Let the prenatal exercising begin!

I actually lost the 4 pounds I suddenly gained one week, putting my weight gain to 9 pounds so far, not too shabby for a woman who felt like doing nothing but eating for a good six weeks.  I've maintained m weight for the last few weeks, which is good since we technically have one week left in the first trimester. 

I read you shouldn't try any new exercises until you are in your second trimester because your body is getting used to being pregnant.  I say, don't exercise for the first trimester because you will feel like shit.  But now we are safely into "body used to pregnancy land," so I can begin the exercise. 

Like any new endeavor I tend to over-do it at first.  Since winter is here and I don't want to pay for a class or a gym, I ordered four prenatal exercise DVD's from Amazon.com.  They are still being packaged and/or shipped.  They are a combo of yoga, pilates, and plain old aerobic and strength training for pregnant women.  I have an appointment on Friday, and if all is well, I will ask my midwife if I can go ahead and try it out. 

I suspect I will get the OK.  For now I wait and think about the toned arms and legs I'm going to get and how prepared I'll be for birth.  This should help keep weight gain to a minimum too.  Which will be my next question, exactly how much am I supposed to gain now?  I was told 15 to 25 pounds at my first visit, but I've already blown through 9.  So 6 to 16 pounds?  Or should I still gain 15 to 25 more?  Or now is it something like 10 to 20?  And what does that mean exactly?  A couple pounds a month?  Should I gain some the second and more the third? 

And here I sit with an appetite that has maintained my weight for a few weeks wondering how it's possible to gain another 20 pounds in only 6 months.  Do you have to really force yourself to eat?  Will I get more hungry?  Can you gain too little?   Doctors told my grandmother back in the 1950's that she wasn't to gain more than 20 pounds.  Her babies turned out fine.  I have an aunt that didn't gain a single pound during her pregnancy.  Again, baby was fine. 

Babies are usually fine.  This will be my mantra for the next six months.  Because I suspect that in reality, every woman is different, as long as she doesn't have an eating disorder and has access to proper nutrition, chances are she will eat what's right for her. 

I plan to do some kind of exercise everyday, either one of the DVD's or just some plain old walking.  I will let you know how it goes when the DVD's start arriving.  First we need to clean our living room so I can actually exercise in it.  I can't remember the last time I cleaned anything around here.  Hey, if I can't scoop the cat litter box I might as well avoid all housework. 

Our review of "Love and Other Drugs."

Last night we went out to a movie, Love and Other Drugs.  I thought it was very good, Brent said three out of five stars. 

The first thing we talked about was the amount of nudity in it.  There's lots of it.  Lots of sex scenes, lots of titties and ass, but they carefully avoided any exposure of any genitalia.  I guess dicks and bush are still taboo in Rated-R films. 

"Hey there was lots of nudity in the film, you must have liked that." I said to Brent.

"Well, yeah, but the main character who is naked the most wasn't that attractive."  He said.

The main female character is Anne Hathaway, staring next to Jake Gyllenhaal.  I don't think she is ugly, but I did note how she has gotten skinnier in each movie I see her in.  Actually the girl he thought the most attractive, who we see partially naked, was one of the fatter girls.  Now, she's fatter for Hollywood standards, but probably has a healthy BMI.  Plus she was short and curvy, so naturally did not take the rail-thin shape of some stars.  This is when I internally beam at my husband, "not all guys like thin women, some even think the thin ones are unattractive, like Anne Hathaway!"  I think to myself. I'm prettier than Anne Hathaway!

So now that we've talked about the nudity, I guess we'll get to the plot.  It's a romantic comedy.  It follows the same formula of any romantic comedy, but it has unique elements.  And both main characters are flawed and seem like real humans. I liked it, it made me cry, it made me laugh, it was good. 

So, Anne, put on some weight, you'll look better in sex scenes.  Jake, don't change a thing, you are a wonderful actor and have a fabulous body, keep doing movies where you have to take your pants off.  I suppose if you were to do one thing, you could get your eyebrows shaped.  But I'm willing to overlook that. 

Only 27 weeks and 5 days to go!

