Diary of a Real Pregnancy: Week 17 - Active Baby, and You Are What You Eat

Note I said "Active baby", not "Active, baby". At this point I'm sure a lot of pregnant mamas are doing yoga, swimming, maybe even continuing their aerobics or spinning classes. Not this mama! I think about being more active, a lot, but haven't actually implemented a plan...

No, the active one in this relationship is the baby. Holy heck this child likes to jump and kick! And since s/he is so little there's plenty of room to bounce and roll and catch me by surprise as a reminder that there IS a little person in there. (Yes, I do forget sometimes!)

Also early but very much there now are the Braxton Hicks contractions. Now, when I mentioned these on the blog in one of my previous pregnancies, The Hubs upon reading the blog entry, came tearing upstairs to see if I was okay and what the hell are Braxton... whatever contractions?? They are no big deal, though I will say they've started way early this time -- I don't think they started until closer to 30+ weeks last time. Apparently being a third pregnancy will do that - everything gets going sooner. Right now they aren't too bad since my uterus (gaah I hate that word) is still so small, that it just turns into this hard little ball at the bottom of my abdomen. Weird, but tolerable :)

I also learned a valuable lesson this week about eating right... Now, everyone knows you're supposed to be a pillar of healthy eating while you're pregnant. You have a little one in there to think about, after all. But... well old habits die hard around here, and for me, pregnancy = loss of all willpower when it comes to eating. People say "Take advantage of it, you have the perfect excuse to eat like crap!" Yes well, that's all fine until you can't even function because you feel like such crap yourself.

It all came to a head at the end of this week... I had the day off work and just didn't get off to a good start. I finished a large travel mug of coffee and a bowl of Fruit Loops for breakfast, didn't eat again until noon, and by then I was a crazed lunatic frothing at the mouth (just ask The Hubs, who watched this transformation take place in a furniture store... not pretty). I ended up buying, and eating, a quarter of a pizza in about 26 seconds, and downing a can of gingerale. Ahhhh! Much better. I later spent some time outside in the sun and heat, and I just craved freezies... I ended up having 3 or 4 freezies and then found myself standing at the fridge gullping juice from the container... Can you see where all this is going?

By 4:00 pm I felt so gross that I just wanted to pass out. The Hubs took one look at me and calmly but convincingly told me to get myself to bed. I said I was only going to sleep 20 minutes ("I have an internal clock") because I had stuff to do. He'd get the kids from daycare.

5:30 pm he wakes me up and suggests he can take the kids out for supper ("yes please!"). I tried to get up but couldn't move until 6:00. I felt AWFUL.

Now I don't know if baby was doing some crazy growing and it just wiped me out, or if it was the bad nutrition, but I'm not taking that chance again. It may be the perfect excuse to eat like crap but that doesn't mean you SHOULD, unless you want to feel like crap yourself. Lesson learned... eating right (and drinking water! craving freezies all afternoon should have been a clue to get some H20 in me!) actually IS important. Duhhhh...

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