Not one instance of hunger -- all day hunger. Hungry in the morning. Hungry after I ate breakfast. Hungry an hour after I ate the snack that I ate after breakfast. Hungry for lunch. Hungry for second lunch. You get the point. I can no longer get away with my usual eat-when-it's-convenient modus operandi. The baby wants food. Pretty much all the time.
My daily nutrition checklist, based on Dr. Brewer's nutrition guide for pregnant mamas, looks something like this:
2 eggs (yes, two eggs, every day)
2 proteins (separate from the eggs)
2 green veggies
2 other veggies
4 servings of whole grains
1 vitamin C source
3 good fats
1 fruit
Total Protein: 90-100mg (yes that's a lot of protein)
(oh and no supplements.)
Notice it says nothing about calories? This is the first time in my life I have ever kept a food diary and not counted calories or fat grams. Just protein. It's glorious.
Rock Hard StomachIt hit me about a week ago that my waist was gone. In the beginning stages of "showing," I had my bigger-than-ever boobs, my narrower-than-ever waist, and my cute baby bump beneath. Narrow waist no more, now there's just swollen boobs and a belly. A big belly. It kind of mesmerizes me when I look at it in the mirror -- almost like it must be a plastic attachment I'm wearing like the ones in the movies. This is without a doubt the tightest my stomach has ever been, rock hard like a soccer ball wrapped in two pillowcases. If only my stomach were this tight when it was flat...
Things Are Getting Real
Yesterday I woke up and it occurred to me that I hadn't really felt the baby move in the last twenty-four hours or so, that I could remember, which disturbed me. Was he/she just having a mellow day? Sleeping a lot? Or was something wrong? I was a little freaked out that the chiropractic adjustment I got on Tuesday (my back has been pretty bad me these last couple of weeks) might have affected the baby in some bad way. Or that the lung-turned-sinus infection that I've been harboring for almost three weeks now had somehow permeated my uterus. Or that a stressful week of work might have caused rising and falling blood pressure that could have had something to do with it. The places your brain goes when you're concerned about your child. And on this particular day, I was especially conscious of my growing child's mortality and the fragility of his/her life because at the very beginning of this week, our family experienced one of the scariest and most earth-shattering events of my life -- a near-drowning of my two-year-old nephew. (you can read the full story on my sister-in-law's blog).
When this happens, chances are the baby is just resting but it's good to be aware if the baby stops moving just in case something is wrong. I did just what I read that you're supposed to do if you aren't feeling 'the usual' movement in your womb:
1. Don't panic.
2. Give your baby a sugar rush by chugging some fruit juice.
3. Lay down on your left side to chill and wait to see if movement increases.
My baby didn't respond right away to the sugar rush but I decided to pray and relax and give the rest of the day a chance to reveal anything that needed revealing, rather than panic and go to my doctor or something. Later in the day while I was at work, baby woke up and I felt much better. Today he/she's been back to normal.
All this to say, it hit me this week that the baby is real and the baby is coming soon.
For some reason in my head I was thinking I had four months to go.
Nope, three months to go until we will be saying 'any day now'.
Where did the time go?
We bought paint for the nursery.
I started having the dogs listen to YouTube videos of newborn babies to desensitize them.
It won't be set in stone until he/she is born, but I think we might have named the baby too.
