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Thanks to Linkateria.

Had a doc appt today, am measuring spot on baby wise. Gained 7lbs in the last month though, not feeling too good about that considering "they" say you gain 1lb a week from here on in. I know I told myself I wouldn't stress about weight but I'm feeling big and unattractive and cumbersome, knowing that I'm the weight I am doesn't help that.

Still though, healthy baby is the goal, as long as I'm eating properly and sensibly I shouldn't worry too much. I think the sneaky treats will have to stop though.

Have moved to appts. every 2 weeks now, feels like it's all happening too fast, have the GD test again in 2 wks, if this all goes belly up and I'm on insulin again I'm going to be pissed off.

Must book VBAC class soon. Anyone reading had a VBAC?

PSD or is it SPD

Whatever it is, it HURTS. You know that pain that you get in pregnancy where it feels like someone kicked you in the crotch? Or you fell off your bike onto the crossbar? Or in younger freer days, you had a night of non stop shagging?

Well I have that, all the time.

I know it's the ligament stretching and all that blah de blah, I knwo my posture can affect it, I know that it goes with the territory but I didn't expect it so soon, I'm only 25 weeks fer fuxake.

Oh well thats the whine out of the way, on to other things.

My sister had her 1st baby on Tuesday, aw sweet, my baby sister had a baby, aw, he weighed 10lbs 11.5oz!!!!!! Yes you read that correctly, the child is half reared, he looks like a 2 month old. For the record, my sis is 5'2" on a good day and about 130lbs pre-pregnancy, she's a little 'un. She had a brutal labour, they tried forceps and then vacuum and the poor pet ended up with a c-section in the end anyway. Phew I say, fucking phew. I will not enter into that competition, he was born the same day as another nephew 2 years earlier who weighed in at 10lbs 5oz... fuck that for a game of soldiers... I don't want to win the who had the biggest baby competition among my sisters.

Congrats to sis though, in a fucked up way I'm proud she had such a big baby like a man and his willy kind of thing, oh yeah we breed 'em BIG.

Spring has sprung

Today is one of those days when you know why you live in New England, it's just beautiful outside, the magnolias are blooming, birds singing, there's a slight breeze but the sun is shining, just lovely.

Makes up for the SHITE weather we had last week when it rained for about 4 days.

I'm surprisingly cheery about the lovely spring that has sprung, surprising because I feel like shite, my head hurts, my sinuses are clogged, the yeast infection* has come back and yesterday I almost fainted.

Hmm....I'm not so sure I should have passed the glucose test. The almost fainting episode struck me as low blood sugar, the nausea, fatigue and desperate thirst also strike me as GD symptoms.

Or maybe - and please don't everyone yell at me at once - I'm anemic? I haven't been taking my pre-natal vitamins, those things plug me up like nobody's business so I haven't taken them in months, I know it's bad.

Anyway, I feel like crap, am cranky, headachy, moaney, pissy, big, huge, pregnant lady but all I can think about is spring and flowers and lovely weather, weird as fuck this pregnancy lark.

* this is way tmi but...em...the yeast infection is kinda like em...up in my bum rather than around the vagina - anyone any ideas what the fuck is going on?

I Dream Dead People

I do - every night, I dream about dead people. I know I mentioned this before but it's getting worse and is moving through all of the people I know who have passed away. I'm starting to dread going to sleep for fear of who is going to pop up and remind me that we all die! And worms will eat my eyes - SCREAM!

Nice thoughts to wake up with at 3am.

I went for a massage on Saturday with Catherine of the magic hands and mentioned it her, she suggested I ask my Dad, who has become a regular visitor, if he wants to tell me something.

So last night before I went to sleep, I did just that.

Dad, is there something you want to tell me? Something you want to ask? Are you just popping in to say hello?

I am fucking insane was my last thought before I went to sleep!

