How did it get this difficult to eat?

Steve has made me realise something this week. I'd never noticed it, but it seems it's been there for a long time.

I don't eat enough.

Now I thought I ate quite a lot, in fact I've always been kind of proud of my appetite. I used to joke that the "full" switch in my stomach had been ignored so often it didn't work any more. Well, it turns out that my appetite is not as big as I thought - and the "full" switch may well need re-training, as it seems to kick in way too early now.

It's got to the point now that because I don't eat enough, I barely have enough energy to get me through the most bland of days, and when we go out - for example to church (do you realise how much energy singing praise to God uses up?!) or even just a walk to the shops for necessities - it knocks me for six and this week, for one reason or another, it's taken me 5 days to feel right again. But because I don't have enough energy, this makes me feel sick and feeling sick means I drink less (that's another thing, I've never drunk enough water in a day) and if I drink less I feel more sick and then don't eat... thus creating a vicious cycle of not eating and feeling sick.

So what do I do? How do I break out of this cycle? I have no idea. I try, I honestly try to eat more, but every meal there comes a point where my stomach says, "enough: feed me any more and you won't enjoy the outcome." It's hard enough eating in the first place. Pretty often I'll sit down to eat the evening meal with Steve, and have to call time after 5 minutes to go and lie down to get my stomach used to the idea of taking in food. And by the time I've stopped feeling sick my food's gone cold. Sucks really.

The thing is, I really don't know what I can do to get out of this. There's no issue with body image, although I admitted to Steve's mum last night that as I've always been skinny, I am terrified of getting fat - and for some reason at the moment I just seem to associate getting the baby bump as being fat. But I don't think that's an underlying reason. I've been worked on for so long about putting on weight by doctors and dieticians and various other medics that I'm actually really happy about reaching what has been my target weight of 9 stone. I've never been that heavy before, and for ages I was stuck at 8.5 stone - and was terrified of hitting the 9 stone mark. But I've done it, and it's not that bad.

I tell you what though, I wish clothes stores would all size their clothes the same. It was horrible going into Dorothy Perkins on Sunday in search of maternity clothes - I'm usually a 10-12, happily so, as I refuse to think of myself as super skinny. In DP even the size 8 stuff was actually falling off me. All I could think was the nurse and dietician and consultant aren't going to be pleased if I've gone and dropped 2 dress sizes. Came as a sort of relief to discover that DP size everything wrong.

Anyway, back to the eating, when I talked it over with Steve, we discovered there is a kind of pattern to my general eating habits. Even before I was pregnant I didn't eat much at breakfast or lunch, and would eat a bigger amount at dinner. I was quite capable of eating a huge amount in one go, but it would only be once a day normally. When I started going to the gym I started eating more throughout the day, Steve recalls, but now I suppose I associate eating with being sick, just because that's been my experience with the morning sickness for nearly 2 months.

I'm going to talk it over with the team at the hospital on Friday, because I can't go on like this. I need more energy, but I am just finding it so difficult as it is to balance the food/insulin/sugar levels that I hardly dare upset that delicate equilibrium. And then what do I do if I want to start doing some gentle exercise? Blimey that's going to upset the balance even more.

Ah well, enough for now. Got that off my chest, and hopefully I'll get some help on Friday...

Stunned by stupid dress sizes.

I had to bite the bullet yesterday and go out on a hunt for trousers that would actually fit me, as most of mine have started to try and cut me in half every time I bend over.

So I was taken out by a friend into town, and after deciding I really couldn't face mothercare yet, we went into Dorothy Perkins. Now. I am normally a size 10 to 12 or thereabouts, and normally shop in places like H&M or Select or Topshop or other youthful places, and I know what size I am in there. Imagine my horror when the size 12's fell off me, then the size 10's fell off me, and then the size 8's proceeded to fall off me.

All I could think of was "the dietician is going to kill me." They've been trying to fatten me up for years and if I've gone and dropped 2 dress sizes they ain't gonna be happy.

Thankfully my friend who was with me (although she couldn't see what the problem was, other than they didn't do size 6's) explained that DP dress sizes are different to H&M dress sizes...

I'm really hoping now that H&M do a decent line of maternity wear. Did manage to get a couple of pairs of long combat-type shorts that actually stay up, but the linen pants are probably going to need braces!!

