Tales of the Scale

I have struggled with my weight since about the third or fourth grade.

I was always really skinny as a little kid, partly because I was so tall, but after a move halfway across the state in late elementary school, I discovered the "joys" of comfort eating in order to cope with bullying. I was unable to control my appetite, and ended up creating an overweight prepubescent girl with a stomach that could rival the first place winner at a frat house eating contest.

In eighth grade, sick of the song "Ellie Smelly has a big fat belly" I basically starved myself for several months until I was down to what I considered a "normal weight". It was the thinnest I've ever been. That didn't last long, though. The pounds came back as soon as I started eating again. Exercise made no difference.

I still struggle with portion sizes and eating carbohydrates in moderation (mmm mashed potatoes), and probably will all my life. This, in addition to my PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome), an underactive thyroid, and probably several other of my "medical issues", explains my constant battle with the scale, no matter how little, or how much, I eat, and how little, or how much, I exercise. I usually stand between five and fifteen pounds heavier than the recommended weight for my height. Luckily, because I'm so tall, I carry it well, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm overweight.

However, because of hyperemesis gravidarum, I lost about 10% of my body weight (that's nearly twenty pounds) in a few short weeks, and found myself in the "healthy weight range" for a non-pregnant woman of my height. I lost inches in my waist, hips, and thighs, lost two to three dress sizes depending on the brand, and was almost to the point of needing to get my wedding ring sized smaller after I had increased it by a quarter size to prepare for swelling.

According to my doctor, I should have gained about ten pounds by now. He was very concerned about my weight loss, and very slow gain, at my last appointment with him before leaving California. Now, several weeks later, I have only gained a little bit of weight. I am now about two to three pounds lighter than I was before I found out that I was pregnant. Progress, but still not good.

I feel like it's the old "be careful what you wish for" coming back to bite me in my should-be-expanding-but-it's-not ass. I'm always wanting to lose weight and be in the "healthy range" (whatever that means with all the different body types out there), and the only time I can do it is when I'm puking at the mere thought of eating and there's a Jellie Bean in my tummy that needs om nom noms.

Please pray for some healthy weight gain to come my way soon!

Love,
Ellie

Catching Up: Weeks 14 - 18

Its been a month and a day since I've written. I didn't realize I've gone that long. :( Sorry!

Weeks 14 through 15 were spent preparing a 1970-something Winnebago for a trip from Irvine, California, to my hometown in Le Mars, Iowa, where Justin and I are currently spending the summer, with my dad and five-year-old nephew, Zach.

There were some great parts of the trip. The Winnebago was vintage, and a lot of fun to travel with, and Zion National Park in Utah was gorgeous. It was quickly added to my list of favorite places, and I had a great time hiking, especially the beginning of the Narrows. It was way too cold to go very far, and I just didn't feel that it would be the wisest decision while pregnant. I hope to return someday, though, and hike both the Narrows, and Angel's Landing!

However, not all of the trip was a cake-walk. In fact, due to my health, I was unfortunately miserable most of the time. Not only was I dealing with the tail end of hyperemesis gravidarum and all the fun things like dehydration that come with it, but we also left California right after finals week, which, as always, coincides with my bi-annual cough that turns into severe bronchitis exacerbated by my asthma. It just gets worse and worse until it's unbearable. I spent most of the trip coughing, occasionally hacking stuff up, and puffing my rescue inhaler every couple of hours. It got so bad, that the coughing became so frequent and strong that I ended up injuring a rib. It was so painful I couldn't get a deep breath in. Luckily, an affiliate hospital of my insurance, Kaiser Permanente, was on the route home. I was admitted to the emergency room (shocker, I know) for evaluation and an x-ray. I was expecting to get a nebulizer treatment and steroids for the bronchitis/asthma, and the x-ray just to make sure my rib was puncturing anything, but after the results from the blood work, my doctor was concerned about blood clots, as my d-dimer test for clotting factors was elevated. Needless to say, it was a terrifying night. Luckily, I was released after several hours, as I only had a few small clotting issues that were not dangerous enough to keep me overnight. Justin and I stayed overnight in Colorado, and made it Le Mars the next morning.

