Super!

Recently I've had a bit of an obsession with reading foodie weblogs. It might surprise some close to me to know that I especially like reading online journals of people who eat odd foods or foods that are not common in North America. I've been known as a basically picky eater for most of my life and have resented the title quite a lot since I'm not picking and choosing what flavours are positive or negative to my taste buds; they are what they are.

It bothered me to the extent that I started doing amateur research about it on my own and I've found a bit of comfort in the articles I've read. I found out about supertasters this way, and after comparing that to the phenomenon of picky eating, or selective eating disorder I'd definitely say it's more the former than the latter in my case. I'm not bothered by textures at all, and aroma is not a problem for me unless the taste is also unpleasant. And in some cases the smell of things I don't like the taste of are actually pretty pleasant; like coffee.

It's a good explanation for why I often strongly dislike things that people say you have to 'develop a taste for', like alcohol, coffee, bitter foods, et cetera. If the intensity of the taste is increased for someone, then it's a lot less likely they're going to 'get used to it'. Those close to me know that I tend to prefer sweet alcohol beverages and never drink straight Scotch, whiskey, vodka, grain alcohol in general or beer. Cocktails are definitely my thing. Beer has never tasted good to me, and extremely spicy foods are a bad scene because my taste buds get overwhelmed with the spice and all other flavour is lost.

In college there was a couple who won a wing-eating contest and after it was over I remember the woman commenting that the suicide wings weren't even all that spicy. There were others eating them who literally had tears running down their faces and were in obvious pain. At the time I felt inferior, but now I suspect she was a nontaster! My taster is superior! Ha ha ha!

Actually, it's not. The concept of supertasting is not 'super', as it's an extreme that isn't very desirable, as is nontasting. Both can lead to health problems (according to the brief article I linked to for nontasting) and supertasting definitely leads to a more limited diet. The people you know who will put some of everything on their plate when presented with a variety of dishes are closer to the non-tasting end of the spectrum, although they will definitely say that they can taste their food. We all can, but the nontasters are much less likely to be affected by spiciness, bitterness and saltiness, whereas the same things will overwhelm the palate of a supertaster to the point of unpleasantness.

As I age my tastes are slowly, slowly broadening. It makes sense, since as we age our sense of taste dulls somewhat due to our olfactory senses diminishing. People who drinks lots of hot liquids dull their taste buds that way, and smoking also affects the sense of taste. I don't like many hot liquids, although tea is something I can drink on occasion. I'm not even a real fan of hot chocolate. They're just so hot. But yes; I have gradually been adding more foods, mostly in the vegetable category, to the things I eat. Broccoli and potatoes in the forefront, but I'm also toying with the idea of eating edamame more now that I'm pregnant. I have always HATED beans, but edamame is pretty mild in the bean category.

Uhhh ... I guess this entry is borne mostly of the eating frustrations I've been feeling in general since getting knocked up. And finding myself reading food blogs like porn is a new thing for me, although I've always kind of been fascinated by them. I'm jealous of foodies who eat at new and exciting restaurants all the time and give rundowns of the meal, commenting on flavours, textures, quality and quantity. I'd be a very poor foodie and I know it. It doesn't stop me from being totally fascinated by blogs such as Deep End Dining, though. This guy is amazing. And his sidebar has links to tons of food blogs that have me glued to my laptop.

I personally know some foodies, of course, who eat lots of delicious food and probably would pity me for my limited food enjoyment capacity. My friend Candice keeps an awesome food blog called Mmm, Tasty! and it's fantastic. Check out her giant doughnut cake! She also made the world's best chai latte cupcakes for me for my birthday, which she writes about in the blog. They were egg free, too, so Andrew could enjoy them!

So ... yeah. I think I'ma go find a blog entry about someone eating something bizarre. Fun!

Pregnancy has made me think more about food than I ever have before.

