New Trimester, New Challenges

My second trimester has officially begun, and I'm already beginning to forget about the sheer misery of the first trimester. Now that I can finally eat again, it's time to step up to the plate for the next curve ball: gaining weight. Oh, boy.

From this point on, I'm supposed to be gaining "approximately one pound" per week. Okay, apparently I missed the lesson on how to gain about a pound a week in high school algebra... seriously, how is that supposed to be "approximately" accomplished? Is there some sort of formula I should be plugging my daily calories into and dividing them by my energy output to equal so many ounces I'm gaining per day? I mean, who does that? (If you do do that, I'm really just envious because I apparently slept through that lesson).

The weight issue is yet another aspect of pregnancy that I didn't foresee as a potential issue until... sometime last week. Ahh... there's so much I've learned over the last few months... and I have so many more months left to go... and so much left to learn... (Shouldn't there have been a class in high school about pregnancy? Isn't this a life skill that we could have used a little educating on? I mean, if the government wants to decrease the unwanted teenage pregnancies in our country, all they have to do is fund a little educating about all the "issues" that occur in pregnancy... I'm pretty sure that would scare even the most carefree of teenagers into at least a decade of safe sex).

The weight issue is currently scaring the heck out of me because I have lost too much much of it recently (I know that a lot of people would love for this this to be an issue in their life, but trust me, this is not what you want to be doing when you're 14 weeks pg). The stress of moving this summer caused me to lose weight, and then of course I lost more weight when I was unable to eat over the last couple of months. When I stepped on the scale in my birthday suit a few days ago, I was horrified to find that I'm now precariously close to being underweight. Eeek! This is not what I want for Babble. I've read that being underweight during pregnancy increases chances of premature birth and low birth weight, so yeah, I'm freaking out about this.

Should I start eating ice cream every night? Or better yet, a fully loaded banana split?? I'm fully aware that that isn't the ideal way to gain weight, but I'm desperate to get back in the "healthy" weight range, fast. The only thing that brings me consolation is that this is still very early in the second tri, and if I can gain enough this week and keep gaining the recommended amount after that, being underweight just this one week or two hopefully won't hurt anything (will it?). Stephen and I are now on a mission to "fatten me up," at least until I'm comfortably back in the safety zone. I will admit, I've been on worse missions before. All-you-can-eat Chinese buffet, here I come!

Now I have conveniently figured out a way to postpone my exercise routine, too, which has been on hiatus even since mid-September. Obviously, I need to burn as few calories as possible until I get back in a healthy weight range, so unfortunately those prenatal yoga videos and walks around the neighborhood will have to wait a little longer... (like I needed another excuse to put off exercising!)