So many questions! (long post, sorry)

[melzie_99 22]

I haven't been on this site in forever, so it's nice to be posting again. A little back story: I was banded in Jan 2011; starting weight for this journey was 278 and my lowest weight so far has been 165 (my goal; lasted about a day...lol). I'm normally somewhere in the 170-175 range and I'm happy with that. At any rate, I'm currently 5 months pregnant with my first child and just wanted to reconnect with others having band babies. I have been very fortunate that I have had minimal morning sickness and though my appetite was voracious during the 1st trimester I didn't really gain any weight. I was about 172 when I got pregnant and am 176 as of this morning so weight gain has been minimal, though it fluctuates depending on my food/fluid intake.

SOO...on to the questions: how much weight did your OB's tell you was okay to gain? Because of my weight history my OB said he would love it if I stayed within the 10lb range though 20-25 would be acceptable for someone my size. If things continue the way they are currently that shouldn't be a problem, but I have to confess I have a history of being a little scale obsessed so it worries me a bit. Other than my belly and a slightly bigger chest I look pretty much the same thank God, so like I said I feel very fortunate that things are going so well thus far.

Port: *sigh* I have a love hate relationship with my port. Before I got pregnant I spoke to my surgeon concerning my port; it's not very noticeable when I'm standing but it protruded horribly when I would lie down, especially if I was a bit bloated. He told me my protruding was minimal and that it was something he would revisit after I had a baby but to leave it alone for now. Fast forward about 8 months and it now seems as though my port actually tries to flip when I lie down due to my growing belly; it's not horribly uncomfortable but it looks and feels awful to the touch. For those of you who are further along or have already have babies, should I just expect this to get worse? I know my port is stitched to my muscles, but I have this awful fear it's going to tear and I just moved to a new area so I don't even know where the nearest gastric surgeon is located.

Finally: appetite. I have not had any Fluid removed or added to my band in probably about a year and a half; I think I have somewhere between 6-7cc's in a 10cc band. Like I mentioned earlier I ate like a cow first trimester but now there are days where I have to force myself to eat and after about 3 bites I already feel myself getting full. I'm having a hard time getting enough fluids as well . I'm not feeling sick or anything and baby seems to be doing okay, but has anyone experienced this and had issues arise later on down the road? I've never been at a place expect for right after a fill where I have been able to eat the suggest 1/2-1 c of food and feel full; I'm curious to try one of those pouch test diets to see if I stretched it or something but I know now is not a good time for that. Did any of you ladies have trouble eating while pregnant, and did you OB's express any concerns about your caloric intake? How will you know if you're not getting enough, or will that fact that most of us probably started a bit overweight be enough to buffer any possible nutritional concerns for the baby?

Sorry for such a long post, but I look forward to hearing what others have to say. Thanks in advance!

[Ceres 26]

i was told to gain no more than 15 pounds; however i could not keep in that range. i tried. my weight skyrocketed during the first trimester and short of starving myself there was nothing i could do. thank god it leveled off on its own mid pregnancy, but i ended up gaining roughly 30-35 pounds. i've lost about 15 of it so far since giving birth (three weeks ago), but got a ways to go to lose that and get to my goal weight which i wasn't near when i got pregnant (still had a hundred to go at that point).

what kind of port do you have? I have a low profile port, but since i'm not near goal weight, that might be why i didn't notice it too much. i could feel it a lot towards the end of pregnancy, but it never hurt me, well not typically. a few times the cat jumped on me

when i started my pregnancy i had 6.5 ccs in a 10 cc band. i had to have 3 ccs removed during the first trimester because i was getting stuck on everything, even liquids. towards the end of the pregnancy i had a hard time eating enough to keep my calorie count up. i'd leech ketones which upset the doctors when i was losing weight. (they discover this when you pee in a cup every visit. it's one of the things that is typically tested) so the nutritionist started having me eat cheese sticks and carnation instant breakfasts to get an additional 200-300 calories a day. this was after going through everything i was eating daily. i had GD so i had to be specific on what i could eat that wouldn't screw up my sugars. i got pregnant at 230 pounds. they gave me no buffer when i started losing weight during month eight. they jumped on my butt when i lost three pounds and even more so when i dropped five pounds.

[Heather_8.1.14 65]

Congrats on your pregnancy! I am almost 7 months along. So far my weight gain has been 10lbs (although I see the dr again next week so we'll see what that number says) and I had to have my band emptied at 10 weeks due to horrible morning sickness. There are days where I could eat everything in sight and there are days I'm just not all that hungry (I think the heat sometimes has something to do with that too, but I do my best to push my fluids). My port sticks out like a turkey timer and sometimes my son will kick at it and it can hurt. At this point mine has flipped onto its side but this is my 2nd band baby and I know that it will go back to normal once baby comes. If you are gaining weight and baby is growing on schedule I wouldn't worry too much about it. Good luck!