So I've been keeping track of my weight gain on an excel chart. I'm a little OCD and adore Excel and the chart has been quite useful- each cell is a day, organized by week, so I always know how many weeks/days pregnant I am or will be. When I find out a friend is getting married June 16, and I'm a bridesmaid, I can immediately look and see how pregnant I'll be (32 weeks and 3 days). I've also been writing little milestones on the days they occur- first time we saw him, first time we heard his heart beat, first time I felt him move, etc- and those will eventually end up in his baby book. The up and down side of such a chart is that I can see exactly how my weight has been gained, and that's the issue that is starting to disturb me a bit. (I say a "bit" because I'm eating mostly healthy things, am enjoying only the occasional cupcake indulgence, and I'm not going to get in the way of this weight gain process- its just an interesting progression).
For the entire first trimester I actually lost 3 lbs. It turns out that eating macaroni & cheese and pizza continuously throughout the day is a type of diet- who knew? Now I feel like I'm back to my regular eating habits and it doesn't seem like I'm eating much more than usual, and yet I've been gaining 2 lbs. a week the last month or so! Last week was 2.5! That seems like a lot. So overall I've gained 15 lbs. That seems perfect- I'm a little over halfway there and you're supposed to gain between 25 and 35 lbs. But when you look at when I gained it, those first 13 weeks barely count, so if I continue on this path, I'll be quite a lot over 35 lbs.
Did other people have a really rapid spurt of weight gain in the 2nd trimester and then calm down? It's not so much the weight gain itself that's bothering me, its the rapid rise of it- there's no way I can gain 2 lbs. a week for the next 17 weeks. (I started this whole process at my ideal weight.) I was reading through some of the yahoo message boards but quickly got irritated with the women who responded, "I only gained 4.5 lbs. the entire time I was pregnant". Hmmm, how nice for you , and yet that's not such a helpful answer. As a side note, the little guy is getting more active and I'm hoping JP can feel him soon. I've noticed his hand touches my stomach more, like he's hoping to feel him move, but doesn't want to be obvious about it- it's quite endearing.
Fugs & Pieces, November 22, 2024
3 hours ago
ha ha - I have a weekly excel chart too that tells me how far along I'll be at any given time. Luckily I don't own a scale so I can't enter weight details - and my midwife's scale is in kilograms, so I'm not even really sure what they mean unless I come home and do the conversions. Thanks for the headache tips - I googled some exercises - anything that can help!
ReplyDeleteIsn't 2 pounds a week textbook weight gain for the second trimester? I stressed a little about weight gain too, but as long as you're eating a reasonably healthy diet and your doctor doesn't see anything wrong, just let it go. If there's any extra you can worry about it after the baby comes. I gained 2 pounds a week (plus a little during stressful times at school) during my second and third trimesters and ended up gaining nearly 40 pounds... it doesn't sound like you'll be having that problem. I think I gained about 5 pounds more than I should have from stress eating and lack of exercise at the end, but I don't think I was as disciplined as you. The baby was fine and I just started an exercise program to get back in shape within the next few months.
ReplyDeleteAt the hospital today, I had the weight conversation with my doctor, because I was stressing about not gaining enough. He's very reassuring and (naturally) reassured me that we're all a bit different, that some will gain a little and some more, and so on. He seems to think I will do all of my gaining in the next ten weeks, but I don't know if that was based on my pattern or if most women gain the most in the last trimester.
ReplyDeleteAfter stressing on my cervix, persistent breast pain (ultrasound on that next week), the position of the baby (finally she's flipped ventrix), the only thing I hadn't been worried about was my glucose, which came back high, so now I get to go do the three hour GTT tomorrow morning. #@*&!
I gained 62 pounds with my first babe, and I looked gorgeous, was totally healthy, and everything went great. This time around, I have gained 19 pounds thus far (I am in week 30).
ReplyDeleteIn both pregnancies, I gained the most weight the most rapidly during the 2nd trimester. I know that the baby starts to gain weight much more rapidly in the 3rd trimester, but the amniotic fluid also decreases alot to make more room for the baby. So I would imagine that you are right on track. I wouldn't worry at all!
One more thing... My hubby LOVES to feel the baby move. He likes to plaster his face and hands over my entire belly, so that he can feel any movement whatsoever. He likes to talk to the baby as well, and that really gets her jumping around. Sometimes it seems as though she is going to burst out of my belly, alien style, to grab him!
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