The Biggest Loser
All is well. All is very well. Quinn is the cutest ever right now. He's running around and talking up a storm. He understands so much and repeats so many of our words. It’s so fun when I actually understand what he says. He’s getting a real personality. I love it! And, it seems like life has settled into some sort of normalcy for us which feels good.
Yesterday we had a good doctor's appointment and ultrasound. Cervix is nice and long and closed. My contractions have diminished significantly. I like to spew that there is no proof that bed rest is useful, but I must say that consciously settling down does seem to have had an effect. Even before our little trip to labor and delivery on New Years Day, I had felt a lot of braxton hicks contractions. At the time, we were entertaining visitors, and while I wasn't physically walking more, all of the car hopping, restaurant sitting, party going, entertaining of out of towners and general psychological attention to these events seemed to be too much for my uterus. Now, even though I am working and arguably as physically active, just being back into our routine of home at night and my 5 hours of work a day seems to have done wonders. I also very consciously rest at least one hour a day now. Before, the hours before or after work were spent doing little chores or hanging with Quinn. Now I rest, even if it means and extra hour of Quinn with the nanny. I just have to do this, at least until 30 weeks. I do think it helps.
In other news, I saw the nutritionist at the doctor's yesterday because I was worried about gaining too much weight. It was extremely comical. At 26 weeks along, I was told that I am "done" with my weight gain since I have already gained nearly 30 lbs. Hahahahahahahahahaha! When I was pregnant with Quinn, I gained a good 40 lbs total. The rate I am going I am on track to gain more than that this time around. It’s ironic since I am not doing bed rest so far. In any case, the idea that I can't gain anymore is very funny to me. She did concede that if I do need to gain more weight in the next 14 weeks, I should keep it to about 5 lbs and that "people who are forced to do it for medical reasons can do it, so it is possible." I tried to keep my laughter about this concept that I won’t gain any more weight at bay as we plunged into my diet.
The news there isn't as dire as I thought. Apparently I don't eat horribly because I enjoy lots of fruit and veggies and drink a whole bunch of water. My big problem areas, apparently, are portion control (what is wrong with 3 heaping bowls of pasta?) and takeout food. Even as she was talking, our appointment starting hovering near the 5pm time frame and fantasies of pot stickers entered my brain. It's true, my mind wandered to the evening’s dinner and I thought, "maybe Chinese" right as she said, "takeout is really bad." She also said I need to eat more often because my portion problem can be linked to my gigantic appetite by the time a meal comes. I did try to have a healthy snack before dinner last night and when I ate dinner I did "start with my salad" before my pasta so I wasn't as hungry for my many bowls. Still, when it was all said and done, my instinct is to out cry and strike at this punitive approach to eating. I am freaking pregnant, and there is some terrible injustice to dieting while pregnant! I know I will have to watch it afterwards so why punish myself now? If there is a real risk to baby, then I will do what I need to do, but if it is just me?
Maybe a LITTLE more attention will be paid to healthy eating, but, um...pot stickers will still end up in my diet now and then. No doubt about it.
posted by KMW @ 9:09 AM
8 Comments:
That is really unfair. It is part of your right as pregnant lady to not have to diet. Pot stickers are so little, they count as health food right? Seriously, you are so active when not pregnant, that you'll lose it all before you know it. That said, it's easier to drop 30 than 50. Good luck with the salads.
Sorry, this is the second time I've seen you use the word "bowel" in your blot and I just can't stand it!
bowel –noun 1. Anatomy. a. Usually, bowels. the intestine.
b. a part of the intestine.
2. bowels, a. the inward or interior parts: the bowels of the earth.
bowl - –noun 1. a rather deep, round dish or basin, used chiefly for holding liquids, food, etc.
2. the contents of a bowl: a bowl of tomato soup.
3. a rounded, cuplike, hollow part: the bowl of a pipe.
4. a large drinking cup.
hey--anonymous at 2:53, if you are going to criticize somebody's typos--you should at least proofread your own comment! What is a "blot?"
I can't tell you how much I adore potstickers! I used to live in D.C. and they have the best Chinatown ever. (and the best dim sum!) But I had a friend who would invite me over when her parents were making homemade potstickers. Except they just called them dumplings. Whatever they're called, they're fantastic! I say eat up (but eat one for me too :)
Hey jackass Anonymous at 2:53pm, if you "can't stand it," then turn off your computer. No one is forcing you to read blogs, this is here for the author to share her thoughts however she see's fit. It always amazes me how people get so much moxie when they become anonymous bullies on the internet. I am usually a lurker, but I just had to comment on "anonymous" commentators. Cowards. Just like real life bullies.
Things we have in commomn, stranger...
I lost a baby girl in August 2005 due to an incompentent cervix.
I had a semi-healthy boy (32 week preemie, doing great now) on 11/06/07 with a cerclage and bedrest.
Have as many bowls of pasta and potstickers as you'd like...you're as brave as they come! I don't know if I have it in me to do it again.
I love your blog and really appreciate your wisdom and daily experience in this zone of nurturing and finding a way to blue skies no matter what! Keep on keepin' on!
My wife and I are in a similar spot. No miscarriages yet, but two very difficult pregnancies with unexplained bleeding, months of hospital bedrest/anti-labor drugs and the concomitant trials and emotions. Now we are preggers with the third--and told it might be twins!!--and being evaluated for cerclage.
