What Else Is New?

Well, for starters I'll give you my latest belly pic. I feel like some weeks I don't change at all and then others I'm growing like mad. This pregnancy is so different from my other two, it's pretty uncanny. For starters, I began the pregnancy 10 lbs lighter than with the other two. I've also be insanely conscious about not gaining an extraordinary amount of weight. I was very careless with both of my other pregnancies and wound up gaining 50 lbs with each. For someone who started off already overweight, that's just way too much. And then afterward I'm not the kind of person who breastfeeds and loses it all. When I breastfeed, my body holds onto every pound as if it were gold. It's an incredible struggle to lose anything when I'm breastfeeding. *shakes my fist at those women whose weight drops off when they breastfeed* Anyway, I did eventually lose the weight, but it was a lot of starvation to do it. My body can only take about 1000 calories per day if I'm trying to lose weight, otherwise I gain. It's so hard being short...

Luckily I started off this pregnancy with 3 months of nausea. That definitely helped! Not only didn't I gain in 1st trimester, but I lost about 3 or 4 lbs. Baby grew, mommy didn't. Score! Now that I'm hungry all the time, I'm very aware of how much food I'm putting in. I still have to be really strict about my calorie intake, or I'll gain a lb in one day...no joke. Now that I've reached 20 weeks (almost 21) and have only gained about what I lost in 1st trimester, I'm planning on 1/2 lb a week in gain. That way I will have only gained about 10 or 15 lbs by the end, which is appropriate for someone who has started off overweight. Plus the fact that I know how much weight I lose when I give birth - just about 10 lbs per baby, including the baby. So after I had Tzipora, I lost 10 lbs in that first week or so and then plateaued. With the twins I lost about 20 lbs and then plateaued. So if I can gain only about 10 or 15, then I will have lost the necessary baby weight and not have to starve myself down to a normal weight postpartum. YAY!



In other news, we spent last Friday on lockdown so that the Watertown (and Boston) PD could catch the marathon bomber suspect. It was an incredibly tense day, and honestly I was terrified enough to not even want to go outside! So forget about being told to stay in, I didn't want to go anywhere anyway. Of course we had to prepare for the Sabbath anyway, so we were kept busy. We are all so grateful for the tremendous effort that all of the first responders put in. I drove by the Watertown PD today and saw that people had hung up balloons and signs outside the gates. It was such a nice feeling to see that. I know a bunch of people on Facebook wanted to send the police pizzas after the suspect was taken away - and I believe at least one person did. I live in such a great community, can't you tell? You can't keep Boston down!