I can't believe I'm in maternity wear.

Off to fatten myself up a bit now.

Timely Reminders...

Today I am remembering that God Is. Funny how God has just reminded me of it in the past week or so - and today it is becoming one of those things that I am SO glad to be reminded of. It's strange how just a slight change in our thinking - an almost imperceptible change in perspective - can change so much of how we live our lives.

God Is my strength when I am weak,
God Is my patience when mine has run out.
God Is my love when I feel I can't cope,
God Is my grace when I just want to scream.
Anything that I have none left of, God Is.

Anything that I have none left of, God Is.

No more me saying "God please give me patience..." because God IS my patience. No more me trying to handle things on my own, no more me thinking all I need is a top-up from God, because God Is everything that I have none left of.

I really hope I remember this longer this time around than I did last time.

God's Training School

It's funny how certain things make you cast your mind back to other things you thought you'd learnt a long time ago. It's taken many months for me to realise, but it has dawned on me again that I'm in the same kind of place that I was in when we were out in Finland. I have so much opportunity to spend time with God, and yet... well, do I? I've just read a post I wrote in July 2006, about God's faithfulness:

When we left to go to Finland last July, I was so tired - I really needed some peace and quiet, some place to reflect and to meditate and to live peacefully for a time. I believe that it's completely in line with God's ways of teaching us and leading us, that for a time we need the incredible atmosphere that I associate with Kings, and to be able to completely let go of ourselves and lose ourselves in worship and adoration of God; but sometimes God knows that we need quietness in our lives, to be able to reflect more and learn on a one-on-one basis of who He is. And I feel extremely priviledged to have been selected for that one-on-one teaching and leading. I feel like I have grown more as a daughter in God this past year than I have any other single year that I can remember. And now I'm here in Manchester, and ready for Year 2 of being in God's Training School!!

It feels strange looking back at that, and wondering what has happened between then and now. I mean, lots of stuff has happened, but it requires so much patience to glimpse the blessings in amongst the fog of memories. And it's not for lack of blessings, it's just that I'm not practised in remembering them.

Anyway this is one of the other old posts I was looking for. I remember this time really well.

On Tuesday I walked home from the shops, looking at the clouds and thinking how cool they looked. As I walked past a bench, God said "sit down with me." So I thought well if it's dry then I will (it had rained earlier). It was dry, and I sat down gratefully because I was really tired, and sat there in a bit of a daze watching the sun and the clouds and the wind on the lake. God said, "just wait..." so I did. And then, it started to hail, really lightly. I put my umbrella up and sat through a light hailstorm, watching the hail bounce on the lake and off my umbrella and generally be really really pretty...

This was one of the high points of my walk with God that summer. Being quiet enough in my spirit to hear His voice, and talking life at a gentle pace in order that when He calls you have time to listen.

I'll tell you what though, the other thing in that particular post I had completely forgotten about. I'm pretty glad I chose to blog a lot that year, there's a lot of thoughts I would otherwise have forgotten! I'm thinking that blogging (for me anyway) is a much more positive way of keeping a diary - only things that you don't mind sharing with the world get written, and if you don't mind sharing them with the world there will (or ought to be) a lot more positivity in them when you come to reading the posts a year or two later, as you search for the nuggets you're sure you wrote.

There. That's far more musings than I was expecting for today. I wonder if I made it through Year Two of the Training School, and if I graduated to Year Three?

Feeling pretty :o)

What a glorious weekend. Glorious in more ways than just the weather! The sickness has passed (praise God, thankyou to all who've prayed, who've encouraged me telling me it will pass - it has!) and I have started to feel more human again. The sun has been shining all week but this weekend the sun has been really warm and the wind has died down.

We had an amazing day on Saturday with Ben and Christine: cooked breakfast, a wander around the farmers' market, quick sortie to the butchers and greengrocers for bits for the barbecue, lunch at the tea rooms (I had a salad - I've not been able to enjoy a salad for weeks so that was a pretty momentous occasion for me!) and a barbecue in the evening. That tuna steak I have been looking forward to for weeks was as good as I hoped. Even managed to make stuffed tomatoes! Haven't had them since barbecues as a child, so I was pleased that the stuffing worked. Ben & Chris left early evening to go off to Portsmouth to see Ben's sister, and Steve and I finished off a beautifully relaxed day.