Dad didn't show up so I guess he doesn't have anything to tell me or ask me and it really is just my mind dredging up images and people from my life as I try to process mortality once again. In a couple of recent dreams both my son and my Dad were there, that was nice and even if it was just a manifestation of my sorrow that they have never nor will ever be together in reality, it was a nice manifestation so I say Thank you to my subconscious and could you please ease up on the morbidity, I'm kind of sleep deprived and it's causing problems.

Problems like almost slicing the top of my finger off when I was doing the dishes last night, I still soldiered on and washed them one handed - sniff sniff.

Problems like not getting shit done at work because I have the attention span of a gnat with ADD.

Problems like showing up at work with unwashed seriously grey hair* because I really seriously could not drag my sorry fat arse** out of bed this morning and barely made it in time.

So subconscious sweetie, darling, pet, a little break would be nice, just so's I can, y'know FUCKING SLEEP A LITTLE and not kill myself or someone else when I drive home in a daze this afternoon.

*grey hair - oh my good gods people, what am I going to do about the grey hair, it's fucking ridiculous! I haven't seen my real hair colour since little man was born, I had no idea (but a sneaky suspicion) that I was hiding old lady hair under there. I was, it's out, my secret is out, I'm 37 and greyer than my 70 year old Mother!!!! Looks real purdy with just a couple of inches of roots showing too, real nice.

*big butts mentioned again, I rue the effect pregnancy has on my arse. I have always had a nice tight little bum, I can remember with a mixture of nausea and horror the day I spied my bum in the mirror when I was about 7 months pregnant with little man, I couldn't twist around at that point y'see so I hadn't seen it in a while, nor was I really thinking about it, I was more concerned with my massive breasts and astoundingly huge belly. Then, I went to a bathroom at my childbirth education class and there was a full length mirror on the wall, as I pulled my pants up I caught a glimpse of something awful and stopped dead in my tracks, horrified. I nearly burst in to tears right then and there, that horrible thing was my once lovely bum! It's never been the same since, I have never found jeans that look as good as they once did cradling my lovely bum, it's sad people. This pregnancy I've been more aware or perhaps the decline has been faster, it's too awful to think about, so I try not to.

Pregnancy Horror Stories

Suburban Turmoil: VOTE HERE!

Some are funny - well not funny ha ha but it's the way they tell 'em y'know?

Some are downright terrifying so be warned.

I'm not sure I ever did a pregnancy/birth story for little man, it was pretty shitty, I might do it on here one of these days.

Belly is fucking huge today, seriously ridiculously massive, it's all fat, baby is just about 4" long and 3oz or so, I look like I'm 6 months pregnant - ack!

Oh well...

Pregnant Men?

I've been dealing with family for the past couple of weeks so have had no time to blog.

All is well, have learned to take 1 Dulcolax laxative, not 2 - hmm...

Had some bleeding at 12w but no big deal, had baby checked and s/he is okay. Have scheduled Level II scan for March 19 - have started to waver on the gender mystery, not so sure I want to find out now. What do you think?

Refused all tests, just want to enjoy the pregnancy (ha ha) and not worry about what might or might not be, if baby has issues, we'll deal as best we can.

Have found doc from Romania who is refreshingly old country, complained to her about my awful skin and she said "Oh it must be a girl!" not what I was expecting, I was hoping for a cream or a referral to a dermatologist, made me laugh though and set me up to keep this pregnancy as unmedicalised as possible. She's a little bitty thing though, I hope she can manage me when I look like a whale! So far not doing so bad with the weight gain, 11lbs in total at 14 weeks and 9 of those went on in the first 2 weeks so I've been doing well since then.

Not abiding by the GD diet at all at all, feck it, I'm not so sure it isn't a made up thing anyway, I have a link to a really interesting FAQ about it which I can't find right now but I will.

Read this today and thought you might enjoy:

RELATIONSHIPS; EXPECTANT FATHERS' SYMPTOMS

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By GEORGIA DULLEA
Published: September 6, 1982

MORNING sickness, weight gain, backaches, food cravings. The symptoms appeared, only to disappear nine months later, when his wife gave birth. ''I was eating more to keep her company,'' he told the others in a class on parenthood at the 92nd Street Y. ''When she got sick, I got sick. Empathy, I guess.''