I have to get the food thing under control. For the last few months I've been eating whatever the hell I can whenever the hell I can because the sickness has been so constant and occupied my whole being, mental and physical. Seriously, when something seemed good I ate it, and when I was feeling even the slightest bit better than usual I tried to make sure I ate whatever would go down.

Like, when Mang came to live with us way back in the day and she'd been a stray for a while. She ate anything edible at all that fell on the kitchen floor, even things cats don't normally eat, because she was still in the 'you never know when you'll eat again' mentality. She got over it eventually when she learned to trust that she had an always-available dish of dry food out 24/7, which made me happy. Now I have to start getting over the 'eat anything, who cares what, it's sustenance' mentality.

So, I am feeling the anxiety of a) trying not to eat unhealthy crap all the time so that I am getting enough in the way of nutrients, and b) trying not to eat unhealthy crap all the time so I don't balloon to thrice my original size and give my obstetrician a heart attack every time he sees me. Or give myself one, either.

The sickness might (might) be starting to wane slightly, but I refuse to believe that until I have a full un-medicated day of non-stomach-roiling sensations. Even so, I don't want to be sitting around eating just pickles and pizza and jars of mandarin orange slices in light syrup. Half the time I'm dying for something specific, the other half I'm vaguely hungry but don't know what the heck I want and anything I think of makes my guts go, "Eh."

Like yesterday; I kept trying to think of something to eat. I ate some pickles but after a few my stomach suddenly told me to cut it out, so I did. A while later I ate some of the mandarins but they didn't sit too well, either. Finally out of desperation I decided to boil some rice noodles then fry them a tiny bit with some sesame oil and teriyaki sauce. Surprisingly, my body said, "Yes, that's right." And lo, my fickle hunger was appeased.

Then an hour later I needed to eat pickles so badly that I had to cut myself off after a certain amount so that I don't OD on sodium. And I'm still jonesing for those caramel apples! Possible weekend project?

More miracles of pregnancy.

So I can't really decide if being pregnant is a nightmare or a wonderland for the hypochondriac in all of us. We're all that way to an extent, and I've been actually making an effort not to freak out about every little thing. So, I usually try to wait and see if something is a continuing issue before getting my Google on.

Well, lately I've noticed that I've been short of breath a lot, and also that I've had a stuffy nose for a couple of weeks. The short of breath thing could just mean that I'm way out of shape, which is pretty true. The stuffy nose thing could mean that I'm getting allergic to stuff in my old age, that I'm coming down with a cold, or something along those lines. Well, two weeks of it seemed to me to indicate an ongoing issue, so yesterday I plugged both symptoms in with the word 'pregnancy' appended to them. And guess what?

Yep, they are both talked about quite frankly as things that happen in pregnancy. The shortness of breath is a real thing that happens early and later for different reasons. Progesterone is always behind these awful things! I'm really starting to hate progesterone.

So, after reading about that and going, "huh," I looked up the stuffy nose thing and the Google was like, oh yeah, sure, you have rhinitis of pregnancy! I've had zero things that indicate a cold other than this ongoing stuffiness and wish to blow my nose all the time, so I'm forced to conclude that I've got this crazy deal.

The worst part of it all is not feeling like I can breathe properly a lot since being short of breath and having a stuffy nose are a crap-ass combination, but I am breathing. Just not as efficiently as before, I guess. I think it's more a sensation than anything else and I don't seem to be fainting or swooning or whatever, but it's just annoying.

Also annoying is ME since this kind of stuff makes me variously crabby and petulant and Andrew has to put up with me whining and whatnot. He does buy me whatever weird stuff I ask him for from the store. Also, I often will suddenly say out of the blue things like, "Do you know what sounds great right now? A bottle of queen olives. And some spaghetti. And a caramel apple." Andrew is always kind of like, that's weird, but is sympathetic.

