Week 16: Baby or tapeworm?

The big news this week is we had our first appointment with Cecily, one of the midwives we'll be working with.  We liked her a lot and will meet Jane, the other midwife, at our next appointment.  They split their call 50/50 so one of them will be there with us in labor.  We'll also meet a doctor from the practice at one of our next visits, but assuming our pregnancy remains uncomplicated and there are no problems in labor, that's the only time we'll see a doctor.
My measurements were right where they should be for 15 weeks in, and the baby's heart rate was 134 beats, which is apparently good for this stage of pregnancy.  We have our next appointment at 18 weeks with Jane, then at 20 weeks we'll do a sonogram and see if we are to be the proud parents of a little boy or girl.  Call it hunch or 50/50 guess, but my prediction is boy.  We want one of each, and have no preference on order, so we'll be excited to welcome whatever God decides to give us this time.  The last time we had a sonogram was at 8 weeks, when Gunior looked like a little peanut, it will be interesting to see how s/he has changed in 12 weeks.

My appetite has certainly shifted into overdrive now.  It seems like I'm hungry every hour or so, and no matter how much or often I eat it doesn't seem to fill me up for long.  Sometimes I wonder if I've got a baby inside me or a tapeworm!

Last night after dinner though, I managed to not only be full, but miserably full for hours.  We made a delicious dinner with lemon butter scallops, sauteed bok choy, and roasted endive and radichio salad with pears, Stilton cheese, and walnuts.  I filled my plate with 80% veggies and 4 scallops.  You wouldn't think that would fill you up, but it did that and then some.  As I went to bed, still stuffed, I remembered the infamous Spago dinner on our honeymoon, when we both managed to get miserably stuffed and couldn't drink much of the complimentary bottle of champagne our hotel had left us.  I ordered a scallop and bok choy dish and felt ripped off when it arrived-$40 for 5 scallops and a plate full of cabbage?  But I've never been so stuffed in my life as after that dinner.  Funny then that after a week of constantly feeling hungry, I would get the idea to cook scallops and bok choy...I guess my subconscious wanted me to get "Spago full" again!

I figured with all the eating, sooner or later I'd start gaining weight, and last week for the first time, I did, adding about 1.5-2 pounds to my pre-pregnancy weight.  Ideally I'll put on about that much weight every week for awhile...a little scary to contemplate. 

In anticipation of that, today I went to the Gap to get a pair of "in between jeans" to wear once my regular ones get too snug but before I need maternity jeans.  I ruled out the skinny-leg styles right away, because if I couldn't pull those off pre-baby now certainly isn't the time to try.  And low-rise works best on me anyway since I'm short-waisted, and with the belly growing it seemed like a good plan to stick to that.  So I tried on two cuts, the "curvy" style and the baggier "boyfriend" style.  The curvy jeans were more flattering but wouldn't let me grow much in the hips and booty, just the waist.  The boyfriend jeans gave me a lot more room to grow but had a saggy butt.  So I had to choose, go with the cuter jeans or hedge my bet and go for the bigger ones?  In the end I chose the curvy cut because even buying pregnancy jeans, rule #1 applies: go for the ones that make your booty look good!