34 weeks, 3 days.

So when the ultrasound tech asks you to guess how big your baby is, it means she's huge. She asked us to guess this afternoon, and I'd read up on my What to Expect of the week and knew 34 weeks en utero means about a 4 and 3/4 pound baby. I guessed 5 and half, because Adelyn's always measured a little big. Jason guessed 6, because he thought he was being funny.

6 pounds. 9 ounces.

SIX POUNDS! As in, yeah, I know the ultrasound measurements can be off by a pound either way, but even if it's a pound too high she'd still be almost a pound ABOVE AVERAGE. And if it's a pound off in the other direction, I don't even want to know what that means for me and my body a few weeks from now.

The main concern with Crohn's patients in pregnancy is growth restriction. And now I'm super excited to bring the ultrasound picture to my appointment with my gastroenterologist next week and rub it in his face, he who told me I wouldn't make it to 34 weeks because Crohn's patients deliver early, he who told me my baby would probably be born at around 5 pounds, because Crohn's patients have smaller babies, he who told me I'd have trouble putting on enough weight to support the pregnancy (I have 25 extra pounds so far that say otherwise), he who looked at me like I was crazy when I told him I was pregnant.

We also found out today that she's finally turned head down. So I can't really say for sure if she did that just because she's a smarty or because I've been playing her music down near the target area hoping she'd swim toward it, but she's assumed the position either way.

And now we wait. 34 weeks, 3 days.

Read more...

Expanding.

This really isn't a complaint, because I think I've had it relatively easy so far when it comes to my expanding figure, but I had a startling thought this morning.

I've gained 20 pounds so far. I only want to wear leggings and baggy shirts. I run out of breath going up the stairs or carrying laundry. When I catch a glimpse of my reflection from the side, I literally gasp. I can no longer paint my own toenails (yesterday I had a rather frustrating episode trying). And--as of last week--Adelyn only weighs 3 pounds, 11 ounces. She has at least (I hope) 4 pounds to go.

I can't even imagine how ginormous I'm gonna feel a month from now.

Read more...

The bump arrives.

Complaining about body image while pregnant automatically groups you with the women who keep smoking, who complain about their babies' sex, who just aren't appreciating the whole thing enough because a lot of women can't even get pregnant so how dare you do anything but smile?

But I wasn't expecting to be pregnant right now, so when a stranger stopped me yesterday and asked if I'm pregnant, my first impulse was to be upset. It took a few minutes of rationalization, going back and forth between "I am pregnant, but she didn't know that for sure, but I actually am so she wasn't saying something negative about my body, but what if I wasn't pregnant and she'd asked that and been wrong, but I AM so that's not an issue," before I really came to grips with the fact that I am now--officially--showing.

One of the anchors at my station is also pregnant and only a few weeks ahead of me.

I also come up to this woman's belly button.

No matter how good you might feel about yourself, any smidgen of confidence easily floats out the window when you're side-by-side with a local celebrity giant who gets voted on Nashville's Most Beautiful People List every year. She's still not showing at all. At all. I asked her yesterday, the same day a stranger had noticed my bump, how it was that she wasn't showing even the slightest bit on her second child? Her answer was that she's just so tall, there's too much room in there for it to grow.

Women can't help compare themselves to each other. It's in our DNA, or at least an undefined portion of our DNA created by an image-obsessed society. One girl I know said she didn't start showing an inch with her first pregnancy until she was 7 months. Another swore to me she was in bikinis for all three trimesters, and no one ever noticed she was pregnant (I'm not saying I'm jealous of that girl, 'cuz to be honest that freaks me out just a little).

But here I am, 4 and a half months, five feet tall, with strangers already reaching their grubby paws at my convex stomach.

And I know it makes me sound like a selfish bitch to confess feeling uncomfortable with gaining constant weight and watching my shape shift without my control, but there it is. At least I quit smoking.

Read more...

Bump watch.

I was getting a manicure with my mom this weekend when I experienced my first case of a stranger commenting on the size of my belly. I'm not showing. I'm just not. I've gained maybe five pounds so far, and if my belly is protruding out any more than normal it's because I just ate leftover chicken and rice for breakfast followed by two empty strawberry shortcake shells (they just looked so lonely sitting there in the fridge).

I told my mom not to mention the pregnancy to the nail people at all, out of fear that they would then refuse to rub my feet during the first pedicure I'd gotten in almost a year because of stupid old wives' tales, but the manicurist overheard us talking about it anyway. Very few conversations between my mom and I, or even my friends and I, can go on for five minutes without veering into babydom.

While filing away at my claws, she barked at me, "When are you due???"

I told her, and then she regaled me with stories about how when she was pregnant with her first son, she didn't start showing until a WEEK before her due date.

"You are having a boy," she says matter-of-factly.

"Ok, how do you know?"

"Because you are carrying him up high," at this she reaches out and puts her hand on my "bump," letting the nail file fall to the table. "If I am wrong, you come back and I'll give you free manicure."

As happy as the prospect of a free manicure makes me, I can't just let something like that go.

I wish I was showing. I really, really do. I wish this incessant chubby and bloating feeling I carry around all day would morph into a concrete something, a pregnant belly that brings along tangible kicks and feelings of movement. It would make this all seem so much more impermeable and real.

But I'm just not. I know this because any bump in my middle region GOES AWAY when I push down on it, which, you know, doesn't so much happen when the cause is a protruding uterus rather than fat or bloat. I know this because I started out this pregnancy at about 100 pounds, and I am not even four months in, so to be showing enough during my first pregnancy as to discern where the baby is sitting would be some sort of medical marvel.

I probably shouldn't take what this stranger, this flightly, giggly manicurist says, so seriously.

Still, her story about delivering her first son in TWO PUSHES sure did make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Read more...