Thursday, June 4, 2009

Moonstones are more than orthoclase

Scott finally took a few shots of the belleh, but he still needs a little practice with my camera. This one, the best of the lot, was a bit blurry so I added some softness effects to it in Picnik. It's still so hard for me to believe that the little nugget is only about as big as a croissant, yet my body has changed this much. How did my intestines move so far up into my abdomen? At 14.5 weeks, some women have barely started showing and are perhaps still hiding their pregnancies, whereas I had strangers asking me about it at 8 weeks.

The appetite is still weird. I'm hungry a lot, and can eat more variety of foods (the aversions are pretty much gone, though the texture of shrimp is still completely appalling to me for some reason), but I can only eat a fraction of the volume of food I could pre-pregnancy. Kinda sucks, I was really looking forward to packing it away with a lumberjack's abandon before I got pregnant. I haven't gained any weight in a month, and I feel like I should have at least put a few pounds on. I'm up only ten pounds, and that was all gained in the first trimester.

Water aerobics has been fun. The girls in the class are sweet and funny, and not at all Stepford-y like I assumed they'd be. It's really wonderful to see so many round bellies and curvy bodies in their various stages of gestation. I feel like I can now relate to other women in a way that I always thought so "women with a y," so yaya/travelling pants-ish, so eyeroll-inducing. A lot of my cynicism about "sisterhood" is still there, but I think I'm starting to soften up a bit in a way that I kind of like.

11 comments:

  1. Ooh, water aerobics sounds PERFECT! So important to do things that don't strain your back...
    I once went to club med (to sing in their bar) and they had water aerobics conducted in french...which was kind of perfect.

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  2. Yay! I think the little fetus is growing to have his mum's appetite, from the looks of it ;) I like that you compared his size to a croissant, of all things. Ha ha ha :)

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  3. Ah! I remember those days well. It seemed like I popped out 3 feet as soon as the stick turned blue! I couldn't bear the thought of chicken of all things! But, pineapple was another story. Ate it by the boatload!

    Don't worry about the weight gain. I only gained 22 lbs with my pregnancy and most of it was in the 3rd trimester. Just enjoy yourself and put your feet up as much as you can!

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  4. You look so cute! Love that shirt, too.

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  5. Totally agree re: weight gain & not worrying. The "pregnancy diet" baloney is all just that - eat what you feel like eating, nothing more, nothing less. Enjoy! Oh, and I like your note about softening up. Happens to the best of us - embrace it. :)

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  6. Awww.You are still way skinnier than me.

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  7. OMG, Octomom!
    Very appealing pic. Hard to believe you'd be wanting to hike steep terrain (in your *condition*).

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  8. Mags - I have so much fun just floating with one of those noodle things.

    Marky - I hope so! But I'm not holding my breath. Picky kids can happens to anyone.

    Susan - After reading your comment I had to get some Vietnamese curry just so I could have the pineapple. :P

    Tanya - Rouching is my friend.

    Natasha - I'm not too worried about the weight thing, just mostly surprised. I thought I'd be putting it on more steadily.

    Courtney - You, my dear, are an angel. :)

    That's the Way the Cookiecrumb - Oh, I do NOT want to hike that shit, but my job won't do itself. Tragedy.

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  9. I know you don't care about this. Like, I KNOW. But I'm going to tell you anyway, since this has been a focus of my life lately, which Chris and I discussing the merits of breeding relatively soon:

    During the first trimester, you should gain between 5 and 10 pounds. During the second two, gain 1-2 pounds per week. Steady weight gain like that helps prevent stretch marks, and makes it easier for your skin to stretch back afterwards. Plus it's ideal for fetal health.

    People keep jumping my shit for being superficial, but my feeling is that if I'm going to shoot out the miracle of life from my own personal vagina, I want to have some control over what happens afterwards.

    Your belly is gorgeous. Who knew you were so tiny to begin with?

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  10. Kristie - it's the part about how I haven't been gaining any weight at all during my second trimester that I worry about, but I know as long as I'm eating relatively healthy (and am not underweight to begin with), it's no biggie. Some books say you're only supposed to gain ~3-5 pounds in the T1, then 10lb per trimester after that, for a grand total of only 25-30 pounds.

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  11. I know nothing of proper pregnancy weight gain, but holy cow are you a cute pregnant lady. Congrats again on the wee croissant.

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