Big Pregnant Cliche

Things are moving right along at the new place. Sweetie has been really working like crazy trying to get all the painting done and I've been trying to do as much support work as I can. I finished pulling up all the carpet and most of the baseboards and just need to finish getting the staples up out of the stairs so they can be sanded and stained to match the new floors. I have new kitchen light fixtures that I'm super anxious to install and see how they'll look and then my contracter friend will come back and do the wiring for two new fixtures in the bedrooms (which currently have no overhead lights).

Sweetie was able to get some incredible helpers Saturday afternoon and the three of them were able to mostly finish painting the first floor. Just the second floor and the trim left to go!

Sweetie put in an incredibly long day of work on Saturday and woke me up coming to bed around midnight. And then I did a very horrible thing. I had been craving ice cream all day and tried very hard to resist, but finally I couldn't take it anymore. I did the pregnant woman cliche thing. I asked for ice cream in the middle of the night. Poor sweetie had to get back out of bed after working all day and run to the store. Damn, that ice cream was good, though! I'm such a lucky (spoiled) girl!

Aside from a couple indulgences like that, I feel like my eating is becoming healthier (I was eating really icky stuff there for a while). I met with a midwife I hadn't seen before at my last appointment and turns out she's a raw foodie and was able to give me a couple really good tips for how to get lower fat vegetarian protein. She told me about a non-soy protein powder I can add to smoothies, which is amazing because we used to have smoothies all the time for breakfast and stopped because they didn't contain very much protein. The second tip (which is kind of a duh thing, but I hadn't realized it) is that egg whites have all the protein and the yolks have all the fat. So, I've also switched to egg white omelets, which make me feel less yucky. Now that my first trimester aversion to beans is gone, I can go back to having a salad for lunch (with tons of beans for protein). The two animal products I'm still eating are lowfat yogurt and egg whites, which I'm good with.

I don't know if this is coincidence or not, but my weight gain has leveled off the last week, which I'm happy about. Don't get me wrong, I'm not obsessing over every pound or trying to limit my weight gain in any way (I know I can lose it all after the baby comes), but I've already gained more weight than is recommended for this stage and I'd just feel better about a 60 pound weight gain from vegetables and whole grains than from cheese, you know? (All this on the heels of my midnight ice cream terror, but you get my point). Anyway, I'm feeling much better and feeling like I'm being healthier for the little bean and the only thing that's still bothering me is my water intake. Its only been the last couple weeks that I've been able to drink still water again, other than the occasional half-glass here and there. I still can't drink as much as I want of it without feeling sick and most other beverages have become distateful to me as well. This is gradually getting better, though, so I'm sure it will be soon that I'll be back to normal, but I would have never guessed that I'd have a hard time drinking water while pregnant, much less this far along!

We had our first Bradley childbirth class last week (it was the first class for us, but we missed the first two, so the third class in the series). Right away, I have a couple concerns. I was very surprised by the nutrition recommendations. They recommend pregnant women eat meat and fish, which I have no issue with, I just choose to ignore. They also recommend drinking four glasses of milk a day. That seems like such a huge amount of milk and I'm not sure of the reason (surely everyone knows there is protein and calcium in plant foods?). That's just surprising more than anything, but I take great issue with the fact that three pats of butter a day are recommended. I think this is just plain unhealthy. I know that a pregnant woman needs to make sure she's getting enough fat in her diet, but shouldn't it be healthy fats with DHA for brain development, rather than cholesterol-laden animal fats? By all means, eat butter if that's what you like (I admit to putting a teeny bit on a roll a few weeks ago myself) but I can't imagine anyone in good conscience could recommend eating it daily as part of a healthy diet. My sense is that the Bradley method is based on information that is several decades old and while most of it is still applicable, surely the diet recommendations need to be updated? Or maybe I'm totally off base.

My second concern is with the role of the coach. They're recommending the Sweetie do things like look at me during the day and say, "It seems like you have some tension in your shoulders--try to relax." I've never been in labor but I'm fairly certain that, were I in the most intense pain of my life, after hearing this oh so helpful advice I may have an uncontrollable urge to backhand the advice giver. Luckily, Sweetie knows me well enough to either refrain from such comments or at least duck after making them.

I'm definitely planning on keeping an open mind about the Bradley classes, but I'm wondering whether this is really going to work for me.