I had that dream again -- the dream where I'm surrounded by piles and piles of food, and I have to eat it all. It was a new version, one in which I was staying in a hotel room with no fridge, and there were bowls of udon noodles, quart jars of vegetable soup, and platters of chips and fresh salsa sitting around on every available surface. The precise reason wasn't clear to me, but somehow in the dream I was supposed to finish it all off before the stuff spoiled in the heat.
I woke up feeling bloated. It took me a while of being awake before I felt I could have breakfast.
* * *
One thing I haven't written very much about, since I became pregnant, is how well I'm managing to stay away from the cliff-edge of eating disorder. One reason I haven't written very much about it is that I'm not actually doing very well, or at least, I'm not feeling very secure and I'm not quite sure how to put it into words, or maybe I'm afraid to express it honestly.
Still, I wrote so much about my successes last year, it seems only fair to report on the hard parts, the failures, now.
Yeah, pregnancy has made it hard.
* * *
It's not that my weight has spiralled out of control. I put on a couple of pounds quickly very early on, and have tracked the what-you're-supposed-to-gain chart pretty closely since then -- basically, I'm following a parallel line about two pounds higher than the range I'm supposed to be in. In other words, I've gained a bit more weight than the current standard medical model would suggest I should, but not much more, and the gap isn't getting any wider. Rationally, I know it's just fine.
But I am having a hard time staying rational about it.
* * *
Look, I know I'm pregnant and that pregnant women are supposed to gain weight. But somehow there is this twang of anxiety at the numbers going up and up. I literally have to keep doing the math in my head, lik this:
I've gained 16 pounds. Oh yuck, that sounds so horrible. It's more than I'm supposed to have gained by twenty-two weeks.
The upper end of the range says I should only have gained a maximum of 14 pounds by now. Why can't I get below the upper end of the range? I must be slipping. This is awful.
OK, calm down, even the lower end of the range is 11 pounds. I've only gained 5 pounds more than the minimum I'm supposed to gain. This is not a crisis...
(repeat)
My brain goes through this, unbidden, several times a day.
* * *
A lot of it is baby and bustline, both welcome filling-out of my frame. The rest of it seems to be going on below the waist. My collarbones and arms still have definition, but... I can't stop thinking about how my thighs feel in my jeans. Every time I slide behind the steering wheel of my car I notice the tightness of my pants on my thighs. Every time I feel that I make a mental note: I should be more careful, my legs are getting fat. And then the rational part of me corrects that: Women are supposed to put on extra fat stores when they are growing a new baby. Thighs are an excellent place to put them, probably the best place as it's waistline and upper-body fat that is supposed to be a marker for heart disease and early death -- better to be a pear than an apple and all that. So quit worrying, it's all fine. But that doesn't stop me from thinking it again when I slide out from behind the steering wheel.
* * *
Sometimes I think it's simply seeing these numbers on the scale again, numbers that were so welcome on the way down last year. My first thought is often "I can't believe I've gotten up this high." And then I remember I'm supposed to see that number; I'm supposed to wind up somewhere between 133 and 143, and logically I have to pass through all the numbers between here and there on the way.
* * *
There's other things too that trigger awful feelings. The baby is starting to compress my internal organs -- I know I have a little less room in my stomach, for example, than I used to. Smaller amounts of food make me feel fuller. And that full sensation, that "oops I ate too much" sensation --- well, it's a bad sensation for the recovering bulimic, let's just put it that way. I have to go away and list to myself what I had on my plate to prove to myself that I have not been overeating, to remind myself that what I had was healthful, that so much of it was vegetables and fruit, for instance.
* * *
I keep trying to go back to my "signal breakfast," the single boiled egg and the glass of tomato juice. And of course I keep being unsatisfied by this, because for pete's sake, I'm almost 5 months pregnant and that is not enough food for a 5-months-pregnant woman to eat after a full night's sleep, of COURSE I'm hungry again by midmorning. But I still feel like that extra slice of buttered toast, or that cup of cottage cheese, is me "giving in" rather than feeding myself what I need. I know better, but I am having a very hard time feeling better.
* * *
Don't worry too much about me physically. I am pretty sure I *am* eating enough, and that the food I eat is all very good and very high-value food. I eat lots and lots of green leafy vegetables, a habit from weight loss that is well adapted to pregnancy. I have increased my intake of meat, especially beef and oily fish. I'm eating lots of fresh berries right now while they're still in season, and all my bread and crackers and pasta and cereal are whole grain. I don't desire milk to drink, but I eat yogurt, cream, and cheeses daily. I craved ice cream at the very beginning and enjoyed it thoroughly. Other than some tiredness that seems to respond well to an herbal iron supplement, I have no symptoms of deficiency: not a single leg cramp yet this pregnancy, no swelling except once when I was hiking at high altitude. Very little nausea, even. And, of course, the weight gain is right about where it should be.
* * *
The hard part is just accepting it as a good thing, and not something to be feared.
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