Baby Steps for the Baby Mama

Last post I talked about dietary requirements for pregnancy.  It was rather prophetic, as I had my appointment on Monday.  I've gained too much weight.  My sciatic nerve is being pinched, which causes numbness and shooting pain all down my leg.  On the bright side, we heard Zoid's heartbeat and it's 150bpm, right smack dab in the middle of the range.

My husband suggested we walk together in the evenings.  Last night was evening number one, and it went rather well.  His pace is naturally faster than mine since he's quite a bit taller.  It was a great pace for me.

I use the Babycenter website for all kinds of baby-related information.  Here is their article on walking for exercise during pregnancy.

Also, tomorrow I'm going to start keeping a food diary in the hopes that I'll be able to figure out where I'm going wrong with my diet.

Friday I go to a physical therapist for my sciatic nerve issue.

I sure hope the nesting instinct kicks in soon.  My house is a wreck.

Abby is flummoxed by food.

Everyone has advice for pregnant women.  Some of it makes sense, some of it is just silly, and people love to share it all.  I've learned the polite thing to do is nod, say thank you, and then do what you find is best.  

I'm reading pregnancy books, looking at pregnancy websites, and have (of course) consulted by doctor about all sorts of things.  One thing that has me perplexed is the Pregnancy Diet (cue appropriate lightning and thunder crashing of doom).  

Two things you need to know about my situation before I go further.

1.  I greatly dislike cooking.  I consider it a waste of time which could be spent doing more productive things.  It's an especially good argument considering all the prepared food options out there.  Why take time to cook when I could just grab food and go?  

2.  My husband loves to cook.  He is not home until the end of July.

So, here I am trying to figure out what I can eat that is both quick and healthy.  I don't like looking for recipes or taking the time out to count my calories.  Much like cooking itself, those things are time wasters.

My doctor said 2000 calories a day, half from protein, the rest from veggies and complex carbs.  Stay away from empty calories.  No lunchmeat (listeria), no sushi (food poisoning), no alcohol, no smoking, no unpasteurized cheese (don't remember why), no bean sprouts (listeria again), no certain kinds of fish (mercury), and limit caffeine.  Don't forget my prenatal vitamins.

What to Expect When You're Expecting is a bit more specific about the food part.  That book recommends the following daily intake:

Four servings protein

Two servings vitamin C

Four servings calcium

Three servings green leafy and yellow veggies and fruits

Two servings other fruits and veggies

Six to eleven servings whole grains and legumes

Some iron rich foods

Four servings high fat foods

Moderation with the salt

Eight 8-ounce glasses of fluids

Prenatal vitamins

I thought that it'd be easy to make up a menu plan for one day and then just repeat it over and over, but apparently variety is essential to awesomeness. 

There are also a million websites about what to eat while expecting.  

So, anyone have any simple healthy recipes that I can try?  If it takes more than 30 minutes to make I won't.

I think I'm going grocery shopping on Friday.

P.S.  The garden is a bust this year.  With the pregnancy and my husband's treatment, we just didn't get the tilling and planting done.  This Fall we'll prepare the soil for next spring.

Pregnancy Sucks

Today I asked my husband for blog ideas, and he had a really good one about how I'm actually shopping for my own food and *gasp* cooking it.  However, it's now after 1 AM.  I'm awake because I have heartburn so bad I can't lie down.  I have heartburn because I'm pregnant.

Things I dislike about pregnancy.

1.  Pregnancy brain.  According to What to Expect when You're Expecting, pregnancy brain is caused by the same thing every other pregnancy doom is caused by; metric crap tons of hormones.  For most women, it's a temporary case of ADHD.  For me it's epic derp.  I cannot believe some of the nonsense that spews from my mouth.  speaking of which...

2.  Whoever named it "morning sickness" should be shot.  For me, it was a constant case of motion sickness that never went away for 3 months.  Now it likes to surprise me from time to time, like the ex-roommate you didn't get along with who still occasionally calls to ask if you want to go to Mass with her and her mother. 