We have been here for about half a month now. I have had one bad flare up of hyperemesis, but appears to be staying away. Even light nausea has reduced, so long as I keep food in my stomach. *knock on wood*

Justin is working production at the south plant at Wells Blue Bunny and is enjoying his new temporary job, and I am taking a few summer courses at Western Iowa Tech Community College. Miss Sadie Lou is enjoying a new friendship with her dog cousin, Leroy, and the little Jellie Bean is becoming more and more active by the day.

I begin care under my temporary OB for the summer starting on Friday, and will hopefully have anatomy scan the next week or the week after. Yes, that's the scan where we try to get the kid to spread his or her legs and show us the goods so everyone can buy us a bunch of pink or blue stuff. :p

We're also having a blast and half dealing with CUI and some financial aid mix ups. More on that later.

That's all for now, and I promise for weeks 19 and 20 I will have prompt and more detailed posts!

Love,
Ellie

A Statement Crappier Than Pregnancy Induced Constipation

I've been spending a lot of time in the bathroom lately.

Yes, I just said that.

I pee a lot, and out of every seven days of the week, I spend six and a half of them constipated. With hemorrhoids for added excitement.

Pregnancy is so beautiful.

With my increased time spent on the porcelain throne, thanks to the Jellie Bean, comes increased boredom. Luckily, the family Justin and I have been staying with this semester have some "entertainment" on a shelf above the toilet, in the form of a book called Happy Thoughts, by Toby Reynolds. It's full of cute little sayings with pictures of even cuter animals, making my field trips to the potty just a little more enjoyable.

I can't sleep tonight (which isn't a rare occurrence for me). I just got back from one of those field trips, and one of the sayings I saw in the book tonight actually stuck with me after the flush. It had a picture of a polar bear next to it, sliding around on its tummy, and said:

"Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training."

At first, the rebel in me was like "Chyeah, you go polar bear and your cleverness!"

And then I realized how dumb that saying really was.

When I was in school (especially late elementary/middle school), I was an awful child. Awful. I punched a boy in the stomach who was twice my size because he made fun of my dog. I attempted to stage a boycott at lunch when our teachers tried to make us have assigned seating to avoid cliques. I told my principal to get a life and stop trying to control everyone when she told me I wasn't allowed talk about being in a talented and gifted (T.A.G.) program because it "made other people feel bad". I couldn't even talk about it  for "risk of offending someone". For crying out freaking loud.

When I got sent to detention for that, I was asked to fill out a form telling "your side" of the story (granted, "your side" was put in quotations, and was dripping with implied sarcasm according to my 12-year-old mind). I was also supposed to circle the specific Pillar of Character I "violated" (you know, those Six Pillars of Character they teach you...you know, the ones you can't teach by just hanging posters of them in a classroom, by the way. Just saying.). Instead of choosing one of the six, I invented my own. I called it "Robotics". Under the description I wrote "I will be a mindless robot. I will follow all commands. I will not think for myself. Mrs. Former Principal Name Withheld is the only person with a brain in the entire school district." And then I circled the whole thing.

I got an in-school suspension, and was told I couldn't go back to class until I apologized. I refused. After two days, the in-school suspension monitor couldn't handle my mouthiness and sarcastic comments about the Character Counts program any more, so I was moved to the conference room in the school's office complex. The conference room happened to be between the private offices of both the principal and the assistant principal. I sang "We Shall Not Be Moved" at the top of my lungs for an hour straight until they called my dad in.

I was back in class that afternoon.

And people think I'm mouthy and outspoken now...ha!

Anyway, back to the polar bear picture and saying...

It reminded me of my old principal. I'm sure she had good intentions. I'm sure she thought that her giraffe cut-out that said "Stick your neck out, help others!" and Character Counts Day that consisted of eating foreign foods and seventh grade boys making fun of the Chinese guest speaker's accent made us all better people. I'm sure she even thought she was trying to make me a better person. And you know what? She did, just not by her standards.

