Bump watch 2012

7/22/12 Almost 15 weeks pregnant

First off, why is it that every time I open Microsoft Word, there is a “critical update” to install? How is it that each version is just as crappy as the last? But I digress.

Nothing new and exciting to report on the pregnancy front. Still nauseated most of the time, no bump.  Several people have told me that I’m starting to show but seriously, I’m not. I honestly believe that now that everybody knows I’m pregnant, people stare at my gut ALL THE TIME and a lady can’t suck it in 24-7. Plus there’s the whole pregnant = bloated like a beached whale thing.

Luckily, I’m a nurse so I already own a maternity wardrobe. It’s called scrubs. I feel weird when I wear pants that don’t have an elastic waistband or tops that aren’t four times too big for me.

On the nausea front, no real change. Still feel I have some sort of cruel stomach virus that makes you gain weight. I also attribute the heightened sense of smell to the nausea. It’s not so much that I can smell better, just that every smell makes me sick. I often think of an episode of King of the Hill where Bobby is put on a Ritalin-like drug that heightens all his senses. He sits in the kitchen, starring blankly into space. He sniffs. “The milk in the fridge is about to go sour.” He announces. He pauses. “And there it goes…”

Indeed, Bobby, indeed. 

Sometimes I still bake

In other news, I still bake. I've had to cut down since college, since I no longer have our roommate Brian to count on eating everything I make. Recently I made a plum upside down cake in order to use up a bunch of plums we got in our produce box. Joe ate it within 48 hours so pretty successful, I'd say.

Plum upside down cake, adapted from Real Simple

Ingredients

• 1/2  cup  (1 stick) plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, plus extra for the pan, at room temperature
• 4  firm, ripe plums, each cut into 8 wedges (This looked measly and I cut them into 16)
• 1/4  cup  plus 2/3 cup granulated sugar (I cut this down to 1/3 cup and thought it was fine)
• 1  cup  all-purpose flour
• 3/4  teaspoon  baking powder
• 1/4  teaspoon  baking soda
• 1/4  teaspoon  kosher salt
• 1  large egg
• 2/3  cup  sour cream (I used plain nonfat greek yogurt)
• 1  teaspoon  pure vanilla extract

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350° F. Butter an 8-inch cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.
2. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the plums and 1/4 cup of the sugar and cook, tossing, until the sugar dissolves and the juices from the plums become syrupy, 3 to 4 minutes. Arrange the plums in the cake pan in slightly overlapping concentric circles, starting from the outside. Spoon any pan juices over the top.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
4. With an electric mixer, beat the remaining 1/2 cup of the butter and 2/3 cup of the sugar until fluffy. Beat in the egg, sour cream, and vanilla. Gradually add the flour mixture, mixing just until incorporated.
5. Pour the batter over the plums and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 50 to 55 minutes. Let cool in the pan for 1 hour. Place a large plate over the cake pan and invert the cake onto the plate. ______________________________________________________________________________

In conclusion, here's a terrifying fact about Martha Stewart:

Thanks Martha Stewart! Now I know just how to welcome my bambino into the world. 

Stop ruining my life, google.

7/14/12 – About 13 weeks pregnant

Well, I was really hoping that I would magically wake up the morning of week 13 with no morning sickness but alas, it persists. My midwife says that hopefully it will ease up between 15-18 weeks so that’s the new light at the end of the tunnel.

On the up side, Peapod was looking more humanoid at my 12 week ultrasound. Which means that it looks less like a gummy bear and more like Skeletor. Progress, people. I gave Joe a high five when I read that the little peanut should no longer have a tail at this point. Good work, baby.

Pregnancy is pretty amazing in that I’m pretty sure I’m still eating at a calorie deficit but have somehow still managed to put on a couple pounds. Like, where are you getting this extra stuff to store? Are you converting my bones to fat stores? I was kind of hoping I could avoid that pesky gaining weight part of pregnancy. Thanks, evolution.

I’m a pretty little chick and was feeling pretty okay about my total lack of baby bump until I googled what other women look like this far along and now I totally have a complex. Some of these women have legit cute little bumps. And I look like I ate too many cupcakes last night, if that.

So lesson learned. Do not, I repeat, do not, google anything. You will be totally paranoid about how your pregnancy compares to others and then you will convince yourself that the cherries you ate half an hour ago are going to poison you with listeria because you are a fool that never washes fruit. Also, all the glowing pregnant ladies with cute bumps and not a lick of nausea will send you into a murderous rage.

So don’t google stuff. Instead you should probably eat some macaroni and cheese while watching episodes of Jersey Shore.  It’s working out for me pretty well.

Everybody has been asking me if I’ve been having cravings yet and the short answer is no. Every food makes me want to die. There are some foods that make me want to die less, if you want to call that “cravings”. Probably worse than food actually is any fluid, which I just can’t stomach. I read in a pregnancy book the other idea that I should be striving for 12 glasses of water a day and I actually snorted. I consider it a great accomplishment if I’m able to gag down 32 oz of fluid in my 9 hour work day. Someone we work with brought in sugar free lemonade from Hot Dog on a Stick and I was able to drain that sucker pretty good. So I’m all about lemon water and lemonade right now. Peanut butter and fruit are other faithful standbys. But really, these are things I was semi-obsessed with before pregnancy so who knows.

In other news, pregnancy has made me even lamer than my usual lame self but provides an excellent excuse to take bubble baths before going to sleep at 8 pm. It also had made me fully appreciate the true beauty that is Cinnamon Toast Crunch*. But let’s be honest, you don’t have to be knocked up to realize that.

*This message was not brought to you by Cinnamon Toast Crunch. However, I will not turn away large sums of money from General Mills if they wish to offer it to me. Just putting that out there.