When I was pregnant with The Fraggle Bug, my body grew and grew and grew (as did my dear Fraggle Bug). Early in the second trimester, my doctor at the time gave me a little talk about my weight gain in the four weeks since I had last seen her. What I took from our conversation were two warnings:
(1) at this rate, your baby will be enormous; and
(2) at this rate, you will never lose the pregnancy weight that you have gained, so you should probably just plan on looking five months pregnant for the rest of your life.
Four weeks later, I returned to the doctor for a check-up. This time, I had gained half as much weight as the month before, but we still had the talk, and those warnings felt exactly the same. I am sure that she did not intend to initiate what would become a several month long obsession with food and my weight gain, or to make me cry, but both things happened about two minutes after I left that appointment. As my pregnancy continued, I ended up referring to my check-ups as my weigh-ins. I made my appointments with the other doctors in the group and never saw my original doctor again because I felt a terrible blend of anger and shame.
Eventually, two things happened.
One: my baby was big when he was born. I mean very big. So big that the delivery nurse pressed the call button upon his arrival and said to the nurses' station, "Call Peds. We have a . . . big baby here!" But my baby was also born healthy and beautiful and has been thriving ever since.
Two: I lost the weight that I had gained while I was pregnant.
Now, here I am, pregnant again and steam rolling out of the second trimester and into the third. When I started this pregnancy, I thought that I would go to the gym and yoga classes until Week 40, that I would be much wiser about the cupcakes and ice cream, and that I would gain much less weight. Apparently, the pain of child birth is not the only thing that Nature helps us to forget before we get pregnant again.
This past month, and especially the past ten days or so, included quite a growth spurt. I had an appointment with my midwife yesterday, and even though she has been nothing but wonderful and supportive so far, all I could think about for the last week was my weight and my "weigh-in" (especially because she is part of the same practice I went to during my first pregnancy).
It turns out I did have a growth spurt (as did Special Agent Dos), and I did gain quite a bit of weight this month. It also turns out that because The Bug and I made it through the first pregnancy and delivery so well, my midwife is not worried and did not provide any warnings. She suggested, quite simply, that this is probably just how my body does pregnancy. And just like that, I was on my way.
The same exact thing just happened to me! And I had a meltdown over it. I'm pregnant with my second, and had a spike in weight gain in my second trimester, and my doctor told me, in a snarky way, that if I were eating 3 small meals a day this wouldn't be happening. It has totally thrown me. My first was big, and my second will probably be big, and I lost all the weight, and just like you said, I think this is just the way my body handles pregnancy. I called her the next day because I couldn't let it go and told her that it's a sensitive thing when talking to a pregnant woman about her weight, because we feel like we are on a train we can't get off of. She apologized, and I feel like there's some closure to it, but I can't let it go completely and I wish she had never said it. I find myself hanging onto people's compliments way more than I should. As if being pregnant weren't public enough already, and frustrating enough.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this story. I'm glad to know it wasn't just me.
I am impressed you called your doctor and managed to address the issue in a mature, thoughtful way -- nice work. It sounds like your little one(s) have a great role model in you, which seems so much more important than all of those things that are out of our control.
ReplyDeleteSo enjoy an ice cream sandwich for me, hang onto as many compliments as you want to, and give yourself the credit you deserve!