Irritated

There are some things that I am really irritated by these days. Sorry for all the negativity, it really isn't like me. But letting it all out on my poor husband is not working so well, so instead I am going to download it here. Please don't take anything I am saying here personally. and please be warned that some of these thing are complaints about being pregnant (which i know can be hard to read sometimes.) For what its worth, I did have a good talk with my dr who gave me permission to blame everything on being pregnant. here goes...

1) captcha. I hate it. Is it really necessary? I understand not wanting to get computer-bot comments, but seriously, for the sake of people who actually read and leave comments, could be all just agree to disable captcha and delete any computer-bot comments?

2) blogger profiles that don't enable a reply-to email address. I have all comments sent to me via email, and sometimes I can hit reply and send an email directly back to the person who left the comment, but sometimes there is no reply email address to respond to.  How come I can reply directly to some comments, and not to others? Is it a bloggers setting?

3) food. this challenged relationship with food is getting old. psyching myself out to eat, forcing myself to swallow, is a lot  of work. i also have his expectation that everyone should be helping me with this by continually offering me appropriate snacks and meals so that all i have to think about is simply eating what is in front of me. its not rational, but its how i feel.

4) people at work. i want to hire some 3rd graders who were trained in conflict mediation to come moderate our meetings. i am embarrassed (and beyond frustrated) that adults in positions of great responsibility can behave so poorly. how do people rise to positions of such importance while lacking such basic communication skills?

5) my clothes. they just aren't fitting. my waist is thick so my pants are packed up. i have 5 awesome pairs of maternity pants that are still too big, but much better than too small. my boobs have grown two cup sizes so my shirts are busting at the seems and/or too short to cover up the maternity band on the pants. getting dressed has never been my favorite part of the day, but now, it really sucks.

6) my dear sweet puppy. i just feel like my patience for her antics is so thin. i come home from work and she is so so so excited, she gets her ball, runs around me, stops for a pet, but all i want to do is get my stuff set down and go to the bathroom, and get a drink of water and sit down. it feels like she is just in my way.

7) a stupid ticket i got earlier this year. we paid our registration, but they never sent us the sticker. months passed before we realized, but we did and made an appt at the dmv to go get it straightened out. a week before my dmv appt i get pulled over for not having the registration sticker on my license. i explain it all to the cop, who insists on giving me a fix-it ticket. jerk. So i take the afternoon off to go to the dmv, then to the police station to get the ticket signed off, then to the court house to pay the ticket but they don't have it in their records. So i go back to the pd, where they assure me that they sent it to the court. the pd calls the court, and ta da they find the ticket. long story short we are now getting these notices that i never cleared the ticket. they are demanding $1500 unless i prove that we cleared the ticket, but i have no idea where the original ticket even is. i just want ml to take care of it and make it all go away.

8) insurance. where to begin. i've been looking over our maternity benefits and called to make sure i was understanding correctly. this really deserves its own post, but as I should have guessed, our $3,000 out of pocket maximum is anything but that. Really it is the $500 deductible plus the $20 office co-pays plus the $3,000 oop plus any out of network charges. Oh and yes, the baby starts its own deductible and out of pocket max once its born. Oh and yes, just because we have an in-network obgyn and will be delivering at an in-network hospital, we can't assume that the people who work at that hospital (like an anesthesiologist or surgeon) will be in-network, and thus any of their charges will be in addition to our out of pocket maximum. Could anyone explain why we even bother having insurance? This really gets my goat, for oh so many reasons.

It does feel better to take these things, write them down, and let them go.

Food Diary

I always thought that the idea of pregnancy cravings were a bit random, but kind of cool. I always thought that they must be a positive kind of craving, like how I normally crave chocolate or ice cream, so much so that I'll hop in the car at night and drive to the store to get myself a fix.

I never pictured them as being the only thing that I can imagine eating right now, because the thought of anything else makes my stomach turn and my gag reflex respond.

It only been the past few days, but my stomach has definitely made its presence known and declared control. I've been extra hungry since week 5, needing lots of little snacks starting first thing in the morning and continuing until I fell asleep. If I didn't eat, the growling started, and if I ignored it for too long I'd start to feel ill. But there was plenty of warning, before any negative consequences. It was easy to pack my purse full of string cheese and granola bars and fruit.

I figured that since we made it to 8 weeks without any nausea that I was home free. haha

Starting last Thursday, the hunger warning turned into a sick stomach warning. If I waited too long between snacks, I'd start to feel nauseous. It was as if the nausea had replaced the hunger growls. But I could still eat a quick snack and regain control.

Shopping with ML on Saturday was a little challenging, until he suggested that we have cheeseburgers for dinner. Oh my gosh did cheeseburgers sound delicious. Thinking of of dinner was the only thing that got me thru the rest of trip, because nothing looked appealing.

By Sunday, I was diligent about snacking every 30 minutes or so. A little piece of bread, a bite of granola bar, a bit of string cheese. We were taking my mom to lunch for mothers day and as we drove to the restaurant, my favorite restaurant, the thought of food sounded awful. I couldn't imagine what I might order, and hoped that what the rest of the group ordered wouldn't be too offensive. I managed thru lunch eating my salad (sans gorgonzola) and mashed potatoes. I felt better after eating, but not for long. I snacked my way thru the evening, but wasn't feeling real hot.

On Monday, I'd packed my bag full of snacks, but couldn't bring myself to eat them, they just made me feel ill when I thought about pulling something out. Jamba Juice came to the rescue and I nursed my smoothie thru my next three meetings. When I ran out of smoothie, I switched to an odwala protein drink that lasted until the day ended. ML had planned on making pork chops and asparagus for dinner, but the thought of those foods made me feel so nauseous as I drove home. The only food that didn't sound repulsive at that point was cheese enchiladas. Not sure where that thought entered my mind, but it was all I could picture eating, not because I wanted it so much as because it didn't make my throat feel gaggy when I thought about it.

Sweet ML abandoned the pork chops and made a trip for mexican drive thru with me. I could only eat about half my plate, and then felt super gassy and stomach gurglely for the rest of the evening.

Today has been very much the same as yesterday. I usually keep peanuts in my office for snacking, but the sight of them today was awful. I had my sister, who I get to work with, take them away. Jamba Juice was a great choice again today for lunch, and it lasted all afternoon for sipping snacks.

I am feeling a little nervous about all the eating, since I've gained over 10 lbs from the start of the IVF cycle. I'm also feeling like I should be adding some activity back into my life, since I've been on restriction since the week 7 bleeding. I'm sure the extra snacks combined with the reduced activity is to blame for this weight, but I still feel a little guilty (or something) about it.

I'm going to attempt to brave artichokes and asparagus and mashed potatoes for dinner tonight. But it might end up that I head to the store for an Odwala, not because I want it necessarily, but because the thought of this other food is nauseating.

PS: At mothers day lunch another couple from our clinic sat at the table across from us. I'm sure she recognized me, but because we'd never had any interaction at the clinic it felt weird to have any interaction over lunch. She was totally wearing a maternity shirt, the kind with the bunched sides, and it was really nice to think that the cycle was a success for her too.

PPS: Mothers Day marked my one year blogging anniversary! It has been pretty incredible to read back through some of my old posts, and remember what we've been through. I bookmarked a dozen of the posts that were most meaningful to me and might share them in an upcoming blogosversary post. We'll see.