1) I recognize that plenty of women are comfortable and embrace the weight gain that comes with being pregnant, and I am trying, but it’s rough. I’m only four months along and already I’ve got a wicked belly happening. Honest to Pete, this wouldn’t be a huge deal, but I’m already pretty thick in the middle, not to mention short in the torso, and you add in an ample backside, and it’s making dressing each day exhausting. I feel like a beach ball.
2) Speaking of clothing, I’ve figured out part of the problem: I hate shopping for clothes, and I’ve gotten the whole thing down to a science. I stick to a few brands I like, and styles that flatter me, and I rarely, if ever, pick up items that don’t fit – I barely bother to try things on, I hate the process that much. But now I don’t know how things are going to fit, and anything I see that’s maternity-related is so god-awful and twee, that I storm out, caring very little if I have to roam naked for the next several weeks. I’m assured that the Fall and Winter options are better, but in the meantime, ugh.
3) Today we moved floors at my office. This is the view from my new office. I feel a tremendous sense of gratefulness with this new arrangement, not the least of which is being able to see Millennium Park and Lake Michigan every day. I’ve thought a lot lately about how tough this pregnancy has been, and how blessed I am that I have a job that requires no manual labor. Sure, it’s stressful, and some days I wish I had a winning lottery ticket in my purse, but I have a comfortable working environment, supportive coworkers and bosses, and if I’m feeling particularly lousy, I have the option to work from home if needed. Plus? I can take doctor’s appointments when I need to, and don’t face the unforgiving wrath of a company who insists I only schedule doctor’s appointments during my off-hours, never mind that many doctors don’t accommodate such requests. There are so many women on this planet who don’t have this luxury, who spend their pregnancies on their feet, with unaccommodating bosses who could care less about their families and their needs. My company is absolutely tops where family is concerned. Also? See that view? From my own office? I feel like dancing.
4) Next week my friend, Steve, who designed our kitchen, is coming over to help us figure out how to handle the upstairs of our house. Right now, we’ve got a nightmare on the second floor. It’s all paneling, cracked plaster, saloon doors and stained, ratty carpeting. My bathroom is upstairs, and we use one of the rooms as an office, but that’s it. We’d hoped to add on a room (a dormer) to the upstairs, plus upgrade the bathroom to something more master bathroom-ish, but that’s not going to happen by Christmas. I don’t have the patience, and my track record with this pregnancy has not been great. We don’t need a full-scale remodel. So we’re going to do what we can by Christmas to upgrade and improve to make the second floor livable. The bathrooms can wait until next year. For now, it just needs to be livable. Steve is also going to help us design the nursery because I have yet to see anything I like in any catalog or Web site, at least anything that doesn’t make me want to hurl from the tweeness of it.
Seriously. Why is almost everything baby- and pregnant-related so wretched and precious? I don’t have the patience for a lick of it.
5) Foods I Miss The Most, In No Particular Order: lychee martinis, dirty martinis, well, every kind of martini, really; raw cheeses; tuna tartare; spicy tuna rolls; medium-rare steaks; vegetables as I don’t have the stomach for many of them yet.
6) I miss working out hard. I really do. The truth is that cleaning wears me out these days, and I’m trying to get back into my walking/train commute, which means that I can’t do much more exercising for the moment aside from those three miles of walking. I have moments of worry, whether it’ll all come back, but I push those worries aside. If I could, right now I most certainly would, and though I will have to work at getting back to athletic status, it’ll come. But I’d kill to be able to get through a spinning class without having heart palpitations.
7) I need a soup cookbook. Lynette gave me The Bread Bible a few months ago, and I have visions of making soup and bread this Fall. Not every weekend, mind you, but I figure I won’t be spending my Saturday nights drinking martinis and eating out downtown, so I might as well cook soup. And bread. Anyone have any good soup cookbooks to recommend?
8 ) Here’s what I want to say now, as I get into the pregnancy and motherhood thing: I kinda almost don’t want to hear it from anyone. I mean, I do, but I’m awfully nervous about opening up the Pandora’s Box that has become women and motherhood on the Internet. I have yet to see much evidence online where women are gracious and respectful to each other. It’s as if somehow by donning the title “Mom,” there is a large faction of women who feel it’s perfectly OK to openly and with much hostility, mock and criticize the parenting choice of others. And I’m not talking about the obvious, egregious parenting snafus wherein you ask why it is that we have licenses to have so many things and yet children? Almost any fool can do. No, I’m talking about the choices people make that are best for their families, that may be different from yours. Truth be told, I shake my head in wonder about the choices some folks make, but it’s not my place to share that opinion with them, and so I don’t. I cannot get over the chutzpah of some women, I really can’t. And what I can really do without is being told by total strangers that I’m putting my child in danger if I do/don’t do X-Y-Z, especially when I don’t even ask.
The beauty of feminism is that our mothers fought so we’d have a choice, not so we could berate our sisters for making choices different than our own. My friend, Leah, reTweeted something the other day that I loved, from a woman in Florida who goes by ProChoiceGal: “Being #prochoice for women who DON’T want their pregnancies is great, but it doesn’t mean a lot if you’re #antichoice for the others.”
I thought that was just brilliant, because I feel like it encapsulates a dilemma for women like me, those of us who fall into the liberal, stereotypical feminist. It’s often assumed that because we wave a particular flag, that we’re against those who wave another. For me, that couldn’t be further from the truth. We are no good if we aren’t supporting the choices of our fellow women – those who work, those who don’t. Those who co-sleep, those who follow a strict crib schedule. The moms who throw Pop-Tarts into the toaster each morning, those who make their own organic meals. If I believe in choice, and what that means, I believe that for everyone, and I support them in their efforts.
