Category Archives: Pregnancy

weeks1617

Cravings/Aversions

When I was trying to get pregnant I was convinced that I wouldn’t get any food aversions or morning sickness, because I LOVE everything. I’ve been getting cravings but largely ignore them. I do my grocery shopping once a week and that’s it thank you. My husband is much too practical to agree to grabbing a pizza on a whim, or run to grab a pint of ice cream. But I do have to say, I have been noticing cravings.

Sugar is back on my radar… sort of. I am still kind-of not digging packages sweets, too sweet you know? But I am craving fruit, but feel bad buying strawberries and eating the whole container in one sitting (mostly for not sharing.) I am crossing my fingers that this craving will last till the end of the month when my CSA starts getting watermelon, cantaloupes, and we can pick pound and pounds of peaches. 

Food Aversions? Hm… mediocre food? I skipped my packed lunch for a clif bar because of soba noodles soaked up too much sauce and was bloated. But I am not sure if that is more disgusting rather than pregnancy. I don’t want to cook anything but never want to eat the easy to make food, like pasta. I also have noticed that if I have too acidic of drinks like powder mixed teas and lemonades I get acid reflux. They probably aren’t good for me anyways.

Baby Music

My phone apps say that my lil bb can now hear, and that they can hear me sing. So far the only songs I’ve caught myself singing have been Chop Suey by System of a Down, Down with the Sickness sung by Richard Cheese, and I Wanna Be Loved By You sung by Shiina Ringo. All very different songs, collectively is a poor representation of what I listen to, and largely inappropriate for children.

Worse thing is that I am trying to think of songs that I know and will sing, and most are not happy. I mean anyone know of Fiona Apple’s most recent album? Love singing it, totally cynical about love.

Kicks?

I think I can feel the baby kick- but it could just be gas. So hard to tell the difference. I mean I know I am feeling something that is a kick, I’ll just wait till I get bigger kicks and then use that to judge which ones are kicks now.

Tummy Status

Anyone stand in front of the mirror and flex your abs, seeing how tiny your waist can get then proceed to hunch over and let all of your tummy hang? Get a super hot and super not contrast going on? Nope, just me? Well, I’ve still been doing that. I’ve noticed my abs actually squeezes in a good bit, but I think my abs get tired by the end of the night and my tummy grows out by the end of the night.

I keep hearing from my Mom about how not pregnant I look, but the other day I noticed my belly button is a little more shallow. Yeah I know my belly button will be poking out, but it is weird to see the slow transition. Weight gain? 5 pounds roughly.

Baby Animals

Most pregnancy apps and books compare baby sizes to fruit, and I think that is just the worst comparisons. I mean a lemon is round, people are kind-of a cylinder with wiggly bits. So I was pretty happy when I found out my one app compares baby sizes to various animals, and I am loving it. Week 16 my baby was roughly the size of a Philippine tarsier… which is so friggin adorable! You know, in an ugly opossum sort of way. When I found this out I texted Alexa this photo with the caption “LOOK AT MY BB!” It was first thing that she saw when her plane from Spain landed. Great way to be welcomed to the US.

What about week 17? Well I have a little chipmunk in my tum-tum. I told Jon this and now he has been eyeing up the chipmunks that run around the area. It makes me a little less mad that they keep nibbling all the plants in my garden. Bad news? While driving to work I almost ran over a chipmunk, which made me feel like the world’s worst mother. Note to self- my child isn’t ACTUALLY a chipmunk.

Clothes

Still in the awkward in-between phase. I put on my sailor dress today and it was… uh…. tight. It has gotten to the point I might cave in and buy a pair of maternity shorts from Target this weekend. So far I haven’t worn any of my special preggers clothes other than my old vintage mod dress, and my brand new sports bra. I might have to get new bras and I hate getting them. So much missing money in my wallet for something not many people see.


13423943_928117957577_4372463331394600839_n

This was my facebook photo for the announcement, and I just couldn’t deny my readers this gem.

If anyone has noticed I haven’t been posting much on the blog lately. I can safely say a large reason for this is because I am pregnant. Yes you might of heard me drop the bomb on blog comments or facebook groups, but my husband wanted me to wait till we formally told all our friends and family before posting anything on the blog. Frankly I am glad I waited because overall I would say like maybe 5 in real life friends read this, but I didn’t want a friend to go nuts and tell everyone else and have Aunt Bertha freak out that I never called her (FYI I have no Aunt Bertha ^__~)

I have been wanting to tell readers why I’ve been MIA, mostly because people aren’t kidding about being tired the first trimester. And reading about it in my super science-y book– it is because your body is doing A LOT OF WORK getting the baby situated. Which is weird since it is the time when most women don’t talk about their pregnancy, and look the most normal. Not to make it seem like the rest of my 6 months will be a breeze- but I’d come home from work (early mind you) and just want to sit in front of the TV or read a book. It was weird, some how sitting on the computer was a draining experience.