You see, she plastered a lot of "Bad Training" around my middle school. A lot. Hanging up a poster that says "Do you have character?" with a list of six positive attributes and a cartoon giraffe accomplishes nothing but decorating a small portion of a whitewashed wall with an outdated color scheme. And her extremely hostile attitude towards kids who were in the gifted program showed an extreme lack of character on her part. Now, I'm not saying that I have great character, because as the 1941 Lutheran Hymnal page 15 liturgy reminds me on Sunday, "I am by nature sinful and unclean". I'm a really terrible person. Just like everybody else. But as someone who was supposed to be a role model, she set a pretty crappy example for a 12-year-old girl who really just needed some guidance and a good outlet for her misdirected passion. Crappier than the constipation I've got going on.

But I really did learn something from her: That you should always, always, always stand up for what you believe is right. Now, I have some regrets in my life: dating a guy with sideburns, burning some friendship bridges, and wearing blue eyeshadow to my senior prom, but I can look back with confidence and never be ashamed that I didn't fight for something I was passionate about. And if it wasn't for Mrs. Former Principal Name Withheld, I may not be the passionate person I am today. A lot of people can't stand that quality about me. A lot of people confuse that quality with "drama queen", or whatever other negative term that they can come up with. You know what I call them? Lackluster. But that's beside the point. That passion has made me fearless in the face of danger, adversity, and authority figures that abuse their power. And sometimes, because of that passion: I've been able to make a difference.

And if I made a difference in my life, or someone else's life, no matter how small, that's what's important. It wasn't about "surviving" her bad training and idiotic giraffe posters. It was about making something great out of the poor way she handled a potentially good program.

Sure, when you're in a bad situation, you want out. You want to survive it. But do you know what one of the best things you can do to get started is? Make something good out of the bad situation by finding your voice, seeking out your strength, testing your limits, and growing into a better person. Don't be a coward. Don't be a victim. If you don't like something, do something about it.

I think that, far more than survival ability, is what makes a creative mind.

Love,
Ellie

Week Thirteen: Welcome to the Second Trimester!

Today marks the first day of my second trimester, the supposedly easiest and most enjoyable stretch of pregnancy! Hooray!

I've still got an IV in my wrist for fluids as needed, but I'm feeling better. AND I performed in opera workshop this evening with it in there, so that's pretty epic, if I do say so myself. I'll stop talking about how awesome I am now. :p Just kidding about the awesome part.

I am so excited to be out of the first trimester. Things are supposed to get easier from now until I actually am a beached whale, as opposed to just feeling like one, in the final weeks of the third trimester. Hopefully my body will start chilling out now that the hormone levels will start to even out.

Baby has all of his/her major systems formed, so now it's main job is to get bigger (and cuter). And kick me. Baby will also be ready to show us the goods between 18 and 20 weeks, so we will soon find out if we have a little guy or girl growing in my grapefruit-sized uterus.

Please pray for us as we near the end of the spring semester and prepare to head home to Iowa!

Love,
Ellie

Hello Again, HG...

I'm typing this with a catheter in my wrist, and I am not at all happy about it.

I have been off of Promethazine for almost a month now, and haven't had to use Zofran for two days. Then, today around noon, the vomiting came back full force. I threw up 6 times in 2 hours...until my stomach was empty and all that came up was bile and burning acid.

Kaiser sent a home health nurse out to stick me, and miraculously, she got the needle in on the first try, in the painful soft spot on the inner-side of the wrist I lovingly refer to as the Nicaraguan IV Site of Death (where my IV was placed for my appendectomy in Nicaragua). It usually takes three sticks from the nurse, then twelve lidocaine numbed sticks from an anesthesiologist before they can get a useable IV in me, so this was kind of awesome.

Sweet Justin, bless his heart, got off work early, and is out getting me some medicine before resuming IV flushing and medication pushing duty for the night.

Please say a prayer for me, as I have a test, and opera workshop performance tomorrow, and finals next week. I also need to be in reasonably good condition to make the long trip back to Iowa, so this is not good.

Gotta go empty my stomach again.

-Ellie

Week Twelve: The Home Stretch

It's dead week. Which means all the professors think it's a brilliant idea to have conversations with their students that go like this:

Professor: HEY! You have final exams coming up, and you're gonna be crazy stressed, right?
Students: Right.
Professor: Wouldn't just be awesome if during the week before finals I assigned a huge project or presentation, and then as a reward for working so hard, I gave you a test on Friday, in addition to the one you'll take the following week?
Students: No...
Professor: Awesome! Then it's settled.

