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Spreading

(Note: I originally wrote this entry a
couple months ago – I’m catching you up on my first
trimester!)





Six weeks pregnant, and boy how different
the second time around is. I feel like I’m seriously
spreading, in every sense of the word.





Weight-wise, I seem to be at the same
place I was at six weeks into my first pregnancy, but boy does my
body look different. My old friend the Spare Tire has returned with
a vengeance. Remember that point in the pregnancy where you just
look dumpy? Well, I’m there.





How can my body look this different if my
weight’s the same? I tell you, my body’s embracing this
pregnancy like a long-lost Barkalounger – “Ah, there
you are, you comfortable thing you!”



So my waist is growing, but in that
all-around way, not the cute-little-pregnancy-belly way. And
we’re still not telling people, so I’m trying to get
through all the workouts I coach with my clients eyeing my
waistline askance and me wanting to yell, “I’m
pregnant! Cut me some slack!”





I think I could handle the waist if it
just stopped there.





My thighs, though, have come together like
long-lost friends embracing reminiscently over a beer. Leaning
comfortably – dare I say, nestled snugly – against each
other, they seem to be smiling fondly and saying, “Hey there,
you old so-and-so! I missed ya!”





And honestly, while we’re on the
subject, what’s the deal with that? Why do the thighs and
butt have to go heading off, just because I’ve got something
the size of a lima bean in my uterus? Can someone explain that?





I’ve also got an abdominal spread
happening at a deeper level, and it’s going to be harder
– and more important – to combat during the pregnancy.
The connective tissue surrounding my rectus abdominus – the
“six pack” muscle – is spreading from the relaxin
coursing through my body, and I feel the two rectus halves
beginning to slide apart – a sort of continental drift going
on. A rectus split – a diastasis – is common in
pregnancy, and I had a small one from my last time. Fighting it is
important and difficult as you get bigger and bigger, but right now
I feel sort of below-the-skin stretchy and itchy, from say my belly
button to my breastbone. When Maddie sits in my arms and kicks me
in that area, it feels like she’s driving the two muscle
halves further apart. Good times.





Finally, though, is the spreading you
can’t see. I feel like my energy, my efforts, used to flow
through this nice, solid, neat channel and that channel’s
broken down and everything’s sort of spreading willy-nilly.
I’m tired every day and end up sleeping during Maddie’s
nap time, which means all those chores and things like dinner I
used to get done have to be attended to while she’s awake.
Which means Maddie gets less attention from me when she’s up,
and seems a bit more neglected. Which means I try harder when
around her to give her 100%, which means I’m tired and
scattered and so on and so on.





I knew this pregnancy would be harder than
the first; I knew while I was pregnant with Maddie that it was the
most self-indulgent I’d get to be for a long long long
time.





But the thighs? Come on!!

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