• preg-nuts

    The Pregnancy Induced Eating Disorder

    The Pregnancy Induced Eating Disorder

    This is a picture of the salad I have driven all the way across town to get, TWICE. I planned out a third trip but it was foiled by inefficient errand running and restrictive time commitments. Hate that. You would not want to be sitting next to me in the passenger seat of my car on that day! No one wants to endure the wrath of a pregnant woman who has been kept from her Chinese Chicken Salad with poppy seed dressing and driving in traffic at the same time. It was not a pretty sight.

    This is the salad that has made me plot intricate plans about how I am going to introduce myself to the owner of the tiny hole in the wall restaurant, endear him to me in my poor sickly state and then ask him to please open up a new location that is not all the way across town. This is the salad that I have decided is the reason I am going to nickname my little bug of a baby, “Poppy”. There is something in this rubbery chicken salad that is the only thing I can digest at certain times of the day. I am trying to work up enough courage to ask the owner what the secret ingredient is, but I am too shy (or embarrassed). I think I will wait until they start to recognize me (because I am there every other day) or I start to show and they will put two and two together. Maybe they will have my salad waiting for me before I even show up.

    The thing is it’s not that I’m having cravings for certain foods. That would make things a lot easier. It’s that I’m having anti-cravings. Food “aversions” is a better way to put it. I know I am hungry but I constantly feel like I just got off a carnival ride and I can’t possibly put anything in my stomach when I’m feeling like I might lose my lunch. So I wait and the longer I wait the sicker I feel. My brain knows that eating is the only thing that will make this feeling go away but I’m developing an eating disorder just trying to decide WHAT to eat.

    Eating is such a drag these days. I always used to wonder what it could possibly be like for those poor people who want to gain weight and just can’t. I always thought if that happened to me I would just drink milk shakes all day and eat cheese cake and french fries and all the things I don’t let myself have. Well now I’m getting a better idea. It must just feel like this. Not that I’m having trouble gaining weight, I’m not… it’s just that eating has become a royal pain in the… stomach. Nothing tastes like it is supposed to taste. And NOTHING appeals to me.

    First thing in the morning I open the refrigerator and scan every item from raw broccoli to last night’s dinner. I’ve long gotten over the weirdness of eating dinner for breakfast or breakfast for lunch. A slice of cheddar cheese, some yogurt, fruit… I have no good feelings about anything. Even my old stand by of a spoon full of peanut butter with chocolate sauce squeezed on top of it doesn’t appeal. There is something desperately wrong with me. And the worst part is, sometimes when I do find something that does appeal (like my favorite Chinese rubbery chicken salad), after I eat it I sometimes STILL feel sick. It’s like the Russian Roulette of eating! It’s started to consume my days. Toby asks me how I’m feeling and I have to restrain myself from giving him a play by play of all the things I’ve thought about eating that day but didn’t. I do nothing all day but think about what I’m going to eat or not eat next.

    It is all very wearisome. When I do finally think of something that sounds sort of appetizing you can understand why I might drive all the way across town to get it. At this point I might even drive across a state if I could think of something in Arizona that might taste good. And of course now that I look at that picture up there of my “favorite” salad, I’m starting to think I’m not so fond of it anymore either!

    In other news, some people asked for an update from my first doctor’s appointment. I do have some news:

    1. My chance of having twins is good. Not because the doctor could feel anything or because my stomach is sticking out prematurely but only because I was a twin (my twin died before we were born) and my Grandpa’s mother was a twin and he had two twin brothers or sisters or something like that. So that’s kind of exciting to think about. Maybe I won’t have to go through this pregnancy thing more than once and I’ll get a two for one deal.

    2. I was exposed to Fifths disease and there’s a 1 percent chance that I might have an anemic baby and have to have in-vitro blood transfusions. Of course that was fun to worry about. It’s next to impossible I’ll have any problems but the doctor ordered fifty million blood tests and two urine tests and I had to go to the lab and that was like getting your blood taken in a clinic in a third world country. But I’m sure I’ll blog about that another day. It’s all very entertaining.

    3. Next visit I get to hear the heart beat!!!! THE HEART BEAT!!! I think it will be really real when I hear the heart beat. Toby’s even said he’ll go with me. I’m very excited about that.

  • illos,  preg-nuts

    My First Lesson in OBGYN

    My First Lesson in OBGYN

    I had my first OB appointment today. It was a big day for me. I’ve never met my OBGYN before and I was so nervous I left the house and completely forgot to bring my insurance card with me. This is a huge mistake in the world of health care. It’s like going to another country and losing your passport.

    The girls at the front desk are like top security screeners, they looked at me and immediately sized me up as a great big ass pain of paperwork. I offered to go home and get my card but they sighed big sighs and told me that this one time they could call my general practitioner and get them to fax a copy of my insurance card over. I apologized profusely. They said it was okay, sort of.

    The thing is I always feel uncomfortable when I’m dealing with the front desk at a doctor’s office. I always feel like the women who give you that sign-in clip board hate me and they really hate their job. Once I get past the reception area, everybody is cool. It’s just the front desk that makes me cringe sometimes. I think they are out to get me.

    Somehow I managed to get past the front desk and just as I was settling into my very uncomfortable paper clothes and trying to arrange the lower “sheet” as strategically as possible, a girl from the front desk pops her head in. Hello! (I realize she has a perfect view of my butt crack.) I squirm and twist my head around to see what she wants.

    “Your general practitioner says they have no record of you being a patient there.” What?!! I hop up, and even though I’m grabbing it desperately, my paper sheet falls to the floor along with any sense of privacy. I rummage around in my bag for the official referral from my general practitioner. Their address is at the top, my insurance group number is below that and at the bottom is my doctor’s very official signature.

    “Will this help?” I ask as I try my best to recover my paper sheet and dignity.

    “Oh sure,” she says chuckling and shuffles back out the door as if it’s completely normal to conduct business with a naked woman wearing a paper vest and a paper sheet for a skirt. I suppose it is, for her. But what irks me is I know my general doctor has a copy of my insurance card. I was there a few weeks ago for my first pregnancy test. They just don’t feel like looking for it and faxing it over. Either that or the OB front desk girl gets her thrills popping in on first time pregnancy patients who jump out of their skin when they have to get naked in front of strangers.

    All I know is I’m going to laminate my insurance card and glue it to my forehead next time.