Helllloooo, second trimester.

[rivka]

Wow, I really do feel light-years better. Wow. Big changes this week.

The nausea's gone - or, more accurately, the nausea is no worse than its pre-pregnancy level. (I've got reflux disease, and one of the symptoms is nausea when I have an empty stomach.)

But more importantly, my appetite is back! Food is such an important pleasure in my life that it's been quite distressing to have no appetite. For the last couple of months, even when I wasn't nauseated, I had very little interest in food. I ate as a chore. I cooked as a chore. I had brief cravings for a couple of things - bagels with cream cheese, salty salty tapenade - but I also left half my dinner on my plate, day after day. Because it didn't seem to be nausea-related, I honestly worried that I might have permanently lost my taste for food. It was sad.

Now I'm hungry. Now I can go from zero to OMG FEED ME NOW!!!1!! in sixty seconds. Now I'm once again thinking about food in a recreational sense. I made fondue last night - three meats, four vegetables, three dipping sauces - just because it sounded tasty and fun. I have my appetite back.

And my energy level! I actually had the energy to walk to the store after work, buy fondue ingredients, and make fondue. I've started to think about going places and doing things. I've started to have ideas for Respectful of Otters posts. I think I may be on my way to rejoining the land of the living. That would be nice.

No new symptoms except for the appearance of sudden-onset hunger. Still not showing, although I feel a little rounder in the belly.

Wait, maybe mood swings. You'd have to ask curiousangel, but I bet he'd be too smart to answer you. I think I do have a slightly increased tendency to be sentimental and weepy, especially in response to baby-related stimuli. Perhaps I might also be slightly more bitchy. You won't hold that against me, will you? It's all the Critter's fault.

Speaking of bitchy: what the fuck is up with medical professionals criticizing women for "letting themselves go" if they don't shave their pubes? What the fuck is up with a boardful of pregnant women anxiously twittering about how hard it is to stay nice "down there" when you've got a big ol' belly? It's like fingernails on the blackboard of my feminist soul.

Comments

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

Hooray! Don't be surprised if you have a little relapse - I know I thought I'd reached second trimester nirvana, then had another bad few days a week later.

Enjoy! In another few weekss you'll start getting to the really fun part - feeling the baby move. Simultaneously awesome and just a little bit creepy.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

When did pubic hair become as taboo as Visible Panty Line, anyway?

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

and why can't any of these pregnant women write "vagina" instead of "down there".

and yo, if your OB/GYN can't stand some pubes, than your doctor is in the *wrong* business.

n.

[mittelbar.livejournal.com]

Hooray for feeling better AND EATING.


Wow. I never felt self-conscious at the gyn before, regarding pubes, *unless* I'd shaved, which I figured was kind of, um, too overtly sexified to be showing off at the doc's.

I'm more than a little weirded out at the thought of people who are going to be having a BABY COMING OUT OF THEM worrying about whether they are tidy "down there." If they can't bear the thought of their own body hair, if they can't even SAY "pubic hair" or "vulva," they must be insane to be trying to have a homemade baby. They should get one at the store or something.

Scary thinking that the people who are supposedlt TAKING CARE of people while they deliver are grossed out by *hair*. WTF? Go into interior decorating or something, people.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

If they can't bear the thought of their own body hair, if they can't even SAY "pubic hair" or "vulva," they must be insane to be trying to have a homemade baby. They should get one at the store or something.

See, this is why I want to marry you.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

If they can't bear the thought of their own body hair, if they can't even SAY "pubic hair" or "vulva," they must be insane to be trying to have a homemade baby. They should get one at the store or something.

*swoon*

[platypus]

Man, I had no idea that pubic hair was "gross" and that having it in anything but a neat geometric pattern meant you were "letting yourself go." I must have missed some memo when I was a teenager. I certainly never thought a gynecologist or nurse would give a shit. Yeah, this is really making me want to get my overdue pap smear.

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

medical professionals criticizing women for "letting themselves go" if they don't shave their pubes?

Ugh! What a ridiculous thing to say. Went and read that link, and now I'm feeling bitchy too (and I'm not pregnant.)

As far as I'm concerned, good grooming "down there" means I wash.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

You think you're hungry now

Bwa-ha-ha-ha! Just wait!

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Ah, the memories :):). The nice lady at Minato Sushi (no, no raw fish but they had the best tempura!) loved that I would go in there and eat two complete dinners, including the awful salad.

[wiredferret.livejournal.com]

Oh, for the love of pete. I'm not even hugely round, and I can't REACH. Nor do I care.

Thank god for the crunchy midwives. I've never felt like it's an issue. They're much more interested in safe baby, safe mommy.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Oh, for the love of pete.

I misread this as "Oh, for the love of paté", & that's what I'm saying from now on.

Mm, paté.

[uilos.livejournal.com]

Should medical professionals maybe be medical "professionals" in this case?

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Yay for feeling better!

(No enlightenment on the pubic-hair idiots.)

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Yay, energy levels! Yay, zest for food!

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

So glad to hear this!

-J

[cattitude.livejournal.com]

I would advise you to look up the decent all-you-can-eat restaurants in your area. Do it now, so as to check the quality of the food.

Yay second trimester!

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

I'm enjoying the 2nd tri, definitely. But yes - watch the zero-to-60 hunger pangs. I had a huge lunch today, and then was in line at a store about 4, and suddenly thought I'd pass out from hnger. I was hanging onto the racks, until they checked out, and then made a beeline for the car. And then I felt fine.

As for the pubic hair thing - I'm sorry, do I need to apologize for being an adult? News flash for the babcycenter boards: adults have hair there. It happens. I think shaving it all off reeks of sexualizing prepubescent children, which.... ew. (And who wants ingrown hairs there? So not worth it.) And I agree that those "medical professionals" ain't so very professional. Hell, half the time I don't actually shave my legs before a pelvic exam, I'm certainly not worried about pubes!

Okay, I am pregnant, so that's my excuse for ranting. Ahem.

[writingortyping.livejournal.com]

Oh, my dear lord - I can't believe that last bit.

(Blocking it out because I want to celebrate your happiness) - YAY FOOD!!! Yay Rivka!! Yay otter pup!!! Yay otter jammies (I saw in one of your comments on ROO that you had gotten them -hope they're comfy and wonderful in your current state)!

Anyway, Yay Rivka!

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Check out the 1978 pregnancy book Chez Miscarriage found. Damn, I wish I'd looked like that when pregnant...

[puppytown.livejournal.com]

That's not Chez Miscarriage, that's Julie from A Little Pregnant. Speaking of pubes, this is her post: "Bush 2004".

[ailbhe]

Heh. The hairiest woman in the west - me - didn't even consider contemplating it. And no-one even suggested thinking about considering shaving me when I went into theatre. If this is about letting oneself go, then I'm gone, baby, gone...

Remember your post a while back about someone who hadn't lost her pregnancy weight through sheer laziness? This is like that - wildly insane.

[minnaleigh.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear you're feeling better!

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you want to eat. Keep the trail mix around for sugar crashes. Your body is manufacturing all that extra blood, it takes it out of you -- literally.

As for the shaving, ick. I don't understand it, but I think it connects to a lot of very strange things.