So how far a long am I? Well, I am just started week 15- which means I just started the second trimester. Pretty much my digestion has been weird, my tummy looks like I ate a large burrito, my workout game blows, my boobs are even more huge, and now that everyone knows I am pregnant I get asked “how are you doing” more often than I like. I also get told by my Mom about how pale I am. I’m always pale. I mean look at those photos below- the last photo is my slightly tanned body and some lighting trickery.

weekly photos- week 13, week 14, and week 15 (taken today!)

weekly photos- week 13, week 14, and week 15 (taken today!)

There’s debate on the due date- I thought it was December 11th, Jon says it is the 12th, or maybe I am getting both dates wrong? Either way baby is coming out at some point during the month of December. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ And I could look up this information up, but really… do you guys care? I just care about spiking my eggnog at SOME POINT post pregnancy for the holiday season.

So what does this mean for the blog? Hopefully I will still feature restaurant reviews, recipes, and whatever else like I normally did. But while pregnant I will do weekly (or maybe bi-weekly) updates of what is going on.. hopefully it’ll be interesting/humorous to everyone. And I am sure I will talk about vegan parenting post pregnancy, but I swear I won’t be using any pastel chevron on the site.

A Little TMI Guys:
One thing that tends to be a little on the down low on commonly talked about pregnancy symptoms are the ones regarding digestion. Apparently pregnant women not only get acid reflux/heartburn but they are also non-stop farting, burping, and peeing machines (well I think everyone knew about the peeing part.) In fact I am sure if scientists did a study they would find pregnant women release as much CO2 in the as burping cows. Though I am starting to wonder if cows keep farting and burping since dairy cows are always pregnant. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But the only thing pregnant women don’t do is poop apparently.

I keep reading book and after book, blog after blog about how constipation is going to happen to me. I laughed, “Poor naive people, I’m VEGAN. Do you even know how much fiber I eat?!” Until one day I realized I went a whole day without pooping… which was a little disturbing. I felt a sudden need to buy prune juice and bran flakes to help out. I am much too young to be worried how many times I poop in a day, or week. Or maybe me worrying about gross body fluids is just preparing me mentally for dealing with a baby’s disgusting body fluids? Oh in case you are worried, I am doing fine. Everything is working right on schedule.

It came in the middle of the night:

I am fairly certain my tummy has been growing in the middle of the night. No joke, one morning I woke up with the sensation of rolling around on my tummy as if I was on an exercise ball. Which is bizarre since my stomach was even smaller than it is on the photo above. It is hard to comprehend the idea that a living thing in growing in my tummy. Yes, you know there is a baby in there, but I find myself always being weirded out by how “hard” my stomach is. I mean, if my stomach has ever been this big it has been because of food, and it can be easily squished.

I need a drink… a nice bitter one:

I can say that I miss a drink. I love alcohol, but I never needed it to “take off the edge.” I just loved the complex flavors that they would have from fermentation. So in many ways, I think it am going a little nuts without it. Why? Well, many people know that booze is off the table for pregnant women (depending on your doctor and culture) and people need to be careful about drinking caffeine.

I don’t drink coffee or beer consistent enough to consider it a need, so I skip it. And let me tell you the options are almost all sweet. Soda, fruit juice, sweet tea, kool aid, and it goes on and on. No sour, no bitter, no complex flavors. Okay sure there are healthier things out there like kombucha or freshly squeezed juice, but both are off limits since they can harbor potentially harmful bacterias. Cool. And when I do find drink that are a little sour, bitter, or complex, they are sweetened with sugar or technically have caffeine (iced tea?)

I am reaching the point of desperation. Yes, I still drink coffee from time to time. I mainly dumped it because I brew my coffee quite strong and have no way of really knowing how much caffeine is really in it. As for beer, even though many studies say that occassional drinks aren’t a risk to the baby, I can’t shake that feeling. Or worse, I wouldn’t be able to take the social stigmatism. So I am left googling “best alcohol free beers” in hopes to get my hops fix, and I am even thinking if dog beer would be worth my time. (Answer probably not)