What goes around comes around

Particularly when it's the flu.

K is mostly better, although I was quite glad that they put a pullup on her at daycare yesterday when I took it off and discovered it was excessively grody. For all my years of cloth diapering, I have to admit that very occasionally you get the sort of diaper where it's very nice to just be able to toss it in the trash, and very very nice not to have to deal with cleaning up dirty underwear and pants instead.

This, of course, was the cue for B and I to wake up sick yesterday. Thank goodness K was well enough to get shipped of to daycare so we could sleep all day. Today, we're still tired but recovering.

We also seem to be able to eat again, which is a relief. The very few things I ate yesterday came back up, just in time for me to go to a prenatal visit today and get scolded about my weight gain. As in, I should try it sometime.

It's an odd feeling, being told I absolutely have to gain weight, especially since I spent the first nine months of last year fighting a creeping weight gain. But I feel just as powerless to make my weight go where I want it to go as I did then. There was the 16 weeks of morning sickness, extended by one major and two minor bouts of stomach flu (twice, B came home from work complaining of a "funny tummy," which would then result in another two days of throwing up for me after I had thought the worst was over). At my last appointment, I had finally managed to gain three pounds, bringing my pregnancy weight gain to -12. But this time, I hadn't gained an ounce, and I'm not sure that one day of not eating can account for that. I'm really truly trying to eat as much as I can and I'm certainly not staying away from fattening foods. I guess I need to get back to my nightly large mug of chai or hot chocolate and maybe switch to whole milk instead of 2 percent. And maybe add a bowl of ice cream.

This wasn't remotely a problem last time, when I gained 35 pounds and had my ob vocally worried about gestational diabetes when I gained a shocking 8 pounds in four weeks. *eyeroll*

I would be more worried if four weeks ago Wulfrith hadn't been measuring ahead at the last ultrasound and estimated at weighing a pound at only 19 weeks. He's also increasingly vigorous (with a devilish sort of aim for kicking a tiny foot directly into bladder) and my uterus is growing up in my abdomen appropriately. True, I didn't have to give up my pre-pregnancy pants until last week at the beginning of 22 weeks, but at least I finally did. Chances are good that Wulfrith is feasting happily on my fat stores and I'm taking my vitamins, so I'm not truly worried. But I'd like to meet the woman who can be truly zen in the face of things not going according to textbook during pregnancy.

This all contrasts to several conversations I've had recently, which all center around people being amazed that I'm five months pregnant and don't look pregnant at all. And I'm almost always congratulated for this, as if it were something I had any control over, or more to the point, would want. Part of it is being tall and long-torsoed, part of it just seems to the way I carry babies, and a lot of it has been spending 2/3 of this pregnancy unable to eat. But if I were to go by these conversations, not gaining weight is a good and admirable thing. I know that our culture is so screwed up about weight that people who've lost weight because of serious illnesses often get complimented on their weight. But are we so screwed up that not gaining weight when your pregnant, a time when it's important not only to your health but very much to the health of another person it's still seen as good?

I don't see the charm in being complimented for something that's causing me a fair amount of stress. Maybe the next person who admires how little I'm showing would like to take my place at my next prenatal appointment and let the nursing student worry them over their miniscule fundal height.