Sunday was church and we actually got there nearly on time! We'd been invited to one of the elders' houses for lunch so my bag was stuffed with all my diabetes stuff, an emergency cheese sandwich for the short space of time in between church finishing and lunch starting, and all the usual bits and pieces as well. I need a bigger bag. We had a really good time with Rodney and Sue, and Steve and I kept saying afterwards that we didn't think either of us had ever had a better chicken dinner!! That was AMAZINGLY beautiful chicken. We had a good laugh with Rodney and Sue, talking about all sorts of things, relaxed and chilled and happy.

I'd had a headache developing all day sadly and by the time we got home I thought I'll just have a quick nap to see if this headache will go away - my stomach had been churning a bit in accompaniment, but I'm so grateful that God kept it at bay long enough for me to really enjoy the lunch and afternoon. It developed into a full blown migraine, the first I've ever had and hopefully the last I'll ever have. So that meant no tea for me - not that it wasn't for trying. Was upset because it meant we'd missed the last prayer meeting of the week of prayer, and I'd been really hoping to go to it. But, these things happen and I was consigned to bed, wishing that my stomach and head could just go and disconnect themselves from the rest of me.

Monday morning was a trial as a result. I was so hungry I couldn't face food. I couldn't even face the usual biscuits - I'd seriously had enough of them at that point. Eventually I agreed to try some dry weetos, and managed to nibble my way through a cupful of them. Halfway through I decided that a grape or two might be nice, as we had some left over from Saturday. Finally I felt normally hungry again and was able to eat some normal breakfast, but by then it was nearly midday... Thankfully I felt much much better by then and once we'd had a bacon sandwich (which Steve had to go out to buy bacon for!) we started the day properly. Given the difficulty of the morning, we had an amazing day together yesterday! Steve mowed the lawn, and then when it came to putting the washing line back out we discovered it was broken - incredibly we still had the receipt for it so off we toddled to the garden centre and replaced it. And while we were there bought an A-frame garden table/bench thing and various covers for the barbecue and table. And I helped build the table!! Honestly, I really did help! No lifting or anything like that, but I did help and once it was done Steve enjoyed a beer and a cigar while I had a delicious bath to avoid the stink of cigars. And then dinner... mmm. Sweet chilli and roast vegetable sausages from the butchers, with pasta and pesto. Delicious.

For the first time in weeks I have woken up today feeling pretty again :) it's a good feeling! Steve has been complaining that he buys me all these pretty bra's and all I wear is the cheap (and frankly quite comfortable) one that I've had for years... I told him once I start feeling pretty / sexy again I will wear the pretty and sexy bra's he's bought! Hope he notices :) Celebrating by wearing my favourite of the bra's he's bought, and a pretty top and pretty shoes with my jeans. Happy girly today!

I was finally given a folder of music for church on Sunday, so I've got a load of new songs to learn to play hurrah!

Right, off to have more breakfast and to get on with the day. Let's see what time it is today when the switch is flicked and all systems suddenly shut down for the day... :o)

A little letter to the jumping bean :o)

Week: 13+3

Well little jumping bean, we finally saw you last Friday! I still can't get over how amazing it was to see you jumping away waving your arms about - you wouldn't stay still long enough for the sonographer to get your picture, and in the end she had to just take chances to see how they came out!

It's been so amazing being able to tell people at last. People at church are really excited, and I'm being threatened with a celebratory trip to Matalan!! Your great-auntie has decided that she is going to come down in person and check me and you over some time in the summer, kind of useful having a retired midwifery lecturer in the family!

Everyone is really excited for you, and looking forward to you coming into the world. I'm really looking forward to seeing you properly and giving you a hug :) Ah now I'm crying... makes such a change to be crying happy tears :)

I felt your protective bubble yesterday for the first time, that was awesome. I know where you are now and I can start watching to see when you get bigger - you've already pushed my stomach out of the way so I'm having to eat smaller portions, but golly you don't half make me hungry!

God bless little jumping bean, take care in there.

xxxxmummy