7 Weeks Down

This post is feeling like it’s gonna be a confessional of sorts.

Lets start out by remembering you are talking to a mid-first-trimester women. Who knows if any of this stuff is true outside of my over-senseory-in-taking body and mind. But let us also remember, it’s not just true to me --- it’s full-on overload-true, to my over-everything self.

 (I’m hoping the typing of some of this will do that “put it to bed” thing that sometimes comes from writing. It’s long. It’s whiny. I don’t really expect anyone to read it. I just feel like a good vent will clear my mind out. And I do have moments where I am not insane. But I’m compiling all insane moments this week into one place -- be scared!)

• First off, currently I do not feel excited about being pregnant.

 I will later. But I really don’t right now.
 I did -- the first day I thought I was pregnant. (I took a test really early, got nothing, threw it in a drawer, and next day there was another faint line. I know that’s not how to read the thing, but I was smelling olives through glass jars, so I thought I might be onto something.)  I was so happy. I felt like talking to the baby. I felt glowy and like I had a special secret. I was pumped.
    But then I slipped into the first trimester and it’s awful grip. I ALWAYS underestimate the first trimester’s powers (unless I am inside of them.) I always think I’ll breeze through it. I always think “I won’t be ‘that' girl.” And even though I now have been through 2 full pregnancies -- first trimester is something so visceral and so unique to those first months or pregnancy it’s impossible to fully retain how it feels. I seem to remember those months from outside my body -- like I can see, in my memory, myself laying on the couch with Jasmine playing on the floor while my body was growing Ruby  -- I can see myself laying there, I can tell she doesn’t feel good, but I can’t feel it myself. So I start to tell myself how it really was ok. And I start to believe myself. Until I feel it inside myself again. And then I remember how much I really truly dislike (and that’s a mild word choice) the first trimester.
     The first trimester basically has zero fun parts. The baby is too small for me to feel, and too small for anyone to see (and if someone says they can that only makes you feel awful and disgustingly fat.) There is zero positive pregnancy feedback from your body. (Unless you are one that likes the fact your chest grows -- but that’s never done it for me. Actually it was really upsetting the first time I had a baby, because I wound up undress-ably sized.) But there is a lot of un-fun. Like the fact your heart can start racing at hardly any activity at all. (Your body just made a ton more blood for the baby and your heart has to keep up with it all.) The nonstop exhaustion -- a kind of tired you can only feel when in your first trimester. And I basically stay nonstop queazy -- I don’t throw up, but I always wonder if I did if I would have at least an hour’s relief. And of course there is the never ending barrage of smells you live through. If I never have to smell cooking jasmine rice again it will be too soon. We usually cook regular white rice, but randomly bought jasmine rice right before I got pregnant (rice is a HUGE staple for my allergy kids -- my oldest eats it for breakfast every day) so every morning I’ve gotten to come downstairs to the new smell of jasmine rice -- it’s kinda buttery and popcorny smelling (but buttered popcorn is an entirely better smell.) It’s scent, since it’s coming from steam, feels like it has to be breathed into my lungs and it’s a sensation that makes me want to punch walls right now. But I just have to take a deep (bad smelling) breath and stay calm because I am a mom.

So all that to say, people keep congratulating me and I feel silly saying "thank you.” I kind of feel like they are saying “Yay you have the flu!” But then I have to remind myself why I “have the flu.” I’ve thus far inside three pregnancies have failed to connect well with the baby before I can feel the baby. And that always disappoints me. Because I always think I will do better at it.
     I’ve definitely had the thought numerous times already that if I could change my mind now I would. I’d like to push pause on the pregnancy and come back again later when I feel more up to it. (But a terribly selfish deep secret part of me knows I might just not come back.)
    ( I feel like being super honest right now. I  really like being honest, but I don’t always like being this honest because I don’t want it to hurt my baby’s feelings later. But I feel like it’s ok to write this because It’s not that I don’t love my baby, but just the fact that I am a person and when I face hard things sometimes I want to quit. I just want to write down my feelings for real because I think at some point in my children's lives they will feel a feeling that relates to this and they will see that they can, in fact, find strength in weakness. So many times in life we do things we desperately would rather not do because we have to go past ourselves.)

• Food had really sucked this week. 

