So, as some of you already know, Chris and I are super excited to be expecting our first baby in March!! I am currently 12 weeks pregnant and will be doing weekly updates on this pregnancy, but first I wanted to tell you how it's been so far.
In short? Not so great. Growing another human being is hard work!
Chris and I had been trying to conceive for a couple of months, so I was hyper aware of my body and paying attention to any and all changes. Through all the reading I had done over the previous months I was aware that after a woman ovulates there is a surge of progesterone. For those of you that don't know, progesterone is a tricky little hormone that actually mimics early pregnancy symptoms - nausea, fatigue, sore "ladies" ;) ... the whole shebang! So, when a few days after I ovulated I started experiencing these things, I knew it wasn't pregnancy and patiently waited (HA!) for the symptoms to either subside or increase.
And increase they did. Starting when I was 3 weeks, 4 days pregnant, the nausea started to increase. I also experienced a small amount of spotting that day which I suspected to be from implantation. I took a test only two days later which came up with a very faint second line!! Low and behold, within a matter of 2 or 3 days I was suddenly feeling very pregnant.
In my 4th week I experienced a fair amount of nausea, very sore "ladies", and my sense of smell could now be considered a super power. This little gem of a symptom certainly attributed to my nausea which was worsening by the day. I felt miserable. The nausea would hit me mid morning (around 10-11 am) and would subside slightly after eating lunch. It would hit again at 2-3 pm and peak right around dinner time. It would sometimes get better after dinner and sometimes not. The evening was a crap shoot - sometimes I felt great, and sometimes I laid on the couch in misery. I was very thankful that I still had an appetite, and even found that when I started to feel nauseated I would feel the need to eat. Also incredibly thankful that while a lot of things made me gag and brought on the urge to vomit, I escaped actually puking. (Have I mentioned I have a phobia of vomiting? Haven't thrown up in over 13 years. Crazy, I know)
Week 5 brought with it extreme fatigue. Silly, but I thought perhaps I would skip this symptom seeing as I had been experiencing the nausea so severely. Nope. Not so lucky. In fact, the nausea had increased even more to go along with it. It began the moment I woke up in the morning and didn't subside. Period. All day long. Food was no longer the easy fix, but instead I started having a lot of food aversions - they would change each day and often be based off of smells, or even the smell I imagined it would be if I were to have to cook it. Cooking raw meat became a chore to say the very least. I have to be totally honest with you. I sit here writing this portion at 6 weeks and just typing this out is making me gag. The only saving grace that this week brought was the realization that I can now take naps. Hallelujah! I have never been able to nap without suffering from insomnia at bedtime. One day in Week 5 I took an hour long nap and was still exhausted when we went to bed. Thank you Jesus. Also, still no puking by the end of Week 5. Another victory!
Week 6... work started to get harder and harder. There was one day I felt so sick that I couldn't even get up from my desk to get myself a glass of water. I thought I hid it fairly well, but when I went in the next day my boss asked me if I was feeling better today- she had noticed I looked quite pale the day before. Oops! I learned quite quickly to get my work done as quick as I could when I was feeling well enough to do so. Come mid afternoon the fatigue would set in and it was all I could do not to lay my head down on my desk. Both the nausea and fatigue have only continued to increase all week, but thankfully still no vomiting. Hallelujah!
Week 7 brought with it a new discovery. Ice Breakers Sours. Thank you Lord. Perfect for the moment when even water makes me gag. The lemon ones especially seem to calm down the "ohmygosh I'm gonna puke!" feeling. Very important because once again, the nausea has gotten even worse this week. There is no denying the bloated feeling now. I don't feel pregnant, I just feel fat. Thankfully the scale hadn't tipped in either direction, so I found solace in that. This week I