I had my 24-week check up today. I saw the Nurse Practitioner, Paula Lins, which was great. She is the one I met with on my very first visit and I like her a lot. I feel like I have not really had a chance to ask my doctor a lot of questions throughout this process. He does the ultrasounds, but not many of the routine check-ups, so I have really only seen him twice and each time he just gets right down to business and then leaves the room as soon as he is finished with the sonogram. So, since I knew I was seeing the nurse practitioner today, I brought a list of questions with me. One of my main concerns that I wanted to talk about was weight gain. I haven't been weighing myself at home (I didn't weigh myself before I got pregnant either - too depressing - instead I usually go by how I feel and how my clothes fit), but I do get weighed at every appointment. I can pretty much read the scale, but I still think it is odd that they never actually tell me what I weigh, they just write it in the chart and take me back to the room. (I'm sure if I had asked what my weight was on any of these occasions they would have told me, but I think I was really afraid of what the number would be.) When I asked where I was at with weight gain, Paula looked at my chart and said that I had already gained 30 pounds, which put me on schedule to gain about 60 pounds for the entire pregnancy. I just about fell off the exam table. I was shocked! I knew I had put on a fair amount of weight, but I had no idea it was 30 pounds, and the fact that I could gain 60 pounds made me want to cry right there. We had a long discussion about the things I should be eating (lots of salads, fruits, vegetables and lean meats) and should not be eating (carbohydrates such as pasta and potatoes and stuff with lots of sugar). None of this was a surprise to me and I have been eating tons of fruit, salads, chicken and pork. But, I have also been eating a fair amount of pasta and potatoes - which I thought was being healthy. Unfortunately, I think my body is very sensitive to carbs and they just stick to me. I think this was the case even before I was pregnant. I have also always struggled with portion control and a major sweet tooth. And being pregnant has not helped any of this. I am hungry all the time and I crave something sweet every night after dinner. Pair all that with the fact that I have not really had a regular exercise regimen since I stopped playing college sports and I guess I shouldn't really be that surprised that I have gained so much weight. I left the doctor's office feeling very depressed. Deep down I know that the important thing is that the baby is healthy, but I guess I am still too vain and selfish to be ok with gaining 30 pounds when I am only halfway through my pregnancy.
When I told Tony about my appointment I completely broke down in tears. Poor guy, I think it scared him that I was crying about my appointment and for a minute he thought something was wrong with the baby. I quickly assured him that everything is fine with the baby and I was just overreacting. He was so wonderful and said that he would do whatever he could to help me adjust my diet to eliminate some of the extra carbs - and he said that he would cut back with me so we can still eat the same meals. He also said he would go on more walks with me and help me get into more of an exercise routine. That made me feel so much better.
Other than that, everything went fine at the appointment. The baby is measuring pretty much right on schedule and his heart rate was between 150 and 160. My only other concern was that I have not felt much movement at all. My sister-in-law, Stephanie, says she feels her baby moving all the time, so I wanted to make sure that everything was ok. Paula told me that it is ok that I haven't felt much movement up to this point. She said that the amount and strength of the movements I will feel depends on the baby's position and she also said that sometimes women with strong abdominal muscles don't feel a lot of movement until later on in pregnancy. After the whole weight discussion, it was nice to think that I might still have some ab muscles in there someplace :-) My next appointment will be at 28 weeks and I will do the glucose screening test and get a RhoGAM shot because of my Rh negative blood type.