Me and food have a really hard relationship. Why? Settle in for the fast story (but still sorta long) version.
     There is the fact that I used to be overweight most my post-pubescent life. Then there is the fact I felt really terribly unfit after having my first baby and could not look in the mirror. The fact I had to change my mind about food and exercise to get fit between pregnancies. But then, the bad fact that all that changes I made were all fear motivated -- because I felt like it could affect my chance to VBAC. So everything I did from the day I got home from the hospital with my first, to the day I gave birth to my second was straight up out of fear -- it made for a very strange relationship with food. Which of course spawned a sugar obsession after my second was here because now I didn’t have a fear motivator anymore. Then add in the fact that, in bits and pieces, we have learned over the years that my children have quite a lot of food allergies. The original way I learned to eat healthily when getting fit, doesn’t work anymore because I can’t feed my kids a lot of those foods. We can’t be paleo, we can’t be vegan, we can’t be any cool food club because we have cut out so many foods already if we cut out anymore I don’t feel we can get full nutrition.
   I feel me like doing that major life transforming I did between babies should count for like a good 10 -15 year break from thinking about food. But life plays dirty, and it dealt me new cards. These cards often feel like an impossible hand. Because, not only did I get numerous food allergy cards, but somehow I also got dealt an incredibly picky eater card too.
   Here’s the thing about food. Life revolves around it. Literally. And emotionally. And socially. When food sucks, it’s hard to do life.
   Here’s where I’m at now. I have the food allergies to accommodate. I have morning (or more so: never ending) sickness that tells me to punch walls when we make our allergy safe rice. AND….
Right now I’m very, very, very much craving all allergy foods. Cheese and bread are all I can think of. For a while there I wasn’t eating allergy food in front of my kids and now I have to because it’s all I can stomach and I’ve made them cry doing this. It’s awful. It breaks my heart. And it makes me crabby because “For heaven’s sake I need to get this food into me right now, I don’t have time to explain what is happening until I get it in me, so I can stop feeling like death for 10 mins, so I can think straight, so I can explain how life isn’t fair but I love you so much.” (Always a favorite mom talk right? Because I want life to freaking be fair already. Don’t we all.)
SO then I kinda want to swear off eating so we can just live in peace together, right? Who needs food? I don’t want to need food. Let’s quit all together. Oh wait, what? I don’t get to make that call. Great. We are stuck here.

AND….
And here’s where the pressure really starts to take me past “wow this is hard” to “ok I think I want to quit”
I have this second pregnancy under my belt, where I was AWESOME at eating. I literally did not let sugar past my lips. (This can be argued as I did eat frozen pizza at the end when I was losing my mind, and that is processed and it has sugar. But you have no idea how freaking many cookies I used my will to turn down.) I wrote down what I learned. I blogged my infinite knowledge. I studied and researched and learned. And wrote it all down. And now I can look on Pinterest and see my posts are pinned over and over. (I mean not like famous blogger level, but a nice hardy number.)
     I’m not feeling like I’m going to live up to my hype. I wrote all that stuff down so I could save it for myself. And for my girls. But at this point in life I don’t feel like I’m up to doing it all. And I’m both: terribly embarrassed by that, and kinda terrified by that.
    I worry I’m gonna gain tons of weight this time. I’m worried I won’t have the steam left to lose it later.
   I’m just in such a different place in life this time. Last time I had one kid. I had NOTHING else in life going on but being pregnant. Well I mean we moved and that was hard and crazy, but after we settled in, I seriously was 100% focused only on healthy pregnancy. That IS ALL. And I had the un-healthy, but truly motivating, motivator of terror getting me to the gym and keeping me from cookies.
  This time I have two kids, they are old enough to get the fact the food allergies are in play. (Read: I have no freaking clue what I’m doing with food anymore.) I am reno-ing a house. (Read: my house is more than standard kids-live-here-messy, it’s that plus a lot of interesting. And I’ve yet to deeply unpack in full because I don’t know how we are using the house totally yet. Read: Now I feel like "my clock ticking” refers to the idea I need to finish everything I can muster on the house before baby gets here. Read: exercise feels like it takes me away from finishing the house.
And now I know I don’t need to be afraid. So I don’t have my old fitness instructor, Fear, around.
 Now I just have “should” as a motivator. “Should” is never a great motivator.



Since getting pregnant this time my body very easily and quickly put 4 pounds on without me even looking. I don’t feel like I have eaten crazy. I don’t feel like I’ve eaten great by any means. But I really don’t think my calories as a whole have been over the top.
I’m am not a fan of the fact this has happened.( To state it mildly again.) It’s actually causing me a lot of angst. It’s making me freak out because I’m only half was through first trimester and I feel super worried it’s just gonna snowball into hugeness.

I’m pretty sure my hormones are a large part of the mental breakdown sensations I get over this.
   