Can you tell I'm anxious to meet my baby?  Some people might tell their children that they had hardly thought about having them until they started trying to conceive/got accidentally knocked up/started the paperwork for adoption/found a baby on the street corner/stole a baby.  I've thought about having a baby for about 8 years.

Eight years puts me at 19 years old.  Much too young for anyone to seriously consider trying to have a baby.  In fact, I'm all for laws preventing people from getting married until both parties are 25.  But I guess I was crazy enough to want one.  But I wasn't crazy enough to actually go about getting pregnant.  I took my pills EVERY DAY.  Some part of me said, "you aren't ready!"  Also, the guys I dated around this time were not about to do that with me.  Thank god we didn't, I dated some crazy freaks. 

Which brings me to my husband, the opposite of a crazy freak; in fact he's scarily sane.  In general he says what he means, does what he says he'll do, and doesn't get upset easily.  Which means I can carry on like a lunatic without bothering him much.  So six months into our relationship when I was crying over the fact that I wanted a baby, he didn't run away screaming.  He continued to date me, even moved in with me and did my dishes. 

I talked with my friends about wanting a baby too, I generally got two different responses.  Either, "babies like totally change your whole life and cost so much and keep you up all night!" Or, "well, throw out your birth control pills and have an "accident." You and Brent will bake beautiful babies and I can knit baby clothes!"  I preferred the ones that plotted with me about how to get pregnant "accidentally."  You can't fight irrationally wanting a baby with rational reasons why you shouldn't want a baby. 

And the reasons for wanting a baby are always irrational.  Think about it.  No one has ever said, "I have all this time on my hands, what can I fill it with, actually I want a 24/7 project, I know, I'll have a baby." No one has ever said, "I have all this extra cash lying around, what should I do with it?  The stock market has been rocky, I know, I'll have a baby."  And I bet very few today say things like, "if I have a baby, I'll have someone to take care of me when I'm old, and an extra kidney in case mine go out." 

A couple weeks into this pregnancy I freaked out and asked Brent, "why did we do this?  Why did we get me pregnant?!"  He said, simply, "your biological clock was ticking and babies are cute!"  I think this reason is good enough.  A few years ago when I asked my dad about having kids he said he highly recommended it, "it's something to do," he said.


My friend's and my plot to get me "accidentally" pregnant were actually harmless conversations that never led anywhere.  Just something to day dream about and never do.  Who hasn't day dreamed about purposefully rear ending that jack-ass that just cut you off.  You can stop in time, usually, but why not imagine what it would be like to really smash up his fucking Audi.  "Officer, he came out of no where, I had no room to stop!"  But we are mature adults who don't do such things.  Well, most of us are.  Well... I am at least! 

So here I sit a good six months away from meeting my first child.  But I feel like I've been waiting for years already.  I can honestly say I'm looking forward to the crying and the many feedings, all the attention you need to given an infant, and working with my husband on how exactly we are going to raise this thing because, hey, it's something to do. 

I'd do a home birth if my home was any good.

I guess for most of my life I assumed that everyone was born in a hospital, unless you didn't have access to health care.  Turns out a lot of people give birth at home.  Worldwide I mean, we do everything different in the US. 

My niece was born at home in a birthing tub and she turned out fine.  But Brent has made it clear that he thinks the hospital is best.  Actually, although I love the idea of being at home and relaxed and having a totally natural birth, I am really scared that something will go wrong.  So I have chosen to have a birth with a midwife in a hospital.  The hospital I've chosen also offers water births, which have made sense to me for years. 

I also want to do this unmedicated.  Really, how painful can it be?  I feel like I've been through a lot of pain in my life, birth lasts about a day, I can handle a day of pain.  I've had ovarian cysts and migraines.  And nothing can be worse than the seven weeks of non-stop nausea I'm just getting over. 

So when I was only 6 weeks pregnant, we toured our future birthing place.  You meet in the lobby of the hospital and the midwife tells you how unpregnant you look.  We toured the center with a very tall couple who were about 3 months farther along than us, but still not showing.  "They will have gigantic kids," was all I could think when looking at them.  Then we went up to the birthing center.  I must admit, this place is better than my home.  The birthing rooms are about as big as our bedroom and living room combined.  We live in just over 900 square feet of upstairs duplex with plastic flooring and plastic doors and no central air. 

