Do you know me in real life? Like, have we met and you've seen my pregnant self? I feel huge. I'm certainly as big as I was at week forty of my prior pregnancy. I hate it, but it has made me feel better about my baby because I sometimes think my body gave N asthma by not allowing him to grow as large as he needed to be at birth.
So, today, at the ob-gyn visit, the doctor measured my tummy and made a "hmm" sound and I asked her if I was getting too large or if I was on track. She paused for a moment and said, "You're a centimeter smaller than our chart suggests you should be, but no need to worry. It's only if you're two centimeters off that we begin to look into problems." Body, what is wrong with you? Do not make me go through more stress tests and ultrasounds than I'm already going through!
I got home to get N back from my mom, who said, "In the last two weeks, you've really gotten large." Then, when I told her that the clothes her friend had given me would only really last for a few months, and not into summer, she flipped out on me. "Well, why did you buy so much clothing in the 0-3 month size then?!" I had to pause and look at her before answering in a disbelieving voice, "I bought one dress and one skirt in that size and the combined cost for them was about seven dollars. They were literally the only baby girl clothing I had in my house prior to receiving this gift." She frowned at me like I was wasting my money all over the place and went back to complaining about the clothing I picked. The weird part? I wasn't even lying to her. As desperate as I've been to get baby girl clothing, I've also been pretty good. I think I've spent twelve dollars total on things specifically designed for this baby so far. I wonder what goes through my mom's head and if she imagines me buying a lot of clothing and makes it into her own personal reality.
4 comments:
I was packing up the 6-12 month clothes, and it is nearly 50% dresses. I think you're going to be excited. And the box at my mom's house is (hopefully) at least half 3-6 month stuff (including the parisian elephant sleeper!) K2 will have a wider range soon enough.
Also, for real, still you don't look that big. "Bigger than you were at week 40 for N" equals "people thought you were still months aways from delivering", for those who are following along at home. This time, you are having a normally small pregnancy for a normally small person (oops, I mean average. You are a totally average sized person. I would not want to suggest I think of you as short.)
As for your link, correlation does not equal causation. Wash, rinse, repeat as needed. Myself and many others I know were full term, "healthy" birth weight babies with asthma. It happens. I'd hate to think that you're genuinely convinced that you somehow "broke" N. (From what I can assume from the comments here, he was full term and that link was for preemies or babies who were severely under weight. Unless N was a teeny tiny skeletal baby, I'm pretty sure your body did just fine. Since you've talked about his puffy little cheeks, I'm going to assume that wasn't the case. It's a rare thing for a body to not make a baby that's the right size for it. )
Pregnancies are so individual that it's hard to say what is and isn't normal. Your pregnancies are your own. :) During different points in my pregnancies, I would be slightly larger or slightly smaller than expected on average for where I was. It's no biggie. And depending on who saw me, I'd hear anything from, "You're huge! Twins?!" to, "you don't really look that pregnant." I've learned to accept that people say inane things for their own sake.
I know it's easier said than done, but try not to worry about things out of your control and enjoy what you're able to right now. Sounds like you have a fantastic batch of clothes on their way!
Thanks for the comments, girls. I'm so paranoid about the asthma because of links I saw between that and low birth weight and that and Tylenol and asthma and iron deficiencies during pregnancy and I know I had all of those as well as an asthmatic father. I think that, unfortunately, watching N in an ambulance when he was a year and a half is one of those nightmare scenarios I'll never get out of my head and it's one that will probably haunt me until I die. So, I do somewhat blame myself for that. (The list usually points out all the things I did wrong during pregnancy, having the wrong genes, taking the wrong steps to prevent his asthma attack that day.)
As for clothing, it appears that I will not have any baby girl stuff besides the few things I bought for ages 0-3 months. I will have a bit of 3 months to a year, so that's covered, but I might need to pick up one or two more 0-3 month items. <3 <3 <3
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