There are certain luxuries afforded a first pregnancy that are lost on subsequent ones. Time is a big one, as is a wonderful sense of giddy expectation, free from any true understanding about what the early months with baby will really be like. Sure, there was the vague, theoretical understanding that there would be night time feedings and some crying and messy diapers, but mostly we were moony.
Paulo spent time each night reading to my belly. We decorated and hummed and ate out and fantasized about the baby. We read books, went to our Bradley Childbirth classes and practiced all our exercises diligently. We ooh-ed and aah-ed over the Rorschach-style ultrasound pictures and played with each wiggly, protruding alien limb that presented itself near the surface of my ever-expanding girth.
Now, some who know me had expected that, given my normally petite stature, I would be one of those "cute" pregnant women who are all belly with skinny limbs. You know the ones I mean. They still have a waist when viewed from behind, even the day before delivery. But no, no that was not what my body had in mind. At all. In fact, my body was planning it's grandest transformation ever. Even before that lovely pink line alerted us that Lexi was on the way, my metabolism had changed. When I say "changed", I mean turned off completely. From that moment forth all calories consumed would be stored. Period. Luckily, oblivious to what lay ahead (remember that we were still all moony about the whole thing) we decided to document my progress with pictures every two weeks.
Whoa. In 40 weeks I gained over 65lbs. I won't tell you how far over 65 it went. It doesn't matter. Moreover, I couldn't tell you because I stopped looking at the scale. But this didn't stop me from taking those every-two-week pictures. All but the last one, that is, which was due just after we (surprise!) went into labor. So I was even bigger than the last picture by the end of it all!
I'd almost forgotten about those old pictures when a good friend (who found herself with some extra time on her hands) e-mailed us a morphed version of those old pictures. Because I am lacking whatever gene it is that makes people self-conscious about such things, I am happy to share the results of Ronke's project with all of you, too!
Thanks, Ronke, for reminding me of those blissfully oblivious days of anticipation and bad hair!