I don't want to give birth in my home, my home sucks. 

I guess I'm willing to give up a little flexibility for a big room dedicated to labor, delivery, and recovery.   Plus the majority of my family has had unmedicated hospital births; it is possible; and our particular birthing place has one of the lowest C-section rates in the nation. 

Birth can't possibly be worse than going through surgery on your uterus and having to recover from that.  That sounds worse to me than pushing an 8 pound baby out of my cooter.  Also, I have yet to hear a positive epidural story.  My aunt, who is a big cheese at a hospital, says you don't want one of those.  I haven't heard the details of her reasoning, but I trust her. 

Maybe for my second child, after seeing how birth goes on the first, and possibly having a better home, I will try a home birth, though I will have to deal with a protesting husband, mother, father, grandparents, friends, and just about anyone I tell my plan to. 

I lost the weight for you, then I gained the weight back for you!

I'd like to say that I gained weight because I left college and wasn't walking everywhere anymore. Or that the pressure of a new full-time job made me eat emotionally.  These all played a roll in how I went from a 155 pound college student into a 196 pound working adult.  But I think the biggest issue was when I stopped taking Adderal. 

When I started college I was 185 pounds.  Sometime during my freshman year I got the diagnosis of ADD.  For real!  I'm not one of those who faked it to get the speed for fun.  College was where it came out in me.  500 seat lecture halls an idiots who chew gum behind you during a test (gum wasn't allowed in high school!) sent me over the edge and I knew I needed help.  A few appointments later they concluded that I definitely had a problem with memory and concentration. 

Call in the stimulants!  Concerta made me feel more crazy and Strattera worked for a while then gave out, eventually Adderal was given to me.  They all suppressed my appetite and by the middle of my sophomore year I was down to 160.  Now I had lost some weight on my own before the aid of stimulants came, I was going to the gym three times a week and walking everywhere.  But the stimulants were the biggest factor. 

I didn't take them on weekends, so I would PIG OUT on weekends, but they suppressed my appetite enough during the week to keep the weight off. 

This really isn't the best way to lose weight, because as soon as you graduate and find you don't need the Adderal anymore, your appetite comes back, with vengeance!  And you gain over 40 pounds. 

It's good I got off the Adderal, because it's not good for your heart in the long term.  But I guess neither is an extra 40 pounds, but I lost it. 

Around March of 2009 I decided to lose weight.  I had tried exercising and not watching what I eat and it didn't work, so I started counting calories.  Let me tell you, counting calories works.  You also have to get some exercise in there, but I mostly went for walks.  Partially I was losing it because I wanted to get pregnant, and at 196 pounds the thought of getting pregnant and gaining even more weight made me feel ill.  My goal was 150 pounds and good weight for my frame.  The wedding in August of 2010 was my deadline.

And I did pretty well.  I made it to 157 according to my husband's forgiving scale (I think it runs low). 

Then I got pregnant.  At my first appointment, around week 5, I was 166 according to the scale at the clinic and 159 according to our home scale.  Not too shabby I thought, we made 166 my pre-pregnancy weight.  Two pounds a month for the first trimester isn't so bad. 

Ha ha!  Then the misnamed "morning sickness" started.  Morning sickness for me really meant, "you will feel like barfing for two months straight unless you eat all the time."  So I ate all the time. 

I was 175 at the clinic by week 8, and 166 at home.  Nine pounds in 8 weeks of pregnancy!  I started weighing myself at home and gained another four pounds by week 11.  Thirteen pounds in 11 weeks!  You don't even need to gain any weight during your first trimester, and if you do they want it to be minimal, like 5 pounds.  Some women even lose weight because they actually barf all day long, instead of just feeling like they will.  Lucky bastards, maybe.  I haven't weight myself since.  I have, however, lost the "morning sickness." 

Which means I don't need to constantly eat to keep from feeling sick.  Unfortunately I'm nearing the second trimester, which is when you really need to gain weight.  They say you can't turn back the clock, you can't lose weight during your second trimester just because you gained too much during your first trimester. 

