23 weeks pregnant: Sophie's Pregnancy Tonic

Of course when you’re pregnant everybody wants to know what you’re craving. I’m sure my coworkers are just dying to hear that I’ve been eating Big Macs and ice cream sundaes, since I generally eat very healthily and they find this extremely disturbing. But apparently I do live in an alternate universe where raw green beans and mustard is a perfectly acceptable snack.

Side note: dipping vegetables in mustard is not a pregnancy thing either; I’ve been doing that for years. I’m just semi-obsessed with mustard. Totally normal.

The only new craving I’ve had is for tart herbal tea blends, most of which contain hibiscus flowers. For some reason, this tea is pretty much the only fluid I can stomach. After I discovered this and drank gallons of the stuff a day, I decided on a whim that I should probably Google if hibiscus is safe for consumption during pregnancy.

This is where you scream useless protests at me, much like you would do while watching a horror movie. "NO! STOP! WHY WOULD YOU GO INTO THE HAUNTED BASEMENT ALONE? WHO DOES THAT?"

Internet consensus: probably not, and also why are you trying to poison your unborn child? God. Damn. It.

I called my midwives, who assured me that they could care less if I ate a basket of hibiscus flowers a day. Okay, they may have not said exactly that, because that would be weird, but they did think it was totally safe for me to drink my beloved tea.

I’ve since bought enormous quantities of the stuff and have been drinking that pretty much exclusively. I even started making a juice cocktail with it that I’ve nicknamed Sophie’s Pregnancy Tonic. So if I can just travel back to the 1930’s and peddle it as a cure all, I’d be set.

I think the lesson here, as it always is, is DON’T GOOGLE ANYTHING EVER WHEN YOU’RE PREGNANT. Which is of course why I continue to do it on a daily basis.

Not very interesting but that’s my big pregnancy craving. After I finished off yet another box last week, I announced to Joe that I was probably going to give birth to a giant hibiscus flower. Strangely I have not had nightmares about this yet.

22 weeks: In which I gestate an eggplant

I am so committed to this process that I got up and put on pants to take my weekly belly picture. That, my friends, is called DEDICATION.

Though that took all my motivation and I can't be bothered to come up with anything else. Here's belly update and survey instead.

How far along? 22 Weeks

Total weight gain/loss: something like 12 or 13 lbs

Maternity clothes? A few things. Definitely growing fond of elastic.

Stretch marks? No. Though I have begun to liberally grease my body is assorted potions in attempts to avoid that.

Sleep: Sleeping well, except for the whole peeing every 30 seconds thing.

Best moment this week: My birthday was last week so I was generally fawned upon, which I support 100%. Also Joe finished painting the nursery, though I can’t remember if that was last week or not. 

Miss Anything? Sushi, a normal bladder capacity.

Movement: Oh yes. Peapod enjoys soothing me back to sleep after my midnight bathroom breaks by slamming repeatedly into my uterus.

Food cravings: Nothing unusual. Still fond of peanut butter, fruit, cheese. And unicorn blood. Just seeing if you're paying attention.

Anything making you queasy or sick: Depends. Things have calmed down A LOT but still am turned off a lot of time by protein, raw vegetables… Basically anything that is not a refined carbohydrate will turn me off at one time or another. Coffee and black tea I can’t do at all.

Have you started to show yet: I mean, this weight has to have collected SOMEWHERE. There is some definite pudge action happening but that's about it. Which begs the terrifying question, where am I storing this 12 lbs if not on my belly? Wait, don't answer that. 

Gender prediction: Unless my ultrasound tech was on mind altering drugs, we are sticking with boy.

Labor Signs: Nay. Can I have a surrogate just for the labor bit please?

Belly Button in or out? In. I bought one of those hilarious pregnancy belly button rings that looks like its made out of a flexible straw after my co-worker told me a horrific story about how her pregnancy ripped her belly button piercing nearly completely out but so far things are looking pretty normal. 

Wedding rings on or off? Off, though only because I developed a weird rash on my ring finger. 

Happy or Moody most of the time: Generally pretty emotionally stable. Except when I make pie crust, which always sends me into a murderous rage.

Looking forward to: Actually appearing legitimately pregnant. 

21 Weeks: Pregnancy: Pirate Edition

9/4/12 - 21 Weeks Pregnant

A couple weeks ago, crazy pain in my right eye woke me up at 4 am. I tentatively pawed at that eye and found that my eye was swollen and bizarrely leaking tears, even with the eye clamped shut. Like I was sleep-sobbing. Out of one eye? Wait, it gets better. I stumbled to the bathroom and pried out my contacts and my eye didn’t look too bad. I mean, it was bright red, swollen and pathetic looking but there were no obvious giant glass shards embedded in my eye, which is what it felt like.

I grabbed an ice pack from the freezer and fed Daisy early, who thought this was a neat game where her owner staggered around the house in the middle of the night with no depth perception. Eventually I was able to fall back asleep for a bit with the ice pack snuggled up against my eye and then had soothing dreams about my eye pain, including one in which I figured out that my eye hurt because I had somehow crammed three contact lenses into the one eye.

I really did try going to work but even when I could tentatively force my eye open for brief, glorious moments of sight, the pain stopped dropped me to my knees about every 30 seconds or so while I went, "ARRRRRRGH." Very much like movie supervillains do when their plans have been foiled yet again. Generally this behavior is frowned upon in a nurse so I came to terms that work was not going to happen.

To make matters more interesting, Joe was out of town, so I had to drive myself around to be treated later that morning. Luckily, there is an urgent care center about 30 seconds away from our house and I figured I could drive myself there without killing anyone. I suppose I could have walked there, too, but I didn’t really want to stumble along for 20 minutes while clutching my eye and moaning. People would assume a zombie apocalypse was starting, and then were would we be?

The doctor pretty quickly diagnosed me with a corneal ulcer, a nice big open sore on the eye caused by sleeping with my contacts in. Good work, Sophie. The doctor proceeded to casually mention that as a wartime doc in Korea, he saw a corneal ulcer much like mine become so infected with Pseudomonas that the lady’s eye melted within a matter of days. He paused. “We got her a glass eye,” he said thoughtfully, as if this were supposed to comfort me somehow. After this I was all I’LL DO WHATEVER YOU WANT DOC, JUST DON’T LET MY EYE MELT. So I left with a prescription for some pain relieving eye drops, antibiotic eye drops, and a stylish eye patch. YES, PREGNANT WITH AN EYE PATCH. AND MY EYE IS PROBABLY GOING TO MELT. THIS DAY GETS BETTER AND BETTER.

Driving to and from the pharmacy while wearing an eye patch was probably one of the more sketchy things I have done but goddamnit, I was getting my anti-eye melting medications. Pedestrians be damned!

So I bummed around the house with my sweet eye patch on for the rest of the day. Eye injuries are especially lame because you can't go to work with a leaky useless eye but also can’t really do the usual sick-at-home things, like read or watch TV. I mean, I squinted in the general direction of the TV in order to “watch” What’s Eating Gilbert Grape but that’s about it. Luckily, as a pregnant lady, napping is a favorite activity of mine, so at least I was well rested.

Thankfully, eye injuries tend to heal pretty fast so the eye patch and mind-searing pain were short-lived. And, so far, my eye has not melted, so that’s awesome.

In other news, I am still pregnant. Baby Peapod moves enough that Joe can now feel him, and if I watch carefully when baby is active, I can see my belly pulsate. Very Alien-esque.

Ahem. I mean, the beautiful wonders of pregnancy, mother earth and so on. And so forth.