Damn fetus keeps eating all my food

In the last four hours, I've eaten: an apple, oatmeal, bowl o'cheerios, tea w/milk/sugar, watermelon, almond-chicken-salad sandwich, cottage cheese and a can of pears.

And I was still hungry. How is this possible?

A sympathetic coworker who doesn't have a parasitic fetus eating her lunch everyday, just offered me a small cup of a banana/chocolate/cream espresso/frappachino thingie. Finally sated, I waddled off to a meeting.



Addendum: I just read an old article about the Berkeley Lab studying the waddling of penguins. At the end, I kid not, it says something like, "The Lab's next subject will be pregnant women." It really does.

Barefoot and signing your paycheck

I'm a goddess! I created an intricate new lifeform from, well, spooge and eggs. (sorry...i liked the sound of the words)

I'm powerful! Without me and my kind, "mankind" would be no more!

I'm even an editor, and a manager, at a 3000+ person media company.

So why, when I meet job candidates who are in my office solely to impress me so I might give them a job working for me, do i feel like such a barefoot-and-pregnant loser housewife?

We shake hands, and I swear I see them each look at my belly and think: "Well, *this* will be a piece of cake. She clearly doesn't take her career very seriously."

I already felt very unSanFrancisco by becoming a breeder. Now I feel out of place at work, like I should be wearing an orange smock and working part-time as a cashier at a Walgreens in Springfield, Kansas.

5 best things about pregnancy so far

1. I've gained 20 lb., tipping the scale at a number I've never seen before, and I'm only at the half-way point....Kevin's already gained 25 pounds. He's not pregnant. Haha!

2. There are some things people don't tell you unless you are pregnant.

Example: I told someone at work about the picture of a placenta I found on Wikipedia (see previous post). She said: "My friend is Native American and her mom has placentas from all four of her kids up on the wall like decorative hearts."

3. I have a whole new reason to be antisocial.

"Man, I'm just exhausted" now has so much more validity with people. Like it wasn't OK before to be too tired to go out…it was an insult or an affront or I was making it up entirely. Now it's a reason for people to send me thoughtful e-cards.

4. The Snoogle.

It is my favorite thing in the entire world, after port brownies and a juicy bowl of beef chunks. I don't even notice if Kevin's not in the bed with me. Poor Kevin.

5. Eating as many port brownies as I want without worrying about if my jeans won't fit. They won't fit either way, so I might as well have another brownie. (See #1.)

Maybe "best" things about pregnancy wasn't actually the right title.

Occasional catastrophy

I asked the doc yeterday about saving up my own blood in case I need that blood transfusion that she'd once said "placenta-previa c-section patients need once in a while."

Alas, I can't even give myself blood. The whole reason I might need my own blood, ironically, is the reason I can't stock up on my own blood. Apparently if right after I *give* blood, I suddenly *need* blood, then I would be *low* on blood (having just donated it.) This scenario would be...and I quote Dr. Bedside Manner exactly here..."catastrophic."

I show up at every doctor appointment with a 5-point list of "is this normal?" questions. You'd think she'd know not to use a word like "catastrophic." Sheesh. She also said, I kid not, "When a woman needs a transfusion during a C-section, she needs the kitchen sink." (As in "you could never donate enough blood for yourself anyway; we'd need gallons.")

The kitchen sink. Hahahahaha. Thanks Doc, I'll be sleeping well tonight.

My doctor, incidentally, is considered by many mommies to be "the premier" OB/Gyn in San Francisco. They all make sure to say how I am so blessed to have been accepted as her patient. She's all over the TV, the journals and the newspapers. And I don't really like her.

But given that I've got a potentially serious issue, I'm glad she's one of the best MDs I could have in the operating room. But she's usually too busy to answer my questions when I call, too busy to look up things on my chart to confirm things (like who I am), and almost always makes me feel rushed during my appointments.

Frankly, she pisses me off. Kevin likes her though, which counts for something. He's often been a better judge of character when I am stressed. And, his preference for her also counts because, in case I haven't mentioned it daily to him, I'll mention it here: He's the best daddy-to-be ever. (OK, he could rub my feet with a bit more enthusiasm, and he could protest just a little bit louder when I lament how massive my ass is getting).

He seems to love coming to the doctor appointments. He listens to me rattle on about "placenta previa anterior." When he attends my "10-inch-long fetus!" seminars, I can tell he's not Fake Listening (that's right, I know about the Fake Listening). He does his own research on it, in fact. And when we shop for Lyric, he's...opinionated. Like he actually cares which shade of pink onesie we get stuck with.

