i felt the baby move!

this morning while reading my email i felt a quick bumping in my lower belly. it felt like soft, unpainful gas or very subtle inward farting. my sister said it would feel like butterfly wings fluttering so that's what i'd been waiting for. i sent y an i.m. right away to tell him and just the act of writing, "i felt something!" made me cry a little.

i'm a little freaked out about how much weigh i've gained

this morning before going to the gym i stepped on the scale. holy moly. how did i gain 2 lbs in less than a week? according to my research, after the first trimester, you're supposed to gain a mere pound per week until the baby is born. i'm in my 17th week and i've already gained 8lbs. shit. i have 23 weeks to go. so 23 plus 8 is 33 lbs. that's ok but...dang. i read that a weight gain of 25lbs to 35lbs is fine so i'm still ok...i just can't be putting on multiple lbs each week.

here's the truth: i've been eating horribly. and by horribly i mean mostly carbs, little protein and trace amounts of vegetables. yesterday for example i had a giant (but healthy) bowl of bran flakes, at lunch i had a turkey sandwich...but then after lunch i had a chocolate croissant, then fruit, then granola then cheezits...then pasta for dinner... the scale this morning gave me the wake-up i needed. this is not a time to starve myselff but it isn't a time to go absolutely crazy and forget all i know about nutrition.

a lot of people say, "but you're pregnant, you can eat whatever you want right now. the baby needs it." these people are enablers or they just want to see you get really fat and have trouble taking it off after the bambino arrives. no, actually i believe it is coming from a good place, they just don't know that i actually thrive on that kind of reasoning when i'm making excuses for my bad eating.

i just read that pregnant women need to increase their daily intake by 300 calories. i think i've been increasing my daily intake with the wrong kinds of foods. this week i'm really going to focus on eating more vegetables and protein. i think i'll get my sara foster cookbook out...

it's a boy!

last friday at my awesome new dr.'s appointment y and i got to see our little peanut. dr. dwight asked, "do you guys want to know what it is?" and we both, or maybe it was just me, practically yelled, "yes! we HAVE to know!" after rolling the jellied apparatus around on my belly for a few seconds he clicked something on the keyboard to freeze the frame and showed us that IT'S A BOY!!!!!

i teared up a little because it makes it all so real now. i'm so happy! our little guy is apparently very active in the womb. he was rolling all around, doing somersaults and moving his little arms. i keep waiting to feel the "flutters" in my belly but so far i'm just feeling stretching and minor discomfort.

as soon as i found out i was pregnant a few months ago i tried picturing my baby. the image that always comes to me is a tiny little boy in a black onesie. dont' get me wrong, i adore baby girls but i could never picture my having one. i don't know why. that first week of knowing i was pregnant was so electrically charged, i was so weirded out and excited. it calmed me to know that i would have a little boy at the end of it. i told y that it was a boy and he said, "it's 50/50." of course that's true but i just KNEW.

it's a comfort to be right about this, i don't have to switch gears in my mind about the child i'm carrying. i knew who was in there from the first minutes.

*ultrasound pictures to come

my awesome new doctor

last friday, y and i met my third and final ob gyn, dr. mark dwight. his waiting room at good samaritan is very cozy. an amazing change from the last two waiting rooms we've sat in. there were a few people in there waiting with us that looked to be about our age/downtown demographic and it made us feel we were finally in the right place.

i first saw dr. dwight in the waiting room holding someone's infant, proclaiming what a feminine beauty she was. i couldn't believe this would be my dr.! he seemed so friendly and into his job. what a dream come true.

i'm so glad that i decided to have a natural delivery, if i hadn't i wouldn't have bothered changing dr.s and would have never landed at such a good hospital. dr. dwight said i can labor in the tub at the hospital and can walk around as much as i want. he also put my fears to rest about coming to the hospital too early in labor. i've always thought that if you go in early and are there for hours eventually some nurse or other will get fed up and start you on drugs to speed up labor but he said that would not be the case.

the appointment ended with a wonderfully telling ultrasound. that deserves it's own post. i'm so glad we got to see our little peanut.