I’m also pretty sure I can see the logic in why I gained four pounds.
Second pregnancy I was still nursing throughout it. This time I am not. So I don’t get those free calories. And I can tell it’s making things different for my boobs this time around. Second pregnancy: I don’t think my boobs grew more than maybe a cup size the whole time, if even that much. And outside of nursing hurting my nipples, my boobs never felt any different. This time: my boobs hurt a lot, like they feel like they are full of milk and I need to nurse (which may be true? My milk never dried up after weaning a few months ago) and they are probably two sizes bigger already. So that’s gotta count for some weight.
  Also this is my third. Also I’m older. Also I’m bloated. I’m nearly always constipated (TMI fun). Also I’ve eaten some (not many, but some) cookies. And have a cup of tea with sugar now a days.
  SO…four pounds shouldn’t get me in such a panic. But as I mentioned at the start of this post, you are talking to a mid-first-trimester women here -- hormones are the name of the game. Hormones can make you insane.

ALSO….I swear every time I’m pregnant, someone I know is revolutionizing their life and losing weight and looking fabulous. And making me feel doomed to whale-dom. I think it’s probably that I just notice this stuff more when I’m pregnant. But it always feels so strategically timed, its depressing. (I’m sure I made someone feel similarly when I got all fit. Life’s weird.) And not that this is now, but while I’m thinking about it...I always HATE new years resolution time on Facebook while pregnant -- everyone’s all “I’m gonna lose 20 pounds" and I’m all "I have no choice but to gain 20 pounds (or more!).” So annoying. I think I might have to de-facebook for January. :) Or maybe this will be the year everyone says screw it "Let them have cake.” THAT would work for me. ;)

• On a different note. 

I have started taking unisom to help with the morning (never ending) sickness. I’ve know about it since my first pregnancy. But haven’t caved with the stuff till this one. Part of me feels sorta guilty for taking it and not staying natural. But most of me feels like I made an informed decision and at peace with it. I really do think it’s helping quite a lot. I had a day last week that kicked my butt hard. I felt AWFUL the entire day and I didn’t feel like a fit mother because I couldn’t function at all. I tried hypnobabies nausea track, and it helped take an edge off, but not much more. It’s also supposed to work more with more listening. But I didn’t have that kind of time. Not to mention I was listening to it while hearing “Mom, can you… Mom, can you….” the whole time. Not exactly ideal. So I used my afternoon to read up on unisom and think it through. I gave it the full thought process through all my own personal medical experience as well as my girls medical stuff. Weighed the pros cons, thought of healthy children I know who’s mothers have taken it while pregnant, paired it up against some advice we’ve had on other issues. And I felt it was an acceptable option.  And then I took half a pill that night. (It makes you sleep, so it’s a night time thing.) The next day I felt human. And I’ve continued to take a half pill at night as well as vitamin B-6 three times a day. For the week.
I still get queazy, but mostly when I am hungry. I still feel tired and gross. But I don’t feel incapacitated anymore. So for that I’m grateful.

• And last note I feel like talking though: Clothes.

So I had gone through my closet and pared it down. I was all excited. Thinking this would finally be my attractive pregnancy. Thought I’d make a pregnancy capsule wardrobe a regular part of my blog. But Lets be real. I live in whatever is closest to me when I get out of bed. As long as it doesn’t have a button on the waist band and it’s laying in my vicinity it’s fair game right now. I am glad I pared down my wardrobe. It does help get me dressed on the rare day I leave the house.
    When I pared down my closet I wasn’t pregnant, but I knew I could be soon, so I planned my stuff to work with that. There are a couple shirts I have figured out I will never wear. At least for now. (They MIGHT work postpartum?)  But none of this seems to matter really because I never get dressed.

Let’s pretend I do get dressed, for one second.
I went to TJMaxx a week or two ago (?) and tried on a ton of stretchy waist pants. (I can wear my jeans still but I hate sitting down in them, so I’m over them already.) My trip to the store was awesome. They had SO MANY stretchy waist pants! It seems to be a very fashionable time to be pregnant. Or at least I’ll claim so.
After many a pant try on I wound up with a silky(ish) (it’s polyester) pair of black track pants. (Which I think might get more use in the spring and postpartum since they are thinner weight fabric.)
And an new FAVORITE-favorite pair of leggings. They are ponte fabric -- so nice and thick, not see through at all. They are thick enough that they smooth things out. And they have a seam down the front so they look sort of trousery. So I’m wearing them as pants -- not worrying about bum coverage in these. If you think I’m wrong, well I’ll play the pregnant card. :) They are warm enough to wear in the cold, but not gross-hot for my hot flashes I seem to get now. They are something you can expect to see me in on a VERY regular basis. They are brand "Per Se” if you want to try and hunt them down. (I found them online in plus size here.) (Or a similar kind of legging, without the front seam, by them here.)
But yeah, if I do get dressed I get dressed into these. <3

So that’s my story as I go into week 8.

I hope my vent fest gets me over the food hump emotionally and I can go back to sane again. I did run to the grocery store last night and that went better than expected, so maybe I’ll be ok after all.