3.  Gas.  I burp, I fart, I work with the public.  This is not a good combination.

4.  I can smell EVERYTHING.  I work with the public.  Also, not a good combination.  In these cases, epic farts come in handy.  They'll clear my work area pretty quickly.

5.  I am so very very itchy on my tummy.  

6.  My tits hurt.  I'm slowly making my way through the cup size alphabet.  This not only means I had to buy new bras (which are not at all cheap in my size) but also that I have all the knots in my back.  Also, hugging hurts.  Epic sadface.

7.  People keep treating me like I'm going to fall apart at the seams.  "No, I'll pick that up for you, you're delicate, you know.  Like an egg."  Yeah, like a kung fu egg that will punch you in your neck!

8.  Other people blaming my words, thoughts, and feelings on being pregnant.  No, it's not my pregnancy talking.  My pregnancy does all sorts of things, but I do the speaking around here.  The only difference is I took off my filter because I don't give a fuck.  Not giving a fuck is because of the pregnancy.  My attitude is simply unfiltered me.  STFU.

9.  The weird numbness in my left thigh.  I know it's Zoidburg's fault, I'm just not sure why.  Yet.

10.  I pee all the time.  Discharge.  Constipation.  Nuff said.

11.  I am so tired but I can't sleep

12.  I cry at everything.  I hate crying.

13.  I'm only going to get bigger.

I asked my sister if there's any fun stuff about being pregnant.  She has two little boys.  With a perfectly straight face she said, "Your baby will be adorable."

Be forewarned, ladies.  Being pregnant is horrible!

With all this complaining I'm doing, I have to ask myself if I'd rather not be pregnant.  The answer, amazingly enough, is no.  I'm glad I'm pregnant.  Fucking hormones.

Abby Opens Doors

While my husband is gone, I'm going to be purging, sorting, and organizing our home.  I'm preparing for the baby, but I also want to give him a healthy home environment.  It'll help the both of us keep our sanity, serenity, and happiness.  Unfortunately, I can't do this by myself.  Being unmedicated and pregnant isn't conducive to cleaning or organizing.  

This is terribly embarrassing

So, one of my OCD librarian friends is coming on Sunday morning to terrorize my craft room.  As a step towards healing and to track progress, 

I'm going to take pictures of the process to share them with you all.

Much of this is yarn

I get overwhelmed just looking at pictures of it.  Most people don't ever see past the closed door, for obvious reasons.

I have a confession to make.  I haven't been able to get too excited about being pregnant.  I'm happy about it, definitely, but not giddy or bubbly or going crazy over baby things.  I have a tiny fearful voice in the darkest part of my mind that tells me everything good in my life will go wrong.  Now, it isn't some big debilitating belief that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  It doesn't keep me from enjoying life or being a generally optimistic person.  Unfortunately, that little voice has been piping up every time I get excited about being pregnant.  I'm just superstitious enough to not type what it says.  Now that I'm past my first trimester, my risks have greatly decreased, but there are still so many things that could go wrong.  I have to comfort myself in knowing that I will do the best possible things for my baby, and that's all I can do.

Abby - A Day Late, a Topic Short

Or:  The Magic of Makeup

I know, that sounds totally crazycakes.  However, according to the Flylady, one should always "get dressed to shoes."  Basically, the concept is that if you always get completely dressed, even putting on shoes, even if you're not going anywhere, you'll be ready for anything.  You act differently when you have clothes and shoes on.  Obviously the Flylady site is targeted at stay at home moms, but this baby step still applied to me.  You see, I don't wear makeup.  I don't feel like I really need it, and I prefer to sleep in that extra 15 minutes (because yes, it takes me that long to get it right.)  Unfortunately, getting all the way dressed was my Baby Step for Monday.

Let me back up a bit.  On Saturday, I was completely useless, unfocused, and at work.  It nearly brought me to tears, I was just that frustrated.  In desperation, I put on makeup on Monday.  Lo and behold, I was productive!  I tried again Tuesday.  Still productive!  Then again today and yes, productive once again!  It's most likely that in my morning preparations the act of putting on makeup is a psychological focusing of my mojo.  (technical term)  I prefer to imagine that the makeup is magical.  It is sparkly, after all.  Also, I'd rather not over think it, in case that makes it stop working.