The man had experienced what mental-health professionals call the couvade syndrome. The term derives from the ancient, worldwide couvade ritual, observed in modern times among certain peoples in South America and Africa. In a significant form of the ritual, the man takes to his bed at the onset of his wife's labor and mimics childbirth. The ruse distracts evil spirits during the actual birth, protecting mother and child.

While the practice is based on pretense, the syndrome is very real, according to researchers who have studied expectant fathers. Unlike women, who have nine months to prepare for their new roles, it seems that men have been expected to make the psychological transition to parenthood overnight. It doesn't always work out that way, according to the mental-health professionals.

Dr. Sue Rosenberg Zalk, a psychologist and Hunter College professor who has counseled and interviewed many such men, says some are surprised by their bodily changes and mood swings during the pregnancy. Conflicting feelings of anxiety, depression, elation, ambivalence and envy are not atypical. ''But, '' she said, ''because so little attention and support are given to the expectant father, he sits on his feelings, and frequently they come out in ways that are self-destructive or destructive to the marriage.''

Citing studies of battered women, Dr. Zalk said that some reported being struck by their husbands for the first time during pregnancy. Other men deal with hostile feelings by withdrawing or by lavishing attention on their wives, as a parent might. Still others find creative outlets for their feelings, building cribs or painting nursery walls.

Expectant fathers may experience loss of libido in some phases of the pregnancy. A psychoanalytic explanation for this is that the wife, in becoming a mother, stimulates Oedipal conflicts in her husband, who then sees her as sexually taboo. Further reasons advanced for the man's depleted sex drive include fear of the fetus, fear of harming the mother or the baby, or feelings of inadequacy in relation to the magnitude of motherhood.

Whatever the cause, a decrease in sexual desire often triggers anxiety in men, perhaps because of the myth that they are not supposed to be affected sexually by stressful events peripheral to sex. At least that is how it seems to Sam Bittman, a Massachusetts writer, who lost interest in sex at one point in his wife's pregnancy.

''It's a pretty frightening thing, '' he acknowledged, ''and it has a ripple effect when the issue is not discussed with your spouse. Then everybody's threatened by it. My poor wife felt she was no longer sexually appealing to me. In fact, nothing could have been further from the truth. It's just that there were so many new feelings.''

In an effort to understand the feelings, Mr. Bittman began interviewing other fathers. He came away with the impression that men tend to deal with the appropriate anxieties surrounding parenthood by denying them. This led to his teaching classes for expectant parents and, eventually, to his joining Dr. Zalk to write a book, ''Expectant Fathers'' (Ballantine Books, $6.95). The work draws on discussions with men's groups and interviews with 47 fathers, plus questionnaires from 162 others.

''They were pleased to find someone who was finally interested in their experiences,'' Mr. Bittman reported. ''Occasionally a man would contact us, saying he'd heard we were talking to men and didn't want to be left out. Our sense from these reactions was that expectant fathers often feel neglected.''

Still, times are changing. Just as fathers are playing more active roles, both in the baby's birth and in its care, they are taking courses in expectant parenthood. The 92nd Street Y, for example, is offering such a course for 10 weeks beginning Nov. 30 and plans to repeat it. The instructor is Dr. Wende Doniger, a psychologist with six years of experience in working with expectant parents.

Fantasies of fathers differ from those of mothers, Dr. Doniger said, in that the coming baby is often seen as an older child rather than an infant. Fathers also worry more about the cost of rearing a child. ''Finances are familiar to them,'' she said. ''That's safer than worrying what they would do if the wives go away for four hours and leave them alone with the baby.''

''Fathers,'' she went on, ''have not been given the opportunity to understand their own feelings during pregnancy. One problem is that pregnant women tend to be very self-centered. Wives should be more attentive to what husbands are going through, just as they expect husbands to be attentive to their needs.'' Georgia Dullea