News!

I know I haven't written for ages, but we no longer have internet at home, work is super busy, we are looking for a new house (loooooong story!), Luca has a new business in the pipeline (even longer story) and, obviously I am running around like a headless chicken trying to organize pregnancy stuff, working and generally keeping all of the balls in the air!
The big news is that we had the morphological scan at 20 weeks, everything looks to be fine and we found out that It is a She!! So now we're in full-blown pink mode and have pretty much decided on the name, except that we can't decide on the spelling. She'll be called either Sophie or Sofie, pronounced the French way with the accent on the "eee". Suggestions are gratefully accepted!!
The other big news is to do with Luca's work, but we'll keep it for another time since it's almost 7 on a Friday night and I'd really like to get out of this office!!!!
All is well, in any case and in case anyone was wondering, I've reached almost 23 weeks and have already put on 10 kilos. That's despite ignoring my constant raving hunger for 70% of the time! Seriously....

Happy weekend everyone!

The weighting game

When talking about pregnancy with English friends, and the topic of food comes up, the general tone is something along these lines: “Oh, isn’t it great that you now have an excuse to eat what you like?!” and “Make the most of it – you can lose the weight when the baby is born….”. Take that conversation to Italy and you’re more likely to hear “How’s your weight going? Are you managing to keep it low? No pastries for you now!!”
Pregnant Italians are weight obsessed. Their friends are obsessed on their behalf. Worst of all, your average (already slightly intimidating) gynecologist turns into a fully paid up member of the Nazi party when it comes to diet and nutrition; and when you already weighed 5 kilos over your ideal before the pregnancy….. well, you can imagine.
Don’t get me wrong – I am a strong believer in healthy eating and always have been. I completely understand the importance of good nutrition for your unborn child and I am well aware of the complications brought about by rapid weight gain in pregnancy (pre-eclampsia and diabetes being the big scary ones) but sometimes I can’t help wishing I wasn’t up there in Northern Europe where a pregnant lady eating a mars bar isn’t considered an obscene act in a public place, and the occasional treat (“it’s not for me, it’s for baby”) is perfectly normal, everyday behavior.
My gyno is great – very well qualified, very thorough, very professional. However, she also has that Italian way which makes you think that she might well go home and stick pins in a voodoo doll of you if you don’t do exactly what she says. Her latest offering to me was “If you don’t regulate your own food, I’ll put you on a diet and complicate your life in a way you can only imagine”. My protestations that I’m actually eating really well and being careful already were brushed aside. “Well, if you don’t take my advice you’ll become a diabetic and then you’ll be sorry”. Hoooooly!!! “Eat only fish, meat, steamed vegetables and fruit at meals” was her next piece of advice. “Avoid carbohydrates, sugar, fat, and too many dairy products”.
Hang on a second. I’m 170 cms tall (5’6’’ )and weighed 67 kilos pre-pregnancy (147lbs or 10.7 stone). I am now 72 kilos at four months of pregnancy ( 158lbs or 11.4 stone) weight. I’m no sugarplum fairy, but I’m not obese either. My usual dress size is 14-16 UK (the national average) and I have a generally healthy diet. I put on weight at the start of my pregnancy because the only things I could keep down were crisps and cheese, but we’re well passed that now.. I am actually keeping a food diary of everything that passes my lips, which reads like an anorexic’s shopping list: 11am – ½ a banana. 1pm – small pack of soia crackers. 3pm – 1 pear. And here I was thinking I would be eating for two!!
So, there we are. All is well so far – baby growing nicely, blood tests regular, diet boring. Assuming all goes well (facciamo sempre le corna)…. in 5 months from now I will mostly be drinking tea and eating donuts – just because nobody will be able to stop me!

Sick

I feel sick. Sick and gross and yuck. For the past few days, I’ve had a constant underlying feeling of nausea, which only goes away if I eat, and only if I eat very specific things. Cheese, pizza and pasta are at the top of the list, and chocolate is also in there somewhere, albeit much further down. I feel so queasy as I am writing this from my office that just typing out the names of food is making my stomach turn! And those are the “safe foods”…
My phone just rang and woke me up. I am NOT KIDDING! Right after the words “safe foods” I must have started to nod off because I jumped out of my skin! Not too pleasant so far this pregnancy stuff…. The usual healthy eating which before was part of my everyday lifestyle is now totally out of the window – I’m not even going to list the foods I used to love and now can’t think about because just writing them down will certainly make me gag! I had trouble getting my folic acid pill down last night – that’s how bad the situation is!!!
I told my boss. It’s way too early, but we work very closely and I was getting stressed out trying to constantly think of new ways to explain my lateness in the mornings. Headache, forgot to set me alarm, traffic on the tangenziale, doctors appointment… After about a week and a half it was all too much, and so I took him aside and told him that it’s still early but for the sake of me not getting stressed and him not wanting to fire me, this was the reason. He said he had already guessed!! It makes sense I suppose – his wife had a baby not too long ago and so he probably helped her to make up the very same excuses in the same way that Luca has been helping me! Bless… So anyway, I told him I would ‘inform the company’ after the summer holidays (assuming everything goes to plan….) and that until then he was to leave me alone if I didn’t make it in before 11 or disappeared in the middle of the day! I think he got the message….
OK, back to concentrating on not throwing up all over my desk. Apologies for the detail ;-)