I have about a million things I want to write about, so this post is going to be a big mess ranging from the cool to the mundane to the annoying to the devastating. Ready?
First off, I'm excited to tell you that there is a new pregnancy book out there that doesn't totally SUCK ASS! Isn't that awesome? A while back I got an advance copy of the new book Frankly Pregnant by Stacy Quarty with Miriam Greene, M.D.
Stacy Quarty runs the bulletin board FranklyPregnant.com and the doc is the gal that delivered Miranda on Sex & The City (apparently, she's not just an actress!).
The book is very much like a pregnancy blog, actually. She goes week by week journaling her second pregnancy, sharing all her symptoms and adding lots of anecdotes about her girlfriend's pregnancies. The doc interjects at various points her opinions and experiences as well.
Overall, it's a nice read. It's not as preachy and dumbed-down as "What to Expect" (gah, I hate that book), not as snarky and snide (and falsely confiding) as "The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy," and more personal than "Your Pregnancy Week by Week" (which, incidentally, is the only other one I don't hate, although I'm not overly fond of it).
She does have a slightly annoying tendency to call hormones "horror-mones", but it's easy to ignore and she knocks it off as the pregnancy progresses. My only other complaint is that I would LOVE to see a book written about pregnancy that doesn't admonish women for their weight gain. She speaks frankly about her own (which does exceed the recommended amount) but at one point accuses a friend of eating like a "heifer" during her pregnancy (serious ug).
Overall, though, it's really pretty informative and fun to read. So there you go!
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Random Note: This article explains a LOT of what the fuck is going on with the Sopranos. Thanks to Melissa for the link.
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Meira asked me if I was going to write about the spat of blog entries that have sprung up saying that if you get fat during a marriage it's "false advertising" and the spouse has a right to be angry about it. It looks like the discussion originated here, then moved here and here.
I've just finished reading all the posts, and my first reaction is that NONE of the women discussing the issue are actually what I would call fat. The post-initiator is thin and feels it's her responsibility to stay thin both for herself and her husband. The second woman is weighing in at a whopping 155lbs (I think my left leg weighs close to that) and used to be 110; she now feels really good about herself and is physically fit, but her husband finds her unattractive enough to not invite her to his office Christmas party (to which I say, compassionately, FUCK HIM). Tertia was discussing a friend who needed to lose about 20lbs, whose husband is bribing her by offering to buy her a whole new wardrobe if she lost the weight (Tertia was appropriately horrified at the bribe).
I feel, on the one hand, that I can't really have an opinion about any of this stuff because all of these women occupy a world I know nothing about--the world of being average weight. I feel sad that they are all spending so much time even thinking about this subject when the world if full of other things to worry about.
I know that I plan to lose weight after I have this baby, but primarily because I feel like shit when I'm this fat and out of shape--Charlie, amazing fucking man that he is, love me AND wants to fuck me no matter what I weigh. I don't get it, but he claims it's because he thinks I'm hot. WHATever. If Charlie ever mentions my weight, he always interjects about his own (skinny as he is, he thinks he has a touch of middle-age spread) and mostly we discuss getting back into good physical shape without putting a poundage on it.
Truth is, as Meira pointed out in her email to me, not all of us have control over our weight (the first blogger claims that we can--in fact, she discounts the idea that a man getting bald is similar to a woman getting fat). I was fat when Charlie and I got together (I actually asked him if it was a problem, cause all the other women he'd been with were tiny and he said, "Well, I felt you up pretty good in the car, and WOW"), but the first time I ballooned up excessively it was because I was taking huge doses of steroids for a serious lung infection. Then it was comfort eating in the early days of sobriety. Then it was comfort eating after losing the boys. Between each "balloon" episode, I would manage to struggle and diet my way back down to my "normal" adult weight, close to what I was when Charlie and I got together.
Truth be told, I think dieting is actually the base cause of my fatness. I began dieting before I had my first period--at 11 years old. In the 26 years since then, I have spent at least twenty of those years dieting. And where did that leave me? Skinny and healthy? NO. Fat and miserable. Dieting is effective only for those that have fifteen or twenty pounds to lose.
My goal after this baby is to eat what feels good--not emotionally good, but physically good. I don't plan to diet ever again. I absolutely DO plan to spend a huge amount of time regaining my physical fitness. I have come to accept the fact that I really don't care about the number on the scale as much as I care about feeling good. And right before I began taking fertility drugs, I was in great shape (hiking, working out at the gym, biking and spinning, yoga, etc) and felt awesome. Looked good too.
So I guess, ultimately, that I wish that all women could come to this place in their lives--the place the second poster feels about herself. Loving and living in our bodies and enjoying our strength and grace, no matter what the scale says.
Ah, like that will ever happen.
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It's 2006 and yet, this still happens. Saddest thing I've read in a while.
Viva la unrestricted access to abortion! Down with the forced-childbirth trend this country is taking!
Sigh.
Thanks to Bitch PhD for the link.
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I think that is all. I'm sure I've forgotten something...
