Pregnant for real

Being really and truly pregnant has been a long time coming. The fact that this is something that we have wanted for so long but that has been so hard to achieve, has made me very cautious about it and has made it seem hardly real. For the whole first trimester I was pretty scared about miscarriage, knowing that it is common and more common among "old" moms, which apparently is me (over 35!). So I think for the whole first trimester even though I knew I was pregnant there was a part of me that didn't really believe I was pregnant.

I have also been fairly lucky when it comes to pregnancy symptoms. I have not vomited a single time, which I really didn't expect given what some of my friends have been through. There were definitely things that I experienced, but it wasn't until after about ten weeks that any of those things felt especially different from just bad PMS. I was bloated, irritable, and tired, and those were my major issues. So I guess I sort of felt pregnant but at the same time felt like I didn't have super strong evidence that this was pregnancy. I was happy to get to the end of the first trimester because that marks the end of the greatest risk of miscarriage, and also because starting at about ten weeks I have continued to feel more and more pregnant, and this has felt more and more real.

On Thursday I went in for an ultrasound as part of prenatal testing, and was totally surprised to find out that our little human is starting to look extremely human, even this early on. The baby was also doing all kinds of wriggling and moving and even sort of jumping around, which I absolutely did not expect to see so early on. I've read all the stuff about prenatal development and knew that babies start to look very baby-like at this stage, and that there is a lot of movement occurring, but somehow I didn't expect to see it. It made things seem so much more real! Here are some of the ultrasound pictures:

I am also finally starting to look a little bit pregnant. I have been unable to button my pants for the last eight weeks (at first because of bloating, and then because my belly really is getting bigger), but for the most part nobody besides me and Jeff can tell that I look any different. However, I have been wearing maternity pants for a couple of weeks, and recently bought some maternity shirts as well because my regular shirts were riding up so high that it was clear that they did fit properly even if it wasn't entirely clear why. But today Jeff got home from being away for five days at a conference, and when he saw my belly he was a bit surprised by how far it was sticking out from my body. Somehow this is nice, because I'm starting to feel pregnant instead of just bloated and fat.

One little rant for today: I have been reading lots about healthy pregnancy from many different sources, and they all have the same (or at least very similar) guidelines for weight gain during pregnancy. There is basically a very narrow range that is considered normal, especially during the first trimester. Some people don't gain any weight during the first trimester, or even lose a little, due to feeling sick and vomiting. The guidelines say that at this point (I am at fourteen weeks today) I should have gained between 1 and 5 pounds, ideally about 3.5 pounds, and I have gained 6.

Everywhere I look it seems that there are warnings about gaining too much weight during pregnancy, and that if you are outside the normal range (even just a little bit!) you might be headed for disaster. Well, I have not been eating junk food. I would say I am probably eating less ice cream than I did before getting pregnant, I am more careful about eating only whole grains (no more regular pasta or white pizza crust), and the foods that I have added to my diet are eggs, cottage cheese, and nuts. I am probably eating more healthfully than most people in general, and and being careful about getting all the nutrients I need to support a healthy pregnancy. But the message I see everywhere is that I am gaining too much weight. Rationally I know that this is not true, that I am healthy, and as Jeff says that I am gaining the amount of weight that is necessary for this pregnancy. But it is hard to ignore those messages telling me that I am doing something wrong, something that could affect my health for the rest of my life and also lead to a greater likelihood that the baby will struggle with weight forever.

I have a feeling this is only the beginning, and that there will be things like this that occur throughout the rest of pregnancy and then probably even more of them that pop up about parenting. How do you resist these messages and not internalize the anxiety? Do you just stop reading, or learn to be so secure in yourself and your choices that this stuff doesn't faze you? Or is every parent just very anxious all the time? I clearly have a lot to learn in this department.