Now let me unleash some invective about food practices! First, I think you should eat what you want. And, "what you want" is a moving target. The important thing is your well-being, and the baby's, which are...uh...the same for now!
I've been living outside the US for more than ten years now. I live in Japan. The differences between how people in these two countries think about food are striking. If there is a tagline I could use to summarize what I take away from this, it would be "there is no right answer, but you can judge better if you can get outside your own box"
In the US there is this whole discourse about food that people have evolved to explain, justify or enable their eating style, good or bad. It's really complex, storied and has a long history.
Now you have people talking about having the "right" to eat something or some amount of food that is unnecessary or even undesirable from a nutritional standpoint, because they had a bad day, or a "tough" situation, or for some other personal reason. Very human, and up to the individual for sure.
And, in the US you have grown adults needing to be advised about how and what to eat by "professionals" like doctors, nutritionists, companies selling products or government boards. Shouldn't the knowledge and practice of how to eat what is nutritionally sound and in adequate volume be acquired from early childhood, same as "how to take a bath", "how to tie a shoe", "how to dress", etc.?
The reality is that these normal food practices are being lost. I think Americans have flipped over from having a food preparation culture to having food as a commodity. What kind of commodity? Cheap, mass-produced and of dubious nutritional value comes to mind.
On a recent trip to Michigan I was amazed to find that a lot of people who "cook" are actually just assembling, from pre-packaged or frozen components, the home versions of fast foods. Hamburgers, hot dogs, home-made pizza, etc. Veggies came from cans or frozen packs. It's like they never knew any other thing or way to eat. Fresh veggies? Don't like them. Water? Yuck, give me a sugared, flavored, colored, fizzy juice. But make the sugar a chemical sweetener, so I can "lose weight".
Not everyone is this way and I'm generalizing of course, but thinking of all the preservatives, flavor and texture additives, high fructose corn syrup in so many drinks, traces of industrial-scale food production hormones and antibiotics in meats and dairy products...why would anybody give this stuff to their kids? Why would you eat this stuff when pregnant? Google around a bit and you can see that a lot of this stuff is like a vast experiment being conducted on the consumer population. In the end maybe we find out that it wasn't so bad, just made us fat and didn't contain the things that our body needed so we had to eat supplements or pills or had a deficiency or other problem. Even this is an absurd outcome.
Why don't people save the energy and emotional investment they devote to their food issues, and just eat healthy? Why don't they do this for their kids? If they didn't quite know there could be something wrong with it, and because the alternative is unkown or unfamiliar, then OK, but this information is not hard to discover.
Here in Japan there is plenty of takeout and instant food with all the same problems. KFC, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, they are all here too. Factory foods abound. But the people just aren't fat. Pregnant women here aren't fat, and a month or so after the baby, they are back to their original weight.
I think the reason is that most Japanese people's diet is still centered around traditional Japanese food items rather than factory and processed foods. Fish, fresh veggies, rice. I am not talking about "sushi", that is an infrequent item in daily diet here. You're more likely to have a portion of grilled fish, some rice, some veggies, some soup, some pickles or condiments on the side, and you drink water or any of a number of Chinese or Japanese teas.
There is a food preparation culture here. It still survives. One reason for that is cultural--they are proud of their cuisine and of having the longest adult lifespan of any country. And, the culture is for grandma and grandad to keep living with you or living nearby, even after you grow up and get married (heh...can you imagine grandma under your roof 24/7? It's like this when we visit my wife's place here. It takes some getting used to!).
And grandma often handles the bulk of food prep, kind of like constant KP duty. Cleaning and slicing veggies, preparing sauces and rice and etc.
I saw the same thing when I lived in Italy and "la nonna" (granny) had the same function. She was out in the garden at 6 am, picking tomatoes and peeling veggies.
This would never happen in the US unless we are talking about a celeb with a live-in cook...you'd rather be trying to find ways to have your elders "taken care of" and "active" than live with them. This is a cultural difference. I don't think a lot of US "elders" want to live with their adult kids anyway.
But it's hard for the average American to find the time to do all this. It is not made a priority anymore. We replace it with other things that we "must" do first.
The people in Japan who've flipped over into a US-type food-as-commodity lifestyle are usually singles who live and work long hours in big cities so get takeouts and instant food, as they have no time or energy to make their own "real" meals. The food culture here is slowly changing, in the urban areas at least, but there is, to some extent, an imperative to preserve the old-fashioned way of preparing and eating food.
It would be great if Americans had this kind of imperative--to make meals from scratch, to re-educate their palates so that everything does not need to be super-sweetened, super-savory, fatty, gooey, and just a microwave minute away from the mouth.
I sometimes think of turning this idea on its head and coming up with some way to sell/market a healthier food culture to families that are too busy or just never had exposure to it when they were younger and coming up. There is a whole generation or more that lacks this preset and hasn't the foggiest notion about any other way of eating that takeouts.
One more thing and then my rant is done. Stop talking about potstickers!! I am getting starving just thinking about those!!
alison cherry,
What a powerful post. This stuff is so real and so important, but somehow flies under the radar. Maybe it's because it's so private, and also can be dismissed by others as a "woman's issue", but a lot of people live their entire lives without even registering that there is anything going on here, and it's going on all around. Once it started happening to us, literally a dozen people in my life confessed that they'd had similar issues and you could see how deep it ran.
Congrats on your boy. I'm inspired when I read this blog. My wife and I have our issues, but they are nothing compared to the mountains that you and others have climbed, and climbed again.
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