I really do want a caramel apple. One of the ones from The Purple Cow in Ottawa. Big Granny Smiths with a thick layer of caramel. Nothing else, though. I don't need it dipped in chocolate or with peanut bits or Smartie pieces stuck to it. Just the tart, juicy apple and the gorgeous caramel that they use. Oooooh. What I'll probably end up doing is making my own here at home to just get it over with. It's not that hard.

Brain pain, abnormalities and baby names, oh my!

So, I seem to have lost my blogging mojo in the last year or so, but I do intend to actually update this weblog whenever there's something worthy of writing about. Just lately there hasn't been a whole heck of a lot to write about! I've been sick, still, which is nothing new and nothing anyone wants to hear whole bunches about.

Excitingly (said sarcastically, of course), almost daily headaches have appeared. I'm someone who tends to get lots of headaches anyhow and have since my mid-teens, so it's unsurprising that another common pregnancy complaint will apparently be mine. I can deal with headaches, though! I'm SO used to getting them and since Tylenol is safe to take during pregnancy I actually have something to combat them with. The nausea kicked my butt because it's just not the same. It causes me huge amounts of anxiety in a way that headaches do not.

My obstetrician is nice so far and the office is pleasant as well. They have a system where you get results from things like paps and ultrasounds using an automated phone or web system rather than talking to anyone at the office, which is fine by me except the system hasn't worked for me yet because they incorrectly entered my birthdate and I need it for retrieving my results. So, I had to get my results over the phone from the receptionist anyhow and she seemed happy to give me the good news, which is that the nuchal translucency results were all fine and our wee one will likely not have Down's Syndrome or any Trisomy disorders. The bad news is that the pap results indicate that I have some abnormal cells, which is common but still worrisome! So I have to go back for a more in-depth testing of my innards in January. I have an appointment tomorrow with the obstetrician so he'll explain it better to me, but the receptionist really didn't seem to like giving news like that over the phone. Guess I can't blame her!

I KNOW I still don't have the most recent ultrasound photos to share yet. I have the photos in my purse and keep forgetting to give them to Andrew to scan at work. I'll do my best to remember to give them to him tomorrow since he'll be coming to the obstetrician's office with me.

I'm 14 weeks now, which is exciting because I'm officially out of the first trimester! Hooray! Baby is doing OK as far as I can tell, which isn't that much really since there's no kicking going on that I can feel as of yet. Andrew and I have finally settled on a boy's name, too, which is a relief to me. I was very anxious to get it decided on, for some reason. We plan to find out the sex at the anatomical screening, which should be in December sometime, so I suppose I just really wanted to know at that point what we'll be calling him/her. I think we'll wait until then to announce it officially, although we've told a few people already.

Second ultrasound!

Oooookay. I'm awake at three in the morning with nausea and heartburn. Blah. What better way to get sleepy again than write? I actually have something to write about, though, which is that today (technically yesterday at this point) I went for the second ultrasound.

It was a totally different experience than the first one. Most notably because Andrew wasn't there. He's been out of town all week for work, so I did this one alone. I went in expecting a very similar atmosphere to the first one, where the tech was uncommunicative and brisk, but immediately this tech treated me totally differently. She was really warm and friendly and explained every single thing she did. She was doing two kinds of ultrasounds, abdomen and vaginal, and she took a long time with the abdominal one, really pressing down with the scanny thingy. I didn't expect her to turn the screen for me to see, since they're not supposed to discuss medical results, but she mentioned that as soon as she was done taking measurements she'd let me see.

So, when she did I got my first real look at our baby actually moving! I was blown away. There was the peanut, much bigger than last time and facing in the opposite direction, kicking its little legs and kind of waving its arms around pretty enthusiastically. Probably due to the pressure and movement of the ultrasound, since at around this point the baby starts responding to pressure on the uterus. She pointed out the arms and head and legs and I watched its heart just pumping away. It was awesome.

She let me see the internal one, too, which was a face-on shot of the peanut. That one was actually less clear and interesting to watch since peanut wasn't moving as much, but she printed me off a good shot from both ultrasounds and the internal one looks like the peanut is waving. Sweet.

