When I was in hospital with OHSS, I had to decide whether it was better to watch daytime television or throw myself out the window. Being the creative soul that I am, I devised a third option - navel gazing. And one day my navel gazing brought me this:

You can tell how good your life is by analysing your woes. At the low point of that hospital stay I was worried I would die in my sleep from suffocation or drowning, because I was struggling to breathe (although my oxygen saturation was always fine). I actually had to have a heart-to-heart with the nurse about this at 2:30am one morning, such was my state of anxiety. A few days later, I was worried my daily dose of clexane might sting.

A week ago I was worried our baby was dead. That fear hasn't gone away, but today there is room in my head to be irritated by a hunger so constant and insatiable that it severely disrupts my life. It's honestly driving me a little insane. I wake up hungry at 5am and have breakfast, then nap til 7:30am when I have Second Breakfast. Then I have morning tea at nine, and start to prepare a cooked lunch, which I eat at ten. Yesterday I was out and didn't eat my cooked lunch til eleven, and as a consequence I was nauseated and headachey the whole rest of the day and most of the night. Anyway, this eating goes on til bedtime, which is late - around eleven or midnight - because if I have my last feed any earlier I won't sleep through til five. Naturally, this means I can't go without an afternoon nap. It's like I'm an infant again. And despite all this, I have managed to gain a grand total of slightly less than 1kg, which buys me a scolding from the nurse at the clinic. Argh.

In the future, I aspire to such concerns as My Toddler Is So Active I'm Exhausted and It's Going To Be Expensive To Send All Four Kids To Harvard.

--
P.S. By request, I got a ticker. Well, a counter. Down under the summary on the right hand column. I couldn't find a generic one that did weeks and days, so I'll have to leave dividing by seven as an exercise for the alert reader.


18 Comments

ColourYourWorld said...

All a good sign and if it makes you feel better then poo poo to the nurse.

Geohde said...

Ah yes. I remember the hunger that never stopped.

I wouldn't worry about the weight gain thing. It's a bit outmoded. As long as you're well, and you're eating when you feel hunger of a reasonable variety of good food, your physiology will sort itself out.

J

Sarah said...

did you counter with the increased bra size? i guess those things don't weigh as much as they seem like they would, eh?

Jackie said...

I also had the mad animal hunger. I could only eat small amounts of food so was on a continual graze with the pre-bedtime snack being absolutely essential for feeling only slightly disgusting the following day. This lasted until week 9 or 10 and also did not result in much weight gain. As of this morning, I have gained a whole pound on my prepregnancy weight (that's around half a kg, right?). I still eat a fair amount: Breakfast, midmorning snack, lunch, midafternoon snack (depending on lunch), dinner. By evening, I've usually had so much to eat during the day, my dinner is quite light. Which makes me very hungry in the morning.

andrea_jennine said...

It sounds like pregnancy has turned you into a hobbit. (Sorry, I couldn't resist the reference to Second Breakfast!)

beagle said...

I imagine that virtualy all of us aspire to those last two concerns.

I hope you can keep that hunger fed without losing too much sleep.

Jess said...

Eat, eat, eat! :)

Here's a good ticker that you can cycle through for days/weeks/etc. if you're interested!

http://babystrology.com/

Cibele said...

If I have early dinner I wake up at 3 am for a snack. Breakfast has to be no later than 7 .... lunch at 11 and several little meals in between... IT IS A MAD HUNGER
I am so gald that things are progressing well with you!!!

Lut C. said...

MUST. EAT. NOW! That's been my one symptom.

I read that weigh-ins were oldfashioned too, even though I was pointed towards the scales at each consult.

megan said...

so, so glad to hear that things are ticking along beautifully...

Anonymous said...

Dude, I am so there. I won't even tell you how many donuts I ate throughout the day today. Luckily there has been no nurse scolding yet. Maybe you should have gotten fat before you got pregnant. That seems to be working for me. ;-)

Anonymous said...

I have to do math when I come here? I might just stop reading now. :)

I am glad all is well and you have a healthy appetite!

Bea said...

Jess - thanks for the link. I've thought about the babystrology one, but I think I'm going to stick with a more generic one for now. Apart from anything else, I think it suits the decor a little better :)

Bea

TeamWinks said...

Perhaps I'm delusion from exhaustion or hunger for breakfast, but I can't find the counter. God help me when I have to do math too! ;-)

Pamela T. said...

A very astute observation that we measure our satisfaction in life by analysing those low points and how far we've come.
I, too, look forward to reading your blog in the future and hearing you long for these days -- when hunger pains were preferable to sleep deprivation!

Amanda said...

The hunger, although maddening, sounds so healthy! And I've always heard that the baby will get what it needs, regardless of whether or not you do, so the nurse needs to lay off!

I can't wait to read more wonderful posts! :-)

Rachel Inbar said...

Enjoy your breakfast, second breakfast, early lunch... :-)

I remember the feeling of needing to eat N-O-W!!! and it didn't really matter what...

The Momcaster said...

that hunger is a great sign!
i say eat as much as you wants as long as you're scoffing down "healthy" the stuff.

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