You Know You’re Pregnant, Right?

“Nooooooo.  I had NO IDEA!!!”

 Is the response I would like to give.  What I really do is laugh it off and smile while imagining heads bursting into flames.  I blame in on pregnancy rage, it’s a thing, Pink had it.

Yes, yes I do know that I’m pregnant.  I wake up every day and my belly is bigger, I’m slowly seeing more stomach then feet past my boobs and that back/hip pain is a reminder as well.  The above picture is my current view if I look down, it took Nate until 26ish weeks to pop out like that.  You may be wondering, well Stephanie, why do people tell you this at all?  I’m trying to keep my weight gain to a minimum and openly talk about it.  Not talk everyone’s ears off and babble about it non stop but I do explain that I’m not gaining weight (I’m down 10.4 lbs this morning but I was down 11, I have re lost 3+ lbs this week) and I’m still trying to stay active.  I think that people who know me thought I would find out I was pregnant and start dunking brownies in gravy and rolling around my house doing nothing.  It’s evidently not ‘normal’ in my circle of people to continue counting calories, measuring portions and plotting out splurges.  It also isn’t the norm to keep doing as much exercise as is possible.

I did that with Nate, I stopped working because I would swell up to an insane degree.  I ate anything and everything, piles of food, for the baby and because I thought pregnant people were supposed to just lay around and eat.  I gained 50 pounds on an already plus size frame, I went from a tight size 18 to a tight 24.  My blood pressure went up and I was miserable during my last trimester.  After I had Nate I was a stay at home mom and even though I had lost 42 of my 50 pounds in the first two weeks, I slowly gained it all back and then some.  There was a point where my size 26 jeans were unbuttoned and I bawled, appalled that I had let myself slip so far after working to lose weight prior to pregnancy.  I am determined not to let that happen again but what I really need people to understand is that I’ve talked with my OBs about this, I’ve made sure that it’s okay and if at any point I am told ‘you have to stop, for the baby’ then I will.  I’m not starving myself (I eat 1800-2100 calories a day) and I’m not exercising myself to death (cardio, walking, yoga, pilates) but I AM trying to prevent the 50 pound gain and I’m trying not to slip back into bad eating habits.  It’s incredibly important to me but not more important then my children.

Of course, that’s a long explanation to give anyone so I just decided to right this blog and post links on my personal page and facebook page and hope the message gets out.