Thursday, May 26, 2011

Weight Gain... Or a Lack Thereof

I just went to see the midwife today (biweekly visits now -- yay, progress!) and I didn't gain any weight, again. It's been a month now with no gain.

My total weight gain to date, from nine weeks pregnant, is ten pounds. I don't know what my starting weight was, because I was all out of whack from OHSS -- I barely ate for two weeks, and lost weight, and then gained it all back and then some, probably... but didn't weigh myself after I started eating.

Catherine, my midwife said, "If you don't have any gain by thirty-four weeks, I'm sending you for a sonogram, end of story."

I asked nervously, "Should we do it sooner? I mean, I'm good to go now, if you think I should."

At that point, she reassured me, and measured my belly, which is perfectly on target at 29.5 cm. She counseled me on eating things like oatmeal with butter, cream, nuts, walnuts and raw honey. She also wants me to make a big pot of brown rice and eat some of that with my protein. Surprisingly enough, she didn't seem suitably impressed with my multiple days of eating cheesecake after my shower!

I'm conflicted.

Of course there's a crazy part of me that thinks, wow, cool, maybe I'll be skinny after I give birth (like I used to be, before I went on hormonal birth control and started gaining weight... no, it didn't go away after I finally stopped the birth control... only my periods stopped, and I got acne -- awesome!) But another part of me is freaked out, and worried that I'm starving my little girl.

The thing is, I'm eating when I'm hungry. I try to eat healthy, but I'm not depriving myself of anything, ever. I've had cookies and whole fat milk at bedtime the last several nights. I have whole fat yogurt and fruit for breakfast every day, and whole fat cheese or Cliff Mojo Bars for snacks. I had roasted chicken (skin on), sweet potatoes with butter, and two clementines for lunch today. Then, since it wasn't much chicken... I added a California Roll. Plus a mid-afternoon Mojo bar.

My personal hypothesis is that pregnancy is keeping my PCOS in check, a temporary cure, and that my body wants to re-adjust back to its old weight of a few years ago. So I'm inclined to not worry.

Plus, it's hard to imagine that listening my hunger and fullness cues is wrong. I'm a HUGE believer in listening to one's body. It's true that I don't like to feel very full... but paying attention to this never made me lose weight in the past! So it's hard to imagine that this is unhealthy behavior.

But what if my little girl is hungry??? What if I'm hurting her?

Nerve wracking.

1 comment:

  1. I hate to tell you this but your midwife is unknolwedgeable about the non-weight gain issue with PCOS patients during pregnancy. Many women with PCOS gain very little or actually lose weight during pregnancy and there is nothing wrong with them. Their bodies, in fact, operate properly for the first time since hitting puberty. It can sort of put PCOS 'in remission'.

    I think she needs to do some reading on this because it is totally normal and isn't going to cause harm to baby. We're just weird that way. ;-)

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