakers. Bought some little socks and some newborn sized babylegs in boy-ish patterns (75% off yo). Once I know it’s a boy (or girl) I’ll get some gowns and such. Or maybe just grab some unisex stuff from Carters outlet. I sold Ella’s fuzzi bunz since we’re using the prefolds and soakers and with those proceeds was able to buy ALL the prefolds the new baby will need. Plus doublers.  No covers though. I also got two grovia AIO’s for the up to 15 pound stage. I’m planning on knitting more soakers and maybe buying a couple of velcro ones.

Tandem nursing update (BOOBS BOOBS and more boobs. you may skip):

With the milk nil our patterns have changed. Ella nurses to naps and bed (if I’m doing bed duty) and checks in during the day for a quick one or two minute session here and there. I’ve been really reflective this last couple of weeks. Losing my milk was hard. Really hard.  I felt really betrayed by my body. I WANT to nurse through this pregnancy WHY won’t my body cooperate. I felt really guilty and resentful even. I cried a lot and moaned a lot and fretted a lot. But I’ve come to a real place of peace. First: Our relationship as mother and baby has evolved into something new and different. Because there is no food involved in the nursing anymore, it’s about comfort and closeness which is sweet and special in a new way. (To those of you this weirds out… the first time I thought about “dry” nursing it seemed weird to me. Why would you continue to nurse if there is no milk? Well all I can say is that once you’re in that situation your feelings about it might change as mine have. Now I can embrace my relationship with Ella as about more than just food. I hadn’t really considered this before I was faced with it). Second: I have come to appreciate the space in my bed as she learns to sleep without nursing constantly. This hasn’t been easy for me. It felt like a real failure to be forced to night wean, but as I have said before, I do believe things happen for a reason. There is always something to be gleaned from the difficult moments in life. This is one. And with peace and reflection I can see that too. I hope she’ll be back to sleeping with Matt and I soon because we do like the family bed BUT that being said, if being in her own bed works out better for her I won’t push it. Soon enough there will be another little person there and he (or she) needs his (or her) space too.

 

And here’s the belly photo: