The Goodyear Blimp has escaped

Oh the bloat! I am enormous this morning. I feel like a blimp. Or a Macy's Parade balloon perhaps. I couldn't fit into any of my fat jeans for work, and all the enormous elastic or drawstring waist pants that could possibly be worn into work were either wet from the laundry I did this morning or waiting to be washed.

And yet first thing this morning I was feeling pretty good. You see, I used to exercise every morning religiously. It might only be walking or going to Curves, but I got out of the house and did it. However, since the last IVF cycle I felt less and less like exercising and I found it harder and harder to get out of bed, so I would snooze until about 7.30am, at which point it would be too late to do anything. And I was eating a lot of ice cream and other bad things so of course my waist (and everywhere else) started to expand pretty rapidly, and let's face it, I wasn't all that small to start with. I think it was all to do with the hormones and depression, because I just didn't have the energy to care and all I wanted to do was sleep. However, since last week and my mood turnaround, I've gradually found it easier to get up at the right time, and today I managed to spring out of bed at 6.30am, get dressed, put a load of laundry in the washing machine, take the trash out and go for a walk. I was so pleased with myself.

Then I have this new plan for eating a ton of protein in order to feed my growing eggs lots of good quality food. You see, I've been struggling a lot with my protein intake and I keep wondering if that had something to do with me not getting pregnant. I'm a vegetarian, so I used to eat a lot of soy foods. Then I read that soy wasn't good for TTC because the phytoestrogens interfere with your natural hormones. So I quit soy. Then my acupuncturists told me that I shouldn't eat dairy. So I quit (or at least drastically reduced my consumption of) dairy. Two pretty major protein sources gone. I tried to up my intake of other proteins, like nuts, beans and eggs, but honestly I don't know how good of a job I did. But I have decided that "protein power" is my new motto, and I'm going to get protein in my mouth at every opportunity. And if it helps me lose any weight in an Atkins kind of way, all the better (but don't worry, I'm not actually doing Atkins, because I know that would be bad for TTC'ing as well). I may quit soy again as I get closer to egg retrieval, but then again I may not. Well, this morning, I had an egg along with some Morningstar Farms "Chick'n" strips for breakfast, and a Bolthouse Farms milk/whey protein mocha latte drink. Oh, and my Bolthouse Farms Green Goodness drink for the wheatgrass. I think it was the whey protein that pushed me over the edge. My stomach blew up like a balloon and honestly I looked 5 months pregnant. Ugh. Maybe the acu was right about quitting dairy!

But I forced a pair of jeans on hoping it was only a temporary bloat, even though I couldn't exactly zip them up and still breathe, and had to drive to work unzipped (oh the horror of re-zipping on arrival in the parking garage at work, hoping no-one would see me do it). The pressure around my abdomen from the darn denim corset is pretty bad, but as the morning wears on I seem to be deflating a bit and am now down to looking about 4 months pregnant. Oh the joy.