Last post for the morning

I’m up 10 lbs finally. I am managing this by drinking 500-700 calories a day. If I stopped drinking so many calories I would abruptly lose the weight I’ve gained. At the end of a pregnancy the placenta + fluids + baby weigh somewhere between 10 and 20 lbs. Can be up to 30 lbs depending on what you are including in pregnancy weight.

So I’m not even holding my own against the weight of the baby in my weight gain. I’m still losing weight, effectively. And I’m not in the clinically obese category so this is not doctor recommended. If I manage to gain another 10ish pounds in the next 8 weeks then I won’t have caused the baby to dramatically eat me. If I fail to gain that much… the baby is eating me.

I think it is funny that the chicken wing on me left arm is just about entirely evaporated but the chicken wing under my right arm is still freely swinging. Hilarious.

I still have jiggly apron pudge on the bottom of my distended belly.

I’m still wearing my regular size large pants if they are stretchy in the waist. I’m mostly wearing regular shirts. I just don’t neeeed maternity stuff in the main. I wear my regular dresses.

The acid reflux from water is fucking killing me.

The baby still feels traverse to me. I’ll find out in two weeks at the 34 week ultrasound. I see my OB this week for the 32 week check up.

Traverse means an attempt to spin the baby and if it fails then a mandatory c-section. I’m not scared about that.

In my previous pregnancies a c-section was the boogey man. Not this time. I feel very… at peace. I want this baby out in less than 24 hours. I don’t care how. I won’t need this uterus again after this so it doesn’t matter if you do some damage to it this time getting the kid out. And while you are at it, tie my tubes.

Physically and emotionally I can’t go through this again. I can’t do this to my family. I’m so god damn depressed and physically disabled that this isn’t an ok thing to do again. This is my limit.

I’m not exercising how I should. I’m so weary I feel like I can barely walk around the house to do basic chores. My body is having more pain because of the lack of exercise.

That’s something cool about this pregnancy. I’m FEELING the difference between good food and exercise vs not having good food and exercise. I’m not sure I’ve ever had such a dramatic physical experience of going back and forth. I can tell when I will feel bad and why. That’s kind of neat.

I have 4-5ish weeks of driving left in me. I’m stopping 3-4 weeks before my due date depending on how I feel. The driving hurts. Lightning bitches about the car posture. It’s not comfortable.

This is still an active kid but not quite as active as they were a few weeks ago. I think they are feeling a bit more cramped.

FMC is still encouraging me to try not to gender the baby. They have a good point. But it’s also hard.

I love the name we picked out. It’s kind of pretentious sounding but it is humorously pretentious in a way that honors the three women who have done the most to keep me moving through life. Who doesn’t want to be a spiritual gift of style and charm?

If I could emotionally get off the damn forums my arms would feel better. So would my neck.

Come on Krissy. Do it for your body.

I think it is very likely that this is my last kid. So when the ultrasound technician asked if we wanted to know what genitals she was seeing… I said yes.

FMC says we are allowed to use the name we picked to assign to someone of a particular gender but we still need to refer to the kid as they/them until the kid declares a gender.

So this may be confusing for folks who are following purely online because I’m not going to announce the name here. Nyah.

I have 16/17ish days left in my second trimester. I’ve gained 4 lbs. This is not how this should be going. I should be up approximately 15 lbs at this point. I’m barely hanging on to the 4 lbs extra because eating isn’t going so hot. I’m trying. I’m eating every fucking thing I can. I am MAXIMIZING calorie density and… just nope. No more fat for me.

I’m to the point where the baby is about 13″ long and around a 1.5 lbs. I hear it is almost the size of a head of cauliflower. (Which I’ve seen vary TREMENDOUSLY so I’m not sure what that means exactly.)

My primary symptoms of pregnancy discomfort are terrible acid reflux and nausea. Otherwise I’m not swollen. I keep getting these stabbing hot burning pains in my crotch that feel like Lightning trying to head butt their way through my cervix and I keep hissing, “NOT YET.” At this point Lightning could probably survive but they would be a million dollar NICU baby. That’s not ideal. Keep cooking, little bean.

if I could stop throwing up. This second trimester sucks.

I took a swig of the “old Amish cure for acid reflux” because my body was burning really badly and I couldn’t sleep, Now I get to go clean out my trash can.

Fucking pregnancy is horrible.

Today (21 weeks) was the first day that everyone could see and feel Lightning move inside me.

So far my labors have been 49 hours and 9 days. I can’t pick someone for logistics who is going to have work conflict. I need to make the assumption going in that someone might have my kids for 72 hours.

Even though my labors defy sanity for length… I am not comfortable with Noah needing to take off and drive 1-2 hours to drop the kids off. San Francisco, Oakland, or even San Jose are quite a ways away. I keep being told “third babies fall out of you”. If I have my first quick birth and Noah misses it… I will be pretty freaked out.

Kids can’t go past the lobby so if my kids are in the hospital… Noah can’t be in the room with me. So waiting a long time for someone to pick the kids up is also mixed.

I think Plan A (or at least the person I’m approaching first) is a kind neighbor for whom I have babysat a number of time. She used to live right next door but now she’s a mile away between my house and the hospital. She doesn’t have a job and she has a lot of available time. She would be ideal if my kids won’t cause her to have panic attacks because they disrupt the routine in her house so much.

I’m nervous about Plan B. My first impulse is to ask the neighbor who lives down the street who babysits for us sometimes… but she has a real job.

Plan C is probably going to be seeing if someone is up for spending a few nights here around the due date. Someone who doesn’t work and who would be happy to hang out with the kids for a few days.

Plan D is probably a solid list of people with jobs who might be willing to hand my kids off all over the valley. Sigh. This plan sounds too much like my last labor where EC kept coming home and going out again because no one had much ability/interest to keep her for all that long at once. Folks only wanted her for a few hours at a time then I had to find a handoff. That was incredibly stressful during my nine day labor.

Folks having jobs is a big hiccup. I need to respect the parameters of your life. You only have to offer what you have to offer. That’s appropriate. I also have to figure out how to make sure my kids are taken care of. It’s a balance thing.

We are starting to talk about what we are going to do during the next labor. Who will stay with the kids? If our beloved babysitter was still here it would be no question. Instead this is an incredibly tense question and I feel really anxious about the fact that Plans A & B are probably going to involve asking to impose on neighbors. Plans C & D are probably going to involve asking if there is a way to impose on friends who live farther away and that’s even more terrifying to ask for help with.

It is scary to ask for things when the “no” makes a serious hiccup in my life.

Well, 10 weeks. That’s how long it took for me to puke. My daughter tells me that it is truly disgusting when I do. Good to know.