So all in all this was a MUCH better ultrasound experience for me. I'm eleven and a half weeks now, which means I can once more start waiting for the morning sickness to fade in a couple of weeks or so. I'm way too hopeful about it, since for some women it just doesn't and I have a looming dread that I'll be one of them. The Diclectin is still helping some, although not as much as I'd wish. It keeps me from vomiting, I think, rather than take away the nausea completely, but I'm thankful for that, believe me. I still have some days where I barf no matter what, but again: It's improved with the meds, so I just remember that!

When Andrew gets back home he'll scan the new ultrasound photos at work so I can upload them and you can see the peanut throwing gang signs from the womb.

See the peanut!

We finally, finally got an ultrasound! I went in kind of nervous because by my calculations I was nearly fourteen weeks and the nuchal translucency test isn't as accurate by then (where they're measuring liquid at the back of the baby's neck, and it can absorb into the body by that point making for a misdiagnosis.) It's to check for things like Down's Syndrome and Trisomy 18, so that's the kind of thing you want to be accurate.

Anyhow, we got in to the ultrasound room and the tech started doing her thing. She didn't turn the screen for me to see anything at any point and kind of looked a bit confused. Finally she informed me that I'm not almost fourteen weeks, I'm nine weeks! Nine and a half, really, but still! I guess I skipped a period and that threw off the whole thing. Wow. So, we ended up announcing it pretty early but what can you do?

Nine weeks is way too early for the kind of tests they were going to do, so I have to go back next month. The tech wasn't even going to print us off a picture but I finally just asked her to and she did, so here you go:



The head is the upper right blob, in case you can't quite get what you're seeing there. I'm disappointed that the tech didn't let me see the screen during the scans or point out anything to us, but you get who you get and I'm hoping that next time we'll have a more friendly tech.

The bird bag man.

Being in the hospital is really, really boring. Thankfully Andrew brought me my laptop and I can 'borrow' a weak wireless signal from somewhere nearby or I'd be going entirely insane.

Before I had my laptop, though, I was extremely bored and mostly confined to bed because the morning sickness has been so very, very, crappily bad. That meant a lot of flipping through magazines and staring out the window beside my bed. There's a building next door and I can look out onto its rooftop. So yesterday morning when I saw a man walk out onto the roof with two very large white cloth sacks I figured something worth watching was going to happen, if only because I hadn't seen anything happen on that roof up until then.

He had a black toolbox of some sort, and the bags already had something in them that had the bottoms weighted enough that he was walking while holding them up in the air. He made his way across the roof to a crate-looking thing that I hadn't really taken much notice of before. The crate seemed to be made of wire and when he reached it I realized that there were a number of pigeons inside it, as they started flapping wildly.

He set down his bags, lifted the top of the crate slightly, reached in, grabbed a bird and SHOVED IT IN ONE OF THE BAGS. He continued grabbing birds and shoving them in the bag, being really rough and brisk.

As you might imagine I was horrified. I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing. At that moment the day nurse came in and told me to come with her for a bit and all I could do was point to the rooftop and blurt, "There's a man putting birds in a bag!"

She was all, whah? She looked, though, and was just as weirded out as I was. We agreed that whatever was going on was highly disturbing, but she'd come to get me for a reason and we had to go. By the time I got back to my room the bird bag man had moved to another wire crate, having emptied the first, and was just finishing up shoving birds into the second bag. He heaved up the bags, which were eerily still at this point, and left the way he'd come.

I was still horrified. Why was he putting birds in bags? The crates were traps, from what I could tell. I saw that after he'd left more pigeons were pecking around the crates, so I assume he'd put out some kind of feed or something to entice them.

A few minutes later the day nurse came back with someone else (the floor nurse, maybe?) and got me to tell her about the creepy bird bag man. They went off and called security in the building next door, then came back and told me that they'd asked them to check it out since the sight of guys shoving birds in bags like that was disturbing to patients and staff.