9) Pea-In-The-Pod has called me and sent me a hand-written thank-you card for the cash we threw down in there last week. Do I make an appointment or do I ignore them? I feel like I should, but bring my sister with me so I have someone who can remind me how very much I don’t need to spend $80 on a shirt. I could use some help, just the same.
10) It feels like Fall. Today I had the day off from work, and finally the humidity broke and loosened it’s grip just enough where I could pretend it was crisp and light and I had a day to spend in my living room, watching the sun set, about to light the pumpkin-scented candles, and be that much closer to having this baby.
Can I just say first that it is so sweet to get a big, fat post like this from you. So nice after a long, difficult day – so thank you. For maternity clothes, have you tried Target? The Liz (lastname starts with an L) line is kinda wearable even if you aren’t pregnant – I have two dresses in my closet right now that you wouldn’t even guess were maternity, they’re just cute.
I have an appointment with a reproductive endocrinologist this week – hopefully I’ll be where you are shortly, so keep blazing the trail for sane moms-to-be,ok? The rest of us will be along shortly.
I liked the Target clothes too, aside from the leggings, which would not. stay. up. Also, I found lots of plain boring things from Old Navy.
I decided early on that I was not interested in reading any parenting books, or getting advice from anyone. No one seems to understand that there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all philosophy. It took forever to find a book that met my criteria – basic health and safety info without any preaching!
From what I hear, Pea in the Pod is the best for maternity pants. Obviously you can get maternity pants other places, but they often don’t stay up (which is incredibly annoying at at time when so many other physical sensations are incredibly annoying, too!). I got my maternity pants at Motherhood (the cheaper version of Pea in the Pod) and they were cute and work-appropriate, but they slid down all the time, even later in the pregnancy when my belly was HUGE. So, if you’re going to spend more money at Pea in the Pod, I’d suggest pants.
I used to get a ton of things for work from JC Penney maternity. Unfortunately I don’t think many stores carry much, but they have a catalog and you can get it sent to the store to immediately send back what is hideous or doesn’t fit.
I second the plain clothes from Old Navy. Simple day to day wear.
Good Luck!
Longtime lurker…first time commenter. Congrats to you! I’m also about 4 months along with my first and Dude! I feel you on the craving martinis, raw cheeses, and sushi! Also everything you said in #1 and #2 as well. I look worse in most of the maternity tops than I do in a simple stretchy t-shirt from the Gap – which is what I’m now sticking to.
I know it’s easy for me to say, and the pregnancy hormones have got you in their strong, strong grip, but don’t worry too much about the big child-rearing picture. You’ll tie yourself in knots. It’s good to know your principles and have a united front prepared, but to be honest, the kid comes along and they’re a person, and things just sort of unfold and it all progresses more or less naturally from there.
Try to sit back and experience the ride – it’s unlike anything you’ve ever had before. As a friend of mine told me in my first pregnancy, right now your body is working harder than it has ever done, making a whole new person: give it a break and take it easy.
I hate the twee crap too. For non-twee try Gap maternity, Old Navy, and Nordstroms – I did almost all my maternity shopping online and just sent back whatever didn’t fit. My favorite jeans were so kickass, I kind of miss them now that I’m not preggo – they were a brand called “Maternal America”. Lucky also made a nice pair of maternity jeans but they didn’t fit once I hit 6 months along.
We painted the nursery a darker-than-pastel blue, bought classic dark-wood furniture with a crib that makes into a double bed later on, and no cutesy crap whatsoever. It can be done! You can do it!
I read so much stuff online and in books and sweated it all before the baby came. Luckily, once he came I turned into a go-with-the-flow mama, did what I thought was right for my particular little guy, and he is thriving and happy and content, thank God. People and their judgment are everywhere but you decide. You’ll be a great mom. I agree with Christine, above. It is a great ride – try to take it in as much as you can. I wish I had, even more.
I second the recommendation for Target maternity, especially the Liz Lange jeans. I lived in them during my pregnancy. The Liz Lange t-shirts are great as well – layer them under a big cardigan sweater and you’ve pretty much got your casual/ no-client-meetings-at-work-today wardrobe down. Also, I found dresses much more comfortable, for what it’s worth. Even in the winter.
Our nursery decorating consists of yellow paint and butterfly removable stickers on the wall.
Don’t kill yourself decorating with bumpers, etc. till you know what kind of baby you have – my daughter is the kind that rolls herself into a corner and pushes her face against the side of the crib, so the breathable bumpers are the only ones we can use. 
For a cookbook, try Moosewood’s “Daily Special” cookbook:
http://www.amazon.com/Moosewood-Restaurant-Daily-Special-Recipes/dp/0609802429
It’s amazing — almost 300 soup and salad recipes, all easy to make. It’s mainly vegetarian, which might not be your thing with your pregnancy-related aversion to veggies, but if anything is going to convince your body to eat veggies, it will be this book. So, so yummy.
Do you know Moxie (http://moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie)? That’s the only online parenting community I’ve ever run across where everyone is courteous to everyone else. You don’t get a *huge* spectrum of opinion — they skew cloth-diaper — but are open to ALL kinds of situations and are HUGELY compassionate when it comes to data points, sleeplessness, worries, triumphs. Questions from pregnancy to school-age kid. Highly highly recommended. Has saved my emotional bacon many a time and has never, not once, infuriated me — a thing I thought impossible in parenting areas.