Lemons, Pringles, & Flu Shot

Attention, attention: Baby Brooks is now 14 weeks old as of today. He/she is the size of a lemon, which is quite a bit bigger than the poppy seed we started at. Who knew that time could go by so fast? I’m already in the second trimester!

It seems like just yesterday I was scheduling an appointment with the doctor to confirm that both of the pregnancy tests were false positives, and I had indeed breathed in hormones from the 4 other pregnant women at work – hence the high HCG levels in my blood from the test at the walk-in clinic. Turns out, the signs were there all along (who knew?) and here we are a new trimester later.

We now have 6 pregnant women at work – in a company of 35 people. One more that I know of is officially in the “trying” stage. We will soon have 1/5 of our workforce with child. You can imagine the a) craziness of it all and b) HILARIOUS jokes that abound. [Side note: if I hear one more person mention “not drinking the water at work”, well…I will be less than amused.]

Pringles

As far as cravings go, I can point to a few moments of weakness, but no real re-occurring obsessions. When I was about 9 or 10 weeks along, I got on a serious Pringles kick for about a week that got a little out of hand. I had at least two flavors to choose from everywhere I was – 2 cans for work, 2 cans for the kitchen, 2 cans in my car…it was excessive. The crazy part is that I was very protective of my chips. Pringles are the kind of snack where you never quite have enough. If you really put your mind to it, you can easily down 1/2 a can in a few minutes without feeling the slightest bit full. Reality is, there are not as many chips in there as you think there are; ergo, when my brother or Taylor would reach for a can of Pringles, I would become immediately enraged. I mean, honestly, get your own can. Better yet – eat everything else in the kitchen, just leave my Pringles to me. All 6 flavors of them.

The downside to pregnancy is that you still think logically about what you’re eating and how bad it is for you, but you just can’t help it. I downed a whole Burger King original chicken sandwich (circa 1995) one day and immediately felt disgusting about it. Have you seen one of those things lately? Truly horrible.

I also stopped on the way home from work yesterday to grab a snack at Arby’s (the one 2 miles from home) to tide me over until dinner (30 minutes later). I texted my brother in the drive-thru that was I was ashamed of myself, but not ashamed enough to go ahead and order a whole combo.

Aside from the aforementioned stories, (…ok, and the one time I drove around for an hour looking for Girl Scouts and their stupid cookies…) I’ve been doing pretty well, I think. I’ve just learned to not grocery shop alone and/or hungry, to consider how I will feel after eating 17 tortillas from Rosa’s before indulging…you know, just the normal considerations.

Flu Shot

Since I can’t get through life or any normal circumstance without something abnormal happening, let me just tell you a bit about our experience thus far with our OB/GYN. First off, I didn’t plan ahead on the hospital, doctor, etc. because I truly believed I wasn’t pregnant – so I called the first doctor I saw listed on Google.

The first time we went to see said doctor, she came in and gave her name, did an ultrasound immediately, confirmed the pregnancy, then said, “Ok great – so what questions do you have?” as if I had come prepared with a list of questions I’d been keeping since 7th grade in case of surprises like this. I told her I didn’t really know what to ask, she said a few things, then left after 10 minutes tops. When I got to the front desk to check out, I didn’t even know the name of my doctor to tell them. It wasn’t the best first impression (and subsequent visits weren’t much better) but I thought I’d just get through this pregnancy with her, until….

I start running a low-grade fever a few days ago after having been around 3 people with the flu. A few other symptoms popped up, so I called the doctor after hours just to check and see what I could do. My doctor wasn’t on call, so this lovely, sweetheart-of-a-lady was:

Me: I think I might be getting the flu. Is there anything I can do to prevent it?
Doctor: Well, you should have gotten a flu shot…
Me: Uhh…ok…but I didn’t. Is there anything I can do?
Doctor: (still continuing thought) …because pregnant women have an increased chance of dying from the flu. It is very important to get the shot.
Me: Ok. So…even if I think I have it, I need to come in and get the shot?
Doctor: Yes. You should have already gotten it.

Let me note here that the doctor should be the one to tell me these things ahead of time, right? The good news is that I didn’t have the flu, and the better news is that our little phone call sealed the deal on my changing doctors. Hopefully I will have a new one to report on my next post.

Just for funzies, I’m including this graphic I saw recently. It’s very funny, and very true. The “pickles & ice cream” joke does wear thin pretty quick.