Uh, yeah. They also asked me to keep an eye out for the return of the bird bag man, but I haven't seen him again yet.

Horse pistol.

Hi. Just a quick update to let you know that I haven't been writing because I'm in the hospital. Yeah, so that's fun. Seriously, though, the baby is OK (so far as we know; I STILL haven't had an ultrasound done yet) and I'm OK. I'm getting treated for the extremes of morning sickness, thank goodness!

My internet connection is really sketchy so I don't know that I can update much from here, but I'll do my best!

Ultrasilent

Man, am I pissed off. Today was supposed to be the day I had my first ultrasound. Since I didn't find out I was pregnant until eight weeks in things have been a bit delayed with getting to see my OBGYN and the initial ultrasound and whatnot. My regular medical clinic referred me no problem to an obstetrician and gave me the number for the the ultrasound clinic. I was instructed (in a voicemail message) to contact the ultrasound clinic and set up an appointment.

I did that. I called them and they told me when to come in and where. I was supposed to go there at eleven this morning, which I did, along with Andrew. When we got there (after going to the eighth floor, then the tenth floor, then finally the eighteenth floor which was ultimately the right one) the receptionist asked me for my requisition forms. I had none, had not been told to bring any, had not been given any or advised of their necessity. The term 'requisition form' had been spoken to me by NO ONE.

So she called my clinic and I guess now in hindsight she thought maybe she was calling my OBGYN, and as it turns out the ultrasound appointment was supposed to come after the OBGYN appointment, which isn't until next week. This is also something that had not been mentioned to me and hadn't been asked of me when I called the ultrasound clinic to set up the appointment. It feels like the ultrasound appointment is something that maybe I shouldn't have been setting up if it depended on seeing the OBGYN first and getting forms from them, so I'm not sure why I was instructed to do it.

I don't know. I'm frustrated that we went to the trouble of going there and fudging around and now I have to go have both appointments on the same day in the same part of town, but six hours between them. I'm an irrationally angry pregnant woman!

I talk about barfing, OK?

So far the pregnancy experience hasn't been much beyond feeling varying degrees of crappy. The initial sickness, the one that tipped us off that hmmm, maybe there's something going on here, THAT sickness lasted over the next few days until we got back home to Toronto. It eased off pretty considerably and I was feeling quite all right for the next week or so. For the last two weeks, though, I've been feeling awful. And when I say awful, I mean siiiiiiiick. Constant strong nausea, the kind that makes your blood run all hot and cold. I've never been a 'good' barfer, if there's any such thing, and fight having to throw up with everything in me.

So, I attempt to cope by staying very still when it's really bad, trying not to let my stomach get empty and eating the most inoffensive things I can manage. One of the weird things about morning sickness (which I always point out is a total misnomer as for me so far it's constant, all-day, try-to-get-through-the-next-second sickness) is that eating helps. All the advice articles, books and websites tell the sick preggo in her first trimester to eat soda crackers to help with nausea. Keeping them by your bed and eating a few before you even sit up is supposed to be beneficial. I guess it is, although so far I haven't been very consistent with what I can and can't bring myself to eat. What goes down easy one day seems like poison the next.

As far as having actually barfed? I have a few times (as of this writing), but like I said; I fight it. I'm very practiced at trying to zen myself through the most severe nausea. I often suspect that just letting go and ... letting go might actually help me feel better, but the prospect of what has to happen to get there is too much for me and I can't just go and do it. So when I do, it's because my body has given me NO OTHER CHOICE.

Awesomely I actually, no word of a lie, found a page that advises eating salty potato chips (SALTY POTATO CHIPS) as a way to cope with nausea, especially before a meal. I can guarantee you that the writers of the horrific book What To Expect When You're Expecting had zero to do with this article or website and their heads would pop completely off if they read those words.

And no, I'm not eating a bag of Ruffles before each meal. Just one a day.

(You're unsure whether or not to believe that, aren't you?)