The Kid Has Arrived

16 weeks and counting

This pregnancy is so weird to me. It’s just so completely different from the first go-around that I have trouble wrapping my head around it. At 16 weeks, 3 days, I’ve gained exactly three pounds. I do not need to wear maternity clothes, although I’m finally starting to bump out a wee bit. At 16 weeks last time, I had gained 15 pounds and was so very definitely wearing maternity clothes. The slow weight gain this time around is better, especially since I started off about twenty pounds more than I used to be, pre-Milo. (You know how some people say, oh breastfeeding just makes the pounds melt away! I would like to warn all first time mothers that that is not an across the board truism.) Anyway, what everyone’s been waiting for: crappy photos of me at 16 weeks!

No one knows I’m pregnant unless I mention it:

Still wearing regular size 29 jeans, although you can see the start to a muffin top, so I might be saying good-bye to regular jeans pretty soon:

You can see the start of a bump above my belly button:

I’m having strange food cravings. If you ask me what I’d really love for supper, I’ll tell you vegetables with whole grains (brown rice, quinoa, etc) and a green salad, preferably this amazing greens mix from the farmer’s market that’s all spicy and peppery and herby goodness. The only kind of meat I can even entertain the idea of is red meat - ground beef or flank steak, preferably. No poultry (double gag me with a spoon), no pork, no fish. I don’t really have much of a sweet tooth. To underscore the difference between last time and this time: for lunch today, I had two hard boiled eggs with these really yummy fresh eggs, 6 whole grain sesame crackers and hummus. A sample lunch from this time two years ago would have been an enormous mission-style burrito, maybe some chips and pico de gallo, followed by a rather large cupcake. Yeah, no wonder I gained forty pounds.

Milo and I went for a long walk yesterday over to Park Slope so I could buy a gift for my mother. It’s a longish walk, but nothing out of the ordinary for living in New York. I was so stiff and round ligaminty this morning, I could barely stand. Oof.

I’ve been on the hunt for a babysitter who can watch Milo every Thursday morning from about 9-1pm. I found a prenatal yoga class that meets in Carroll Gardens that morning, and I think it would be good for me to get back into yoga. I haven’t taken a class since Milo was born, and I’m stiff and, if you will forgive the crunchyhippiedork language, very uncentered. (I know, I know.) As much as I hate to spend the money on a babysitter, I think it would be really healthy for me to take a few hours to myself each week, something I rarely do since the boy was born.

I’ve been feeling some middling levels of depression the past month or so. It’s a strange feeling for me to return to because my previous bout of depression (which was fairly severe and had lasted for more than a year, rendering me kind of useless in every day life) had completely stopped within a week of finding out I was pregnant with Milo. I guess all those happy pregnancy hormones just pushed it out of the way. This time around, I’m not so lucky. I feel like the pregnancy hormones are causing my slide into depression. I don’t want to feel like this. I want to be happy and joyful.

I feel guilty about my lack of, I don’t know, enthusiasm? notice? toward this new baby. I’d like to take a few hours each week where I can sit quietly and focus on our new little miracle, to try to direct the same amount of love and energy toward this baby as I did with Milo. I haven’t even written this baby any letters so far like I did with Milo. I never sing to it, I never just sit and talk to it like I did with Milo. I need to start doing my Hypnobabies refresher course during nap time, which I think will help. Maybe it will help me to find that joyfulness and peacefulness that I long for once again.

Send me some positive thoughts, you guys.