And this weekend he found and bought her a Tiny Tunes mobile (with Taz, the key character, of course) instead of making her one of red and black construction paper skulls, as i expected. A shocking moment for us all, no?

This is the same guy who nearly broke up with me a few years ago because I said I wasn't sure if I wanted kids, because he'd said he was absolutely sure he definitely didn't want kids. We eventually got married anyway (both having agreed to accept the other person's decision b/c we want to be together under most any terms), and then I suddenly knew I wanted kids. And poof! He did too. (One or two of them anyway. "Kids" sounds like a farm full of them).

I win! In every way imaginable.

The Fetus Kicking Project, Part II

Well, today was the day: Doppler came out, little heart did its pitter patter (and lots of bonus swishes, indicating she's flipping all over the place.)

Have I no nerve endings in my midsection that I can't feel this?

My doctor revealed the reason for my Stealth Baby: My misplaced placenta (aka, the Balloon of Life), is not only too close to the bottom (see previous 'Learning Latin' post), but it's also up front instead of in back (i.e., the normal location). Ready to be skeeved?


(Still there? Don't say I didn't warn you.)

Turns out the Balloon of Life (that which holds her oxygen and her lunch) is situated in front, right where she's kicking (I'm so seriously bad at interior design). She's still too little and not strong enough for me to feel her kick through the balloon-like padding she's got between her teeny foot and my belly.

In the 'Knocked Up' section of InterWeb (it's almost as big as the "Paying a Lot for Your Wedding" section), however, I learned that her little legs will be strong enough in the next month that I should be able to join the smug "Stop kicking me!" club and feel the full force of her babyhood jabbing me firmly in the gut.

Disturbing as that sounds. it will be a relief just to know she's ok--it's amazing how often I now find myself reading the warning: "If you haven't felt your baby kick all day, call your doctor; there's probably something wrong!"

(I need to stop reading the Internet, obviously.)

This isn't fair, of course, since I can't feel her at all. Just the little butterfly flutters. I think she's tickling me.

The C-Section yay-or-nay is still up in the air. I won't know for sure 'til 7 months – that's mid-April for those not counting weeks (like me and the rest of the baby wierdos).

Now that I know the placenta is up front, I also learned that this "anterior" position adds a whole new element of risk to the C-section, because the doc has to be careful not to slice through the placenta on her way in to get Lyric. Christ.

To summarize:
- Down low: Bad for natural birthy. (Hey! How do I get outta this joint?)
- Up front: Bad for C-section. (Whoops! We cut off her oxygen!)
- Download and up front: Bad. (Dammit.)

Kick me in the ribs, dammit!

Not even five months along, and already I'm starting to get a complex. Pregnant Genia, 7 months along tells me, repeatedly: "You MUST be feeling kicks by now, right?! The baby kicks me in the ribs!"

Pregnant Caroline, due almost the same day as I am, tells me, repeatedly: "Oh, Brent can feel the baby's kicks from the outside now! Kicking me all the time, kick kick kick!"

Kick, Kick, Kick.

(Yes, when you get pregnant, many of your friends do, too. Or, I just successfully avoided pregnant people before I was inducted into The Alien Host Club. And given the current situation, maybe I should've continued avoiding them?)

No, Lyric has not kicked me yet. At all. Not once. No, I can't feel anything. No, I'm not just "not paying attention." No, for the love of god, I'm not mistaking it for gas. Yes, I've felt the flutters, but no, not a real kick.

I guarantee: When an foot-long human being, living in my belly, kicks me, I'll know it.

Naturally, I've been a basket case, wondering on any given day if Lyric is dead, handicapped, comatose. Nonpregnant people don't understand what totally sane thoughts these are--God knows I wouldn't have understood this before a few months ago.

On my more generous days, I wonder if she's just the laziest fetus ever: Like host organism, like fetus.

I've had hardly any adverse pregnancy symptoms (see earlier 'Barfing Up Baby' post), so it's easy at 3am to start wondering if I'm just fat and this baby thing has all been a daydream. Especially when the Pregnant Friends are all so insistent about how I must be feeling the kicks by now.

Twice this week I've counted the days til my next doctor appointment, eager for the 30 seconds of heartbeat I get to hear on the magic Doppler radar wand. I want to buy my own wand, but you need a prescription from the Magician. And I'm not so far gone yet that I can ask my doctor to let me buy a $300 instrument to obsess over fetal heartbeat. But I'm well on my way.