Expansion

As my yoga instructor always says, pregnancy is about expansion. Surging hormones work to expand my bones, my ligaments, my uterine walls, all to support the expanding baby growing within me. Weight gain is a natural part of that expansion, too. I am proud to watch my growing belly, but that doesn't make it easy to watch the scale inch upwards. No matter how much I can tell myself that weight gain is healthy right now, I am still battling against 20 years of internal and external admonitions that gaining weight is not good at all.

I've been overweight for years, but in the last couple years I've really focused on eating healthy, keeping lots of fiber and fresh vegetables and calcium in my body, being active and making sure that my blood pressure, cholesterol and heart are in good shape. I am never going to have a "normal" BMI, I'm never going to be a size 6, and I kind of stopped beating myself up over it. After several years in my early 20s of gaining a lot of weight, I had stopped gaining and even lost a little bit, and even though I might sometimes wish to be smaller and feel jealous of my slender friends, I really think that I am mostly healthy and have a pretty good body image.

Because I am already overweight, I shouldn't gain as much as most women would during a pregnancy - I already having all the padding I need. So I've been keeping an eye on it, knowing that gaining too much could put me at risk for high blood pressure and other complications. And I'm proud to say that I'm right on track - gaining in all the right places and not getting too carried away by the "eating for two" and french fry cravings. A modest 15-20lbs is all I'm shooting for.

But despite the good body image, despite the healthy habits, despite the realistic goals and totally healthy gaining rate, I was still somewhat bummed today to see the scale reach a mark that I haven't seen it hit in a long, long time. You can't completely undo 20 years of brainwashing. I know, I know, this is all normal and totally fine. I am thrilled to take it as a sign that my little guy is growing and expanding and getting ready for life on the outside. But I just needed to take a moment and let myself sigh, and tell you all that sometimes changing one's body is easier than changing one's brain.

Squirmy

Little Guy has been dancing and kickboxing and wriggling and karate-chopping all over my lower abdomen, and I am not the only one who has felt him. ZPJ finally got a couple solid kicks over the weekend, which he takes as proof that there is in fact an alien living inside me and that the alien is mad at him and wants to kick him. I think that Baby Boy just wanted to give his dad a high five.

It was kind of magical to finally have that moment that the three of us were communicating with each other right here on the couch. I know that a time is coming when it will seem that he has always been with us, but for now I crave any sign of him, especially the ones I can share. Unfortunately, it might still be a little while before anyone other than ZPJ gets to feel him kick - he's sitting so low that you have to pretty much stick your hands down my pants to feel where he's at. I know that a couple of you out there might be willing to take that on, but be patient with me...there will be plenty of kicks to come.

He's a "he"!

I don't typically put much stock in intuition or superstition, but I've been having very strong feelings that my little bean was a boy, right from the start. And two nights ago, I dreamt that I met him and he smiled at me and grabbed my finger and I saw the proof that he was a boy.

So yesterday I shouldn't have been surprised when the sonographer said "its a boy!" and showed us his parts, but I was. I was surprised that my intuition was right, that I could actually trust what I had been passing off as a hunch.

I'm going to have a son! A little boy who, if he and I are very lucky, will resemble his father and uncles and grandfathers in sweetness and smarts. If genetics combined with gender are any influence on personality, he'll be funny and inquisitive and perceptive and probably a little stubborn. And he will love his Mama!

I am so pleased and excited to have this small insight into who the stranger inside of me is growing into. I can't wait to meet him.

Things I Did While Pregnant With You (Part 2)

I got to meet Meryl Streep when she came to my theatre to help us with fundraising campaign. She was filming a video to encourage people to support the theatre's school programs and, after she finished, our director wanted to give her a book to thank her. He had a copy of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, which inspired our campaign, and all of us kissed it for good luck. I went a step further, though. I grabbed the book and rubbed it against you in my belly before it got handed to Meryl Streep, and you can see that book in the picture below. It was a silly thing to do, but I wanted you to be a part of our efforts to help the theatre raise money to help other kids, and I wanted you to have a part in that special moment of getting to meet one of the greatest actresses alive.

20 Weeks

Friday marks my half-way point.

My baby is complete with all organs, fingers and toes. Even fingerprints and toe prints.

My baby can suck its thumb.

My baby kicks me all day long to let me know its in there and having a good time.

My baby can hear now.

My baby can recognize the sound of my voice.

My baby is as big as my hand and is beginning to develop its sense of taste.

Some researchers even think that my baby can dream.

And this is only half way. I still have 20 weeks to go.

Dreams

Next week we find out Baby's gender (hopefully) and I am so excited. Last night I had the first dream where Baby was outside of me instead of inside of me - a little girl born very early - but she was beautiful and I dreamt about breastfeeding her and bringing her to my parents. All my intuition until now (and the opinions of many family and friends) seem to lean heavily toward "BOY" but in this last week I'm second guessing myself. Next week we'll know for (almost) sure.

2009

The year of the birth of my first-born.

Shortly before midnight on New Years Eve, while laughing and sipping my tonic and lime, I stopped mid-sentence and my eyes popped wide. There it was, unmistakable. My baby, tap-tap-tapping away inside me. A new year's "hello" from the little stranger who has yet to make her/himself known.

I am blown away.

In two weeks it has grown from a shadowy dream to a fully-present fact. There are curves pressing outward, shapes changing.


Two weeks ago I had a secret I could keep to myself. Now it is out there for anyone to see.

I can't stop touching myself to prove that it is real, that it is really happening. My hands press into tissue that recently was soft but now is tight and round. I'm not the only one touching, either. My girlfriends, sisters, mothers reach toward me with loving hands and press their eager ears to my belly. Nothing to hear, yet, but we still listen closely...

Upgrade

When I was a freshman in college, I emerged out of a grunge-inspired, baggy-shirted high school haze to realize that I was, in fact, a girl and that I did, emphatically, have breasts. Every girl grows up wanting big ta-tas, but I very quickly realized that being a D-cup, and then a DD-cup, and finally a DDD-cup was not all it was cracked up to be. My breasts themselves are not outrageously large, but paired with a relatively narrow rib-cage they are nearly impossible to support.

A couple times a year, for the last ten years, I have ventured out into the world in search of bras. This experience is always frustrating, sometimes traumatic, and frequently tear-inducing, and after hours of trying on dozens of bras, I leave the dressing room with a couple barely-adequate substitutes for support. A couple years ago I finally came across a particular model that has worked pretty well for me - its was not what you might call sexy, nor was it perfect, but it worked better than any I had found so far, and since that time I have purchased upwards of 10 or 12 of those bras rather than try to find anything better.

In September, however, things changed for the bigger and better, and my breasts were the first to grow. They have been steadily expanding and show no signs of stopping. I don't fit into any of the nursing bras at the maternity store, and I was becoming a little panicky when I thought of the inevitable day when I will fill up with milk.

A friend of mine, responding to my panic, pointed me towards a specialty store which has bras of all sizes, even strange ones like mine, as well as nursing bras. I went today, and it is as if I suddenly entered the world that my C-cup friends have been living in all along. I got measured, and within minutes a nice girl brought me not one but three perfectly fitting bras. Like they were made for me.

For years I've been feeling like a freak. I felt like I had a body that just didn't fit with any bra I had ever tried on. I don't fell like I look so unusual, so why couldn't I find anything? Turns out, I was just going to the wrong stores. I will never go back. From now on, only the stores that don't even blink when they measure you.

Here is the scary thing, though: two of the bras I bought are 38G, and the third is a 38H. How much bigger am I going to get?