Hormonal Psycho Pregnant Moment

You all know and heard of pregnant women being moody and emotional. I hadn't really noticed a huge moodiness in myself but I did notice that I was more easily affected by things like sad movies and stuff. I've had a couple of days of irritability but it never lasted long and I had self-control. Today, I have a confession. I got mad at my husband. I normally wouldn't share anything that private about my marriage but Greg did nothing wrong and this is completely my fault (or can we blame the hormones?). I had a psycho pregnant moment. I'll explain...

I'm halfway to 14 weeks and I'm becoming a little more...focused...on food (a nicer way of saying OBSESSED). I scour the pregnancy daily dozen diet (you know, 4 servings of protein a day, 4 servings of fruit and veggies, etc) and I want to eat well and not gain excess weight. I haven't gotten as far as measuring my portions but I'm sure I'll get there. I'm also getting a tiny bit hungrier. A tiny bit. And throw into this crazy hormonal, food obsession mix, I also have to be gluten-free. That's enough to drive me up the wall sometimes. Gluten-free products are a bit on the expensive side (and you know I'm a miser) so I try to avoid relying too much on gluten-free pasta, gluten-free waffles, etc. They don't have coupons for these products in the Sunday paper. My game plan is to stick "close to the farm" - in other words, if nature made it, I'll eat it. If it's man-made, I don't eat it. In a loose way.

So, between being pregnant (in other words, obsessed with food) and gluten-free, I have to be a LOT more intentional about cooking often and eating well. If there is nothing to eat for lunch, I can't exactly just run out to Chick Fila. There isn't a lot of gluten-free options out there. Pre-pregnancy, I would just scavenge in the pantry and sort of snack on a hodgepodge of things and be fine. Now pregnant, that doesn't satisfy me. I need a MEAL.

Okay, on with the story about my psycho moment. Last week, I planned this week's meals and Greg and I agreed not to go to (for future security, I cannot say where) Wednesday night and I would cook dinner. Just an ordinary meal -- chicken, rice, stir-fry veggies. What I was counting on was having leftovers that I could eat for one lunch or two. I was pretty excited about eating tonight and having food the next day and day after. No scavenging. Greg emailed me this morning and suggested that we go to ** tonight to join the visitation team. Ordinarily, I'd jump at the chance not to cook - it's not my favorite past-time activity. Greg'd forgotten that we agreed not to go to ** and I'd cook tonight. I was so looking forward to cooking tonight that I got mad (read: psycho). "What, does he not realize that I need to eat tonight? I must eat! I will NOT scavenge for dinner tonight!" I was mad because I, very irrationally, thought Greg was not being thoughtful about my eating a meal tonight and I looked at him as my barrier to food. Very irrational thinking. I wrote him back and basically said, "I thought I was supposed to cook! I need to eat! I already thawed the chicken!" Greg had simply forgotten the plan to cook tonight and he certainly had no idea that this food obsession has been taking root inside me. If I was perfectly rational, like I was pre-pregnancy, I would just cook dinner a little earlier and eat earlier and then be on my way to **. No big deal, right? But NOOOOO, I overreacted and dug in my heels and I was determined to make cooking and eating my biggest activity for the night.

I also don't get mad at Greg very often. It's rare that I get this mad with Greg as I did this morning. Even during the psycho moment, I was looking at myself and wondering why I was acting so crazy. I'm sure you've read the above paragraph and wondered why I got mad over such a little thing and ordinarily, I wouldn't. I learned a lesson - next week, I'll cook TONS of food on Tuesday night so we can have leftover on Wednesday night before **. Good plan?

I was recounting this to my mom this afternoon and she assured me that this food obsession is completely normal. I felt relieved. It's a bit scary because the obsession is not full-blown yet. Eeek. BUT...I have to say that this is a huge change from the first 12 weeks when I didn't want to even smell or look at food. I had zero interest in food and was averse to it, period.

I made gluten-free banana bread today and it turned out delicious! We made gluten-free spinach and cheese pizza last night. That turned out pretty good, too. Acorn and butternut squash are on sale this week so I will try roasted acorn squash and butternut squash soup next week. I will buy extra so I can make bigger batches and freeze some of them for those binds when I don't have anything to eat. More food!! I'm a catering service for the kiddo in my belly.

(EDIT: I forgot to mention that I was starving when I got that email from Greg - that probably contributed to my irrational, psycho moment)