Maternity Clothes

I figure before this pregnancy comes to a close I should jot down my observations of maternity clothing…  Hopefully this will be helpful to those of you who will be embarking on pregnancy soon or who are newly pregnant and haven’t had to delve into the world of elastic waist bands yet.

1. First and foremost we are damn lucky to be pregnant during the retro-popular return of leggings and long shirt/dresses.  This is the biggest gift fashion could have given to a pregnant woman.
2. Invest early in at least 2 pair of good quality maternity jeans, make sure they are long enough and the kind that has the full stretch panel that comes to your boobs.  The little ½ panel was an awful invention, your belly lays on top of it and makes it fold over so that it doubles (i.e. pushes even harder) directly on your bladder.
3. Did I mention that the little half elastic panel pants suck.  Don’t buy them.
4. Buy several plain colored long sleeve (or short depending on where you live) maternity shirts with the rutching (little elastic squashed sides).  These shirts are cute when your belly is little and when it’s big.  If the shirt doesn’t have the rutching when your belly gets really big it doesn’t tuck in to the bottom of it and makes you look fatter, not pregnanter. 
5. Steer away from horizontal striped shirts.  They make you look wider and by the end of the pregnancy you really don’t want to feel any wider than you actually are…
6. Yoga pants are your friends.  Buy black (they are slimming and match everything) ones with the fold down waist panel.  Don’t bother buying the expensive version made for pregnant people, they’re the same damn thing just twice the price.
7. When your boobs get too big for your normal bras buy good quality nursing bras.  You’ll never wear bras that big again unless you’re pregnant or nursing so you might as well have them all be capable of nursing in.
8. If you eventually have to wear compression socks because of fluid retention DO NOT buy the ones at wal.mart or wal.greens, go to a good quality sports store (think R.E.I.) and buy smart.wool brand.  I bought my first pair from WG and they are incredibly ugly and cost 38 dollars for 1 pair.  I bought my second pair from R.E.I. and they are great quality, look way nicer, wick sweat away and cost 38 dollars a pair.  (Update on my giant feet: the compression socks are magic!  I have ankles again and they don’t hurt anymore!! Well worth the $38/pair.)

How Blue Stopped the Tears...

Last night I went out to dinner with S.I.F. and a few other friends for her birthday.  Two of the other girls were also pregnant, one a week ahead of me, one a month behind.  I definitely felt like the only one there who was sucking at pregnancy.  No one else’s feet looked like mine (reference the picture below if you dare.)  This morning S.I.F. posted a picture of us on FB and I looked about how I feel, like a total cow. 

We also had a screen at work today for our cholesterol and BMI.  The results don’t count, but if you do the screen they give you free money toward your insurance.  I knew my numbers would look bad but the free money was worth it.  As a measure of my health they took my height, weight and a measurement of my midsection at the belly button…  Then my cholesterol results came back, 100 points higher than they normally are. 



Believe it or not they're even grosser in real life...



Needless to say between my feet, the picture and my cholesterol I was not having a great day.

Blue came to pick me up for my doctor’s appointment and I started crying and couldn’t stop.  I literally cried big crocodile tears the whole way there, and was still sobbing waiting for the doc to come in…

I was bottoms off on the table and Blue was in the visitor chair as always.  Then he got up and sat in the doc’s roller stool.  I figured it was so he could talk to my crying face… 

…Then he put on a rubber glove. 

By this point I was laughing.

Then he reached back and said “here, let me use the warm gel.”

At this point I was still crying but now the tears were from hysterical laughter.  Just as he squirted a glob of goo on his blue glove the OB and her intern walked in.

She thought it was so funny that she had to go get her iphone to take a picture.

And this is how Blue ended my 45 minute long cry fest.

A cuter foot, Andre's at 34 weeks from our perinatologist US last week.

My 34 week belly (I'm now 35 weeks 1 day)

The best of Intentions

Years ago when I dreamed of being pregnant, long before we even started trying, I researched all the ways to have a perfectly “organic” pregnancy.  I bought books and planned all the ways I would be the perfect fertile garden for my future baby to grow.

Then the big day came and we actually started trying!  I was caffeine free, organic and loving being the perfect womb. 

Then it turned out my womb wasn’t so perfect… So then I got even more serious about being the perfect “fertile” body.  I gave up alcohol and went gluten and dairy free, I ate only organic meat, I used the awful organic shampoo that never makes your hair feel clean but costs 3 times that of your normal, foamy, wonderful shampoo.

Then I finally got pregnant.  But I wasted all that perfect womb time on the pre-pregnancy years. 

During our IVF cycle I added back dairy because I was so damn tired of being dairy free.  I had long since given up on the natural deodorant that made me stink like a teenage boy and the greasy hair left after the world’s most expensive shower.  I was on more drugs every day than a normal person takes in a month.  There was nothing organic left in my diet because I couldn’t bear the thought of eating meat that wasn’t from a fast food restaurant or vegetables at all.

Then one morning at around 8 weeks pregnant I was taking Blue to the airport and we drove past a McDonalds.  He wanted to grab something before his flight and before I knew it I’d ordered a bacon egg and cheese biscuit.  Until that point I had been gluten free for an entire year…

Here I was, finally pregnant and able to be the perfect organic womb for my child, eating a fast food, gluten and dairy packed, greasy gut bomb.  And it tasted better than anything I’ve ever eaten in my life.

Things have just gone downhill from there.  I was caffeine free before we even started trying and at 14 weeks added caffeine back (at my doctor’s recommendation) to control the mind blowing migraines I was getting.

The stories of my failure to be the “perfect” womb continue.  I’ve failed at just about every aspect of what I originally set out to do.  I’m terrible at being pregnant.  My normally borderline low blood pressure is getting dangerously high, my irritable uterus hates hosting a guest, my feet don’t fit in any of my shoes anymore, I hate eating anything I cook or anything that even sounds healthy, I haven’t even been allowed to work out since getting pregnant and even going to Cos.tco causes contractions.

I’m pissed.  I’m pissed that infertility stole my energy to be the “perfect” womb before it was time.  I’m pissed that now I just want to be done being pregnant because I feel like I’ve let my life be completely consumed by my desire to be this way for almost 3 and a half years and now I’m just plain sick of it.

I hate that I feel this way.  I hate that there are so many women still out there hurting and willing to do anything for this experience and I’m not appreciating it to its fullest.

I’m tired.

Losing Sleep

Sleep is getting tough.  Everyone loves to comment on how tired you look when you’re pregnant and then tell you to “just wait till the baby gets here!”  I hate it when they say that.  It doesn’t give me those hours I lost last night back.  It doesn’t make me anymore able to stockpile good sleep before he gets here.

Lately my sleep goes like this. 

Toss and turn till I finally fall asleep.

Toss and turn while sleeping.

Throw covers on and off me and Blue while trying to sleep through crazy hot flashes.

Snore loud enough to wake Blue up.

Blue wakes me up so I can turn and quit snoring.

Wake up to go pee.

Repeat whole cycle again.

Last night I had such bad hot flashes that I sweated through the tank top I was wearing and had to take it off because it was soaked.  Gross.

For the record I really am thankful for these problems but I also hate that I never feel like I’m caught up on sleep no matter how early I go to bed or how late I get to sleep in.  I’m just ready for him to be here I think….

I have a follow up ultrasound with the perinatologist Wednesday to check on his dilated bowels and then an OB appointment Friday.  We will also reach the 34 week milestone on Wednesday which is an important milestone for Marek’s lungs. 

I also am almost completely done with the nursery and am planning on a big post about it this week or next!