Tomorrow, I wear makeup.  

In preggers news, I am now 9 weeks along and Zoidberg has graduated from embryo to fetus.  Zoids is a whopping one inch long and growing organs and muscles.  I've never felt so tired in my life.  I have literally fallen asleep sitting up.  (That's why I didn't post yesterday, actually.  I was snoring.)  

Speaking of which, I've a few things yet to do before I can sleep tonight, so I shall bid you all good night.

Abby's Gardening Glee

Tim and I bought a soil tester today.  We also checked out our local gardening store, and they have heirloom tomatoes!  So excited.  For those who don't know, heirloom plants are open-pollinating plants.  Commercially grown produce has to have certain characteristics in order to be successfully grown large scale and shipped all around the world without being damaged or going bad.  Many of those types have been genetically modified or artificially hybridized in some way.  Being hybrids, their seeds don't "breed true" very well.  so, you can't harvest seeds from your tomato plants and plant them successfully the next growing season, which is something I've been wanting to try.
Heirloom seeds are all the ones from smaller farms that have pollinated naturally and survived through natural selection.  These seeds used to be passed down through generations, but have become popular enough in the past few years to be more commonly found.  Seed Savers Exchange is a site I've been looking at recently.  The most exciting part of heirloom seeds for me is that they're all kinds of vegetables with odd characteristics and unique flavors that I've never had before.  For instance!

Cherokee popcorn

Pretzel beans

And who wouldn't want these pumpkins?!

First, however, we must prepare the soil.  As it was previously a perennial Zen garden, I think we'll have quite a bit of work before the soil is ideal for vegetables.  First we have to kill off all the weeds and grass that have overgrown the area.  Then, we find out what kind of soil is there.  According to The Harvest Gardener, the ideal soil for a vegetable garden is silt.  Most soils are a mixture of sand, clay, and silt.  The book calls this type of soil loam.   There are a couple tests I can do to find out soil composition (that doesn't involve calling in an expert.) I could fill a jar with water and drop some soil into it and watch how it settles.  Or, I could squeeze a handful of soil and see if it sticks together.  If so, it's mostly clay.  I think I'll try both.  After that, it's time to test the acidity with the soil tester.  Gardening is a bit more complex than I remember growing up.

In other news, Zoidberg is still doing well.  I just bought my first pair of maternity pants today.  I also got a comfy shirt for work.  I'm getting back into the swing of my pre-medication coping mechanism of making everything in my life into lists.  Tim just downloaded the Evernote app onto my phone.  He created a shared account for us.  It's a program we now have on all of our devices.  So far I really like it.  

Goodnight, folks.

She's Baaaaack...Abby Finally Posts

TA DA!

Hello, everybody!

This lovely little peanut sized fetus of joy is why I haven't been posting.  Specifically, that once I realized Zoidberg (yes, we've named the fetus Zoidberg, you shut up) existed, I had to immediately STOP TAKING MY MEDICATION.  Yes, I checked with my psychiatrist to make sure it was safe to quit "cold turkey" so to speak.  No allergy medicine, no ADHD medicine, no anti-anxiety medicine.  Sigh.  It's taken everything I have to keep functioning for the past 16 days (we found out I was pregnant on the 11th of March.)  Tim has been wonderful and understanding and patient and sober and this makes me very happy.

I got lost 3 times this week and it's only Tuesday and I've been living here since 2006.  I'm back to half-sentences.  I really miss my medicine, but I shall persevere.  Victory is mine!

I am 4 out of 7 dwarves most days (that's Happy, Grumpy, Sneezy, and Sleepy, tyvm).

It's inevitable that I'll be blogging about life as a pregnant woman with ADHD.  However, that's not ALL I'll be blogging about.  It'll be all over the place.  Get used to it.

In other news, I've gotten to work on time or early every single day since I last posted...even once I went off my medication.  Routines for the WIN!

Zoidberg demands that I sleep now.  Goodnight!