You've got to be freaking kidding me.

So far this week I've taken two tests, done two presentations, one voice jury (final exams for people who study music privately in college...another brilliant idea to instill fear and freak outs in students everywhere), and still have another test to go. Then three finals next week, with, SURPRISE! A paper and a 10 page research proposal due.

I'm dealing with it alright, I suppose. Though, I may or may not still be in the typical "denial" stage of procrastination. We shall see.

Baby is doing well. I still feel little flutters and jabs occasionally, could be baby, could be gas, but I'm pretty sure it's the Jellie Bean. You usually don't have gas by your pubic bone. :)

My tummy gets a little more prominent every day, and I will soon be taking advantage of the loop-the-ponytail-holder-through-the-button-hole trick so I can wear my pants a little longer. I've also already started outgrowing clothing for other body parts located, ahem, a bit further North.

Another thing that's starting to grow like crazy are my fingernails! And not all gross and brittle like your typical anemic chick (*cough* me), but long and strong, and manicure worthy. I might even get them done. <--- Huge deal. I didn't so much as paint my nails for my wedding. They were all bitten off. :) Yay guitar players.

I will probably wait on that manicure until after I get home to Iowa for the summer, though. Dear old dad and my nephew Zachy are flying out the weekend after finals week ends, and we'll be driving a vintage Winnebago through some great national parks and other sites on our way back to the Midwest. I'll make a post about that as it gets closer, and will definitely do a picture-filled re-cap once we get back to Iowa.

That's all for now - got a tummy ache to deal with.

Love,
Ellie

Weeks Ten and Eleven: Chipotle and Ninja Baby!

I am feeling so much better. I am still plagued by exhaustion, nausea, vomiting, and migraines from decreased food intake, but I am BETTER! And I am getting stronger every day! The first trimester is almost over, and I have faith that I will soon be back to my healthy, normal (whatever that means) self.

I have gained back five of the ten pounds I lost from hyperemesis gravidarum, but I am still under my pre-pregnancy weight. Finding food that is both appetizing and digestible is the hardest thing right now. For whatever reason, the only thing that tastes good, stays down, and doesn't give me enough heartburn to challenge the lava flow of a volcano is Chipotle and other various Mexican fast food chains. I've eaten Chipotle at least three times in the past week. Along with some delicious Del Taco. It makes no sense, but I like it, and the baby apparently likes it, so I am not about to complain! Hopefully this new "diet" will help me gain the weight I need.

In other good news, Baby Popeney made quite an appearance on the ultrasound yesterday! I had been neurotic all morning, with typical first time mom fears of "OMGIDIDN'TPUTMYSEATBELTCOMPLETELYUNDERMYBARLEYEXISISTANTBABYBUMPINTHECARYESTERDAYSOIPROBABLYSQUASHEDMYCHILDANDITSALLMYFAULT!!!!" and other such nonsense.

We got to the doctor's office early for once, and Justin even had time to check out a book in the waiting room:

Yeah, I laughed, too.

When my name was called, with the usual surprised look on the nurse's face when someone as young as me responds to the name "Eleanor", I got my vitals checked, peed in the cup, and waited for my doctor. Who took forever by the way, causing my nervous first time mom thoughts to go into overdrive.

"OMGSOMETHINGWASWRONGWITHMYPEE!!!!"

Everything was fine, and he came in, asked a few questions, and started the ultrasound.

At first the baby was hard to see (it was my first external ultrasound), and I was freaking out because I couldn't see the little flicker of his or her heartbeat. My fears were relieved, however, when the jelly bean did a full-fledged pike jump that would make any cheerleader proud (including his or her former cheerleader mommy). Baby Popeney then continued to amuse us, and my doctor, by waving it's little arms and legs, "jumping", and even turning it's little face right to us so we could see it's eyes, moving mouth, and very clearly (yes, even this early) Hemmingson forehead. My little ninja baby done good.

The healthy ultrasound now means that my miscarriage risk is less than 2%, and that thankfully, baby is not being affected by my morning sickness from hell.

Now to move on to dead week and finals weeks. Pray that Justin and I both can finish strong and overcome our severe lack of motivation.

Love,

Ellie