24

Yesterday was my twenty-four week check up. Total downer...I laughed a lot so I wouldn't cry. I always hate stepping on the scale...because darn it, the numbers just keep getting bigger! I am five pounds away from my heaviest weight and I still have the big growing months ahead of me. I am consistently gaining 6 pounds every four weeks and it's all going to my butt and thighs. I'm not the only one measuring big though. This little girl is big too! Two weeks big. Yikes!

I know everybody thinks that pregnancy is a great excuse for getting fat and eating as much as you want. But that just means there's so much more to work off when it ends. In the mean time...it's not doing good things for my self image or self esteem.

I have always been the skinny girl. I used to eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted and never gained a single ounce that actually would have been healthy for me. When I was a sophomore in high school I was ecstatic when I finally reached 100 pounds. Once in the girls locker room a girl told me I was so skinny I looked sick. It may not seem so, but that comment hurt a lot and made me more self conscious than every before. It wasn't my fault I couldn't gain weight, but being skinny...even scrawny...was who I was. It was what I knew.

I eventually reached a healthy weight after I got married and was happy with that too. When I was pregnant with Peyson I was shocked at the 44 pounds I gained...and a little disappointed when it didn't just fall off when I had him. When Peyson was 1 I still had 15 pounds to go and started running. It came off and I felt good. I looked good. But then one of the medications I was on for PTC put those 15 pounds back on and there it stayed until I got pregnant again.

So because of my total disgust of maternity pants, I am left with regular jeans that are long enough, however, much bigger in size than I have ever had to wear. I know it has to fit over my baby belly, but that's not the only area that is oversized and still growing. I realize that gaining weight is part of the game...and everybody goes through it...but this time around it's really making me feel gross. Real. Gross.

Everything else at the appointment looked good. Next month I do the glucose test. I dread seeing what the scale will tell me at the next visit. I can only imagine how fast it will take me to get to 200. And I hope the pair of jeans I just bought will be the last I will have to buy...and as soon as I am able...I'll be hitting the pavement until it's all gone.

Oh the things it takes to bring these angels to us. While I sit inside this body of mine, and feel ick about how I look, I feel this little girl moving inside of me and wonder what she is doing, what she will look like, who she will be, what she will grow to become. And then I smile. And somehow in this messed up process we call multiplying and replenishing, all the self destruction disappears and everything is ok. Beautiful in fact!