So, future child of mine, I lost nearly 40 pounds for you, then I anticipate I will gain about 40 pounds for you during your gestation.  You might even say I quit the Adderal for you and gained 40 pounds for you, then lost it, will now gain it again, and will lose it before I gain it again for your future sibling.  Then maybe I can lose the baby weight for good and keep at a stable weight for more than a couple years.  It would help my wardrobe. 

Fertility Awareness Method, or why I got pregnant so fast.

Back in April of 2009 I decided to ditch my birth control pills.  I decided this for many reasons.  One was that I was in the process of getting off anti-depressants, so I figured that any pill that may be effecting my hormones and moods would be a good idea to ditch.  Secondly I was nearly 200 pounds and wanting to lose a good chunk of weight.  The average weight gain for people on birth control pills is something like 10 to 15 pounds, so I knew that they very well could be contributing to my weight gain. 

I also had read that sometimes fertility doesn't come back for a year after quitting birth control pills, at least full fertility.  Meaning you might ovulate, but your cervical fluids might be too dry. 

I wasn't even engaged to Brent at this point, but we had been living together for nearly a year and it was clear that this is where we were headed.  We also were pretty sure we were going to try to get pregnant as soon as we were married, if not a month or two before.  Note: THANK GOD we waited, I felt sick from the pregnancy only a week after conception, which means had we gotten pregnant before the wedding I would have felt sick for my wedding and honeymoon. 

I ditched the pills, but wasn't ready to get pregnant.  So what did I do?  I charted my temps and checked my cervical fluids.  For those of you who are unaware, before you ovulate your cervical fluids become more wet, and after you ovulate your basal body temp increases and stays up until you menstruate.  So you have to avoid unprotected sex a good week or so before ovulation. 

I got really good at charting my temps, but the cervical fluids I was bad at.  So eventually I just charted the temps and we used condoms after my period ended until the temp went up for three days in a row.  We used this method of birth control for over a year and it never failed us.  In fact I've never had an unplanned pregnancy on any birth control method.

Which of course only made me wonder.  "Maybe I'm infertile!"  Actually I should be on my knees thanking the gods that I never got pregnant accidentally, Brent and I didn't exactly use condoms properly, we used them consistently, but you're really supposed to put them on before ANY genital contact, and well we rarely did that, and we also used the "pull out method" a few times when we were out of condoms, a method I have scorned for years.  But really this was all when we were engaged, and I think we thought if we had an unplanned pregnancy, it wouldn't be too bad. 

So shortly after the wedding we decided to try to have a baby.  This is the extent of our conversation before we began:

"So you want to try to have a baby now?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Really?"
"Why wouldn't I?"
"OK."

We had sex once a day for a good week until my temp spiked and we were pregnant.  Apparently we were quite fertile (or extremely lucky) and all that birth control wasn't for nothing. 

Today I am 11 weeks and 6 days pregnant, which means we conceived 9 weeks and 6 days ago, approximately.  Pregnancy oddly begins the week of your last period before you've ever had sex or been artificially inseminated or whatever method you used. 

I started a public blog!

I suppose I should start by introducing myself.  My name is Andrea.  About 3 months ago I married Brent.  About ten weeks ago we conceived our first pregnancy. 

I have a Bachelor's degree in Psychology and work in the human service field for a low wage.  Brent has an under-utilized Associates in Computer Support and Network Administration.  For the last seven years he's worked on the ramp at the airport, also for way less money than he's worth. 

Most importantly though, we are socialists in competing Trotskyist organizations.  This influences many things in our lives including our marriage, wedding, pregnancy, and upcoming parenthood.  Sometimes it's depressing how you just can't avoid the capitalist society, sometimes it's hilarious, as long as you have a dark sense of humor. 

So as we fight for a world that is run for the needs of people instead of the profits of corporations, we also live in a world that revolves around the profits of corporations.  I imagine this blog will mostly be about the hurdles we face in trying to raise a socialist family.  It won't all be political.  I'm hoping to show what you can do by not going along with the status quo, and what troubles come up when your that "weird family that does things all different."