Feelin Gross

I've been struggling the past couple days with feeling really gross and just sort of panicked about, "Oh my god, I'm never going to be thin again." I have a bit of a bump already, and it's only the 12th week, and I can feel my body, uh, "expanding" in other unfortunate areas as well.

I know at this point it's good to be gaining weight, slowly, and it's all part of the process, and normal. I know all that stuff in my head. But my emotions are just like, "Noooooo!!!!!"

It doesn't help that for the majority of my life (like since I was six) I've struggled with body image and weight. I used to pretend I had forgotten my leotard in my first grade dance class so I wouldn't have to wear it, opting instead to get in trouble. I had bouts of "disordered eating" (the newfangled term for just-barely-not-an-eating-disorder) through high school and in fact up until a couple of years ago. I've never had a healthy relationship with food and my own body.

It also doesn't help that "friends" feel like they can now, since I'm preggers, make comments about my expanding middle. Just the other night I was having dinner with Alex at his job, and one of his staff, sort of considered our friend, said, "Wow, if I didn't know you were pregnant I'd have to think you were packin' on some weight." I just gave him one of our family's well-known Pellerin Looks, as he laughed. Then he said, "You didn't think that was funny." No, I stated flatly. "Well I did," he replied, continuing to chuckle. Why is it that men would never comment on a woman's weight under normal circumstances, but feel like everything is free game once we're carrying a life?

The thing is, I know none of these comments are ill-natured. Mostly because the people making them are people Alex and I might consider friends or they're family. I also don't want to make MY body image issues an issue of out-of-proportion sensitivity. (Though when I told my closer friends about the above comment they were pretty offended for me as well.) These things don't even make me mad,really. Just uncomfortable. So I don't even feel comfortable asking people NOT to say these things. Like, I feel like it's MY hang-up to deal with.

Also, if we have a girl, I want to be able to model a good, healthy relationship to food and weight and fitness to our daughter. I don't want her having a skewed vision of herself down the line just because of my issues.

I don't know where I'm really going with this. Just that this in-between, showing-but-not-obviously-pregnant phase is tough. Especially because I feel like it's so early. That's all...