Things that I'm unsure about the total suckiness of, and other things that clearly suck

So, since I started out in this pregnancy roughly the size of a borough of NYC, I'm only supposed to gain 10-15lbs as opposed to the 22-30lbs that are recommended for a "normal" woman.  By the time The Squirt was born, I'd gained about 35lbs, but had lost all but about 7lbs of it by the time I left the hospital, and the other 7 was mostly gone by the end of the school year.  So I considered that a win.

Another occupational hazard to being Queens is that the majority of the medical profession is convinced that you're going to die immediately from your grossness, if not sooner.  Never mind that I don't have high blood pressure, joint or mobility problems, all those things that are the horrible and inevitable consequence of being more whale than human.

So, I have seen an endocrinologist for several years because like many chubbies, my thyroid is more or less as useful as the average person's gallbladder.  You know, it just sits there on top of your liver or whatever, secreting its green bile that you don't actually NEED for anything until one day when it decides that was one too many onion rings and decides to stab you in the back. Well, my original endocrinologist decided that not only did I have hypothyroidism, I was also clearly suffering from ploycystic ovarian syndrome, despite the fact that the only symptoms I have of that condition are being overweight and having a not-incredible fasting glucose level. All those other pesky symptoms related to fertility had just passed me by, I suppose.  But wait!  That's not all!  In addition to being required by my weight to be infertile and hairy (which I am not, either) I'm also required to be diabetic!

   But the funnest part is that in addition to the Phantom PCOS, it appeared I was also the first woman on earth to suffer from Phantom Diabetes.  You know, the diabetes where you don't actually have any major issues with your blood sugar.  And your test results are in the clinically normal range (albeit, I will admit, on the high end of normal). But that's inconsequential because, you see, I'm fat.  So therefore the diabetes must be hiding.  And the treatment for Phantom Diabetes?  An insulin pump!  And a new endocrinologist.

  So that all leads up to what I discovered this morning..... I'm 18.5 weeks pregnant and as of this morning I weigh eactly 5lbs less than I did when I started.  And that's ok by me because there's no doubt by my expanding waistline that Niblet is growing in there (size of a mango, claims the interwebz).  So clearly there's less of ME than there was to begin with.  And that doesn't suck.

Other things that clearly suck: Most of the people I know in the greater Richmond area don't have any power, still, after Hurricane Irene came to go bowling among our trees.  They don't sell pudding pops reliably anymore. My dog has a lazy eye. Ok, well the last part doesn't REALLY suck, it's actually kind of funny.

Things that suck, part 1 of what will surely be many

I am not a skinny gal.  Never have been.  I went for a period about 4 years ago where I ate nothing except celery, cottage cheese, peanut butter (occasionally) and water for about 4 months and exercised at least an hour a day.  I gained 5lbs.  No joke.

So now I'm pregnant with a second baby..... which is apparently a miracle, because it seems that plus size maternity clothes basically do not exist.  As of today, there are exactly THREE places from which one can purchase a very, very limited selection of maternity clothes in my size: JCPenney (51 items vs 131 in misses sizes), Motherhood Maternity (96 items of not lingerie/sleepwear/swimwear vs several hundred) and, just barely, Old Navy (only t-shirt material items- all woven items end at size 16 or 18.)  Of the three, only Motherhood sells their items in store as well as online, but not all of them.  And Motherhood, for some reason, thinks a sweaty fat pregnant woman wants to wear shiny charmeuse blouses.  After an exhaustive internet search, the best advice I seem to have found for dealing with this problem is: buy bigger plus size clothes.  Obviously whomever is giving this advice doesn't understand how pregnancy changes your body... my belly is the only part of me getting substantially larger.  So sure, I can buy a larger plus size t-shirt, but it's going to be horrifically too big everywhere except my belly, and possibly the least flattering item of clothing available on earth. 

   What gives, Retail America?  Do you not believe that a woman over a size 16 can become pregnant?  Or do you think that in the event that a plus size woman does miraculously defy all odds and get knocked up (surely by a man who was either blind or drunk, right?) she will not wear clothes during her pregnancy?  Do you see a lot of fat naked pregnant women walking around?  No.

   I realize that my mere existence is offensive.  How dare I be fat and expect to wear clothing?  However, in my unusual occupational line, it's actually frowned upon to show up to work unclothed.  I don't think that my co-workers or superiors would support that, despite the dearth of clothing options available to me.  These manufacturers are sending a message to plus size women: you're not supposed to have kids.  If you were supposed to have kids, you could wear the super cute stuff sold at A Pea in the Pod, GAP, and even Target.

    So to the sizeist jackasses who run the maternity clothing business, I fart in your general direction.  And you will surely smell it, because the only pants you'll sell to me are thin, cheap material that would never hold in my deathly pregnancy gas.