Fat pants

Yup.  I'm wearin' em.

I've gained a grand total of two pounds, which I think is probably OK for being almost 9 weeks along.  I'm actually surprised it's not more, given that I've been famished all the time and I haven't been working out.  I can't really do much about the former, but I have to admit I'm pretty ticked at myself about the latter.  After spending the better part of the last year and a half working out regularly and getting into the best shape I've ever been in, I've been letting it all go to hell since June.  First we had our big sewer backup, which effectively destroyed the downstairs area where I do all my workouts.  Then we were gone for most of July (to Prague and then Vancouver), and since we've been back I just haven't gotten into the groove.

I'm really just full of excuses.  I didn't want to restart my high-intensity interval and weight training, figuring it would probably be too intense for pregnancy.  But I waffled on buying any pregnancy workouts out of fear that I'd jinx the whole thing.  I finally forced myself to just pick one off iTunes, and I've done it exactly once.  I went into it with gusto, not realizing that two months off is a lot longer than it seems.  I hurt for days afterwards, and haven't done it since.  Add to that the fact that my nausea tends to act up in the late afternoon/after work/before dinner (which is exactly when I do my workouts) and it's just a recipe for laziness.

So I shouldn't have been shocked when I went to put on a pair of skinny corduroys the other day, only to be faced with some pretty serious discomfort and muffin top.  (Yeah, ok, the thighs were kind of tight too, so obviously this isn't just a belly issue.)  Lucky for me, I hadn't yet ditched/donated most of the pants that I was wearing before I went on my health kick, so a few of them are starting to make it back into the rotation.  

Soon...

Otherwise, I'm actually pretty stoked because tomorrow my sis, her husband and my adorable almost-5-year-old niece are coming to Toronto for a week!  My niece hasn't been here since my wedding when she was 2, so this will be the first time that we'll be able to do fun kid activities like the zoo and the beach.  I don't know who's more excited, me or her!  It'll also be a nice way to kill some time between now and our NT scan/first OB appointment, which isn't until the second week of September.  Feels like a lifetime until then!

So far, so good

Still here!  And still pregnant.  We had another ultrasound on Monday (7w3d) and baby (holyshitBABY!!) was measuring two days ahead with a heartbeat of 158.  We've officially graduated from our RE and don't have another appointment until our nuchal translucency scan around 11 weeks.  Guess I'll just have to somehow get through the next month assuming things are still developing as they should!

Actually, I'm weirdly positive about this whole thing. Weirdly for me, anyway, given my tendency towards pessimism in all things.  I think it might have something to do with the fact that we're not dealing with my crappy old eggs anymore.  Every time we did a cycle with my eggs, I knew the odds were stacked against us so I kind of just assumed that things wouldn't work out.  Knowing that my egg quality was so poor, I think even if I'd managed a sustained pregnancy I probably would have been super stressed thinking that it wouldn't last.  But because we're dealing with phenomenal 27-year old donor eggs, that worry is a lot less present right now.  It's not entirely absent, though, and so far we've only told a handful of people including close family and a few friends who knew we were going to Prague for DEIVF.

So yeah, things have been going pretty well overall.  At first I didn't have any morning sickness at all, and then when I finally got it a little bit it wasn't at all like I expected.  I always figured it would be like on TV where all of a sudden, a pregnant lady gets hit with a wave of nausea and runs to the bathroom to puke her guts up.  I'm sure it's like that for some people, but for me it's been more like a constant low-level generally icky queasy feeling that hangs around throughout the day, but never really gets bad enough to make me vomit.

And speaking of handling, the one pregnancy symptom that M has been loving so far: BOOBS.  I've never been particularly well-endowed, and when I'm working out regularly and eating well I can drop as low as an A-cup.  And, since I'm pushing 40, that A-cup has gotten steadily flatter and decidedly less perky as the years pass.

Not anymore, baby.  Right now I'm rockin' some tig ol' bitties!  Well, OK, I'm sure I'm only a generous B-cup at the moment but these things are defying gravity.  I take my bra off before bed and they do.  Not.  Move.  They're firm and proud and perfectly round.  It's like I've had implants.  Which, considering how much money we spent to finally get me pregnant, seems like a fair deal.  Luckily for me, my breasts have never really been that sensitive (playing with my boobs as foreplay?  You might as well be fondling my elbow) so I haven't had to worry about tenderness or anything that would prevent M from having tons of motorboating fun.

My trifecta of symptoms is also including freakish levels of hunger that come on with lightning speed.  I've been trying to eat smaller, more frequent meals but some days it seems like I can barely go half an hour without needing to eat.  If I don't deal with the issue right away, my body skips that in-between phase of "a little gurgly in the tummy" hunger and fast-forwards straight to "my stomach is devouring itself" levels of hunger.  I get cranky and confused and all I can think about is how soon can I get some food in my face.

All in all, things are have been pretty uneventful and that's just fine by me.