I mean come on, people � if you�re going to invest most of your friend-time and friend-energy in one or two people, you have to choose quality people. Which clearly I do. Because I can type an incoherent mess of a journal entry and my friend responded in a lovely way.

Can't you just feel the sunshine?

Okay, so I have been mildly OCD about weight gain during pregnancy. Just not wanting to get hugely fat while pregnant � because so many women use pregnancy as an excuse to eat whatever the hell they want and not exercise and generally not be nearly as healthy as they should.

I have found that I have a hard enough time taking off weight when it ends up on my body for no good reason (i.e., nothing nearly as fun as �pregnancy� as an excuse � more like �too much junk food, not enough moving around�). So I�ve really been vigilant about weight gain during pregnancy.

Not in an unhealthy starve-the-baby way. Really. I just want to make sure that I�m eating GOOD foods, doing GOOD exercise, and gaining what I need to gain in order for me and the baby to be healthy.

I gained about ten pounds in the first 22 weeks. It feels like more, and (to me) it looks like more, but the scale doesn�t lie.

Interestingly, I haven�t gained a pound in the last four weeks. Not one pound.

And (in the spirit of total disclosure) my diet hasn�t been that great for the last four weeks. I figured, eh, haven�t gained that much, I can relax and enjoy some food.

So I�m constantly amazed when I step on the scale in the morning and it says the same thing it said the day before.

Sometimes at the end of the day I�ll be up by 3 or 4 pounds � but it�s always water. And by the following morning, I will have gotten out of bed eleventy times during the night to pee. So it�s gone. And I�m back to the same weight I was yesterday (times twenty-eight).

At our last OB visit we learned that the baby is growing just fine. She�s measuring right on target � no problems there. And she�s got no apparent health problems according to all of the screening that we�ve done. The other reason I know she�s doing well is that she�s constantly active � she kicks and rolls and jumps around all the time.

But since I�ve been OCD about gaining weight, you know I�ve got to be getting weird about it, right? In the opposite direction. Why aren�t I gaining anything? Isn�t she growing big enough? Do I have some sort of metabolic disorder (ha)?

I know. Everything is fine. She�s fine. I�m fine.

I figure it this way: if I concentrate all of my stress on one or two relatively small things, then I won�t worry about everything else.

I�ll see my doc next Wednesday � that�s when we do the glucose tolerance test (yum) and have the last �monthly� checkup � after that we go to biweekly appointments. God � we�re getting so far into the pregnancy that we�re into the every-two-week appointments. AIEE. I�m not ready!!!

Last Thursday I was supposed to see my personal trainer in the afternoon. (She had morning �boot camp� stuff all week, so the only time she could work me in was in the afternoons, which sucked.) I ended up staying much longer at my clinical site than I had anticipated, so I called her and left a �sorry I can�t come today, we�ll hook up next week� message.

I hadn�t called her back or emailed to try and get scheduled for this week as of this morning � I�m a big time procrastinator when it comes to booking workouts. That�s why I always make sure to schedule at least the next week in advance with her � otherwise, I�ll never get around to it.

This morning I was so proud of myself � I made myself get out of bed at 7:30 (am), I ate breakfast, and I went to the club. I worked out on my own (I�m so impressed) � I even pushed myself as hard as she would have done. And then I left her a note telling her the days and times I could work out and to call me.

So we�re back on schedule and I only missed one appointment. I try to do my weights at least twice a week � and with today�s workout, I�ll be sure to get at least two days in this week.

The other thing I�ve been pretty religious about is walking. Blue and I take the dogs out every night and we walk anywhere from one to two miles in the neighborhood. I think we�ve missed a total of five walks all summer � that�s a pretty good record.

Interestingly, I�m having a harder time going on the longer walks. Not because I�m tired, but because my bladder can�t seem to take all of that thumping. No matter how many times I pee right before we go out (tonight: three times in less than five minutes, so I was pretty sure I was empty), once we get to about 3/4 of a mile, I start feeling like I need to pee.

We may have to start doing two walks � walk a one-mile circuit, go home, let me pee, and then head out and walk again.

It�s getting kind of frustrating!

I�m trying to be good � but I really am geared to use excuses to get out of doing this kind of work. If we have to break our walks into two walks, that second walk is never going to happen. Or it�s going to happen only under extreme duress on my part. I can�t imagine getting home again and wanting to go back out.

I�m so lazy. God only knows how I�m going to take care of an infant. Hopefully that �mothering instinct� kicks in.

Off to bed. Tomorrow I have to get the oil changed in my car in the morning � then I�m going to come home and start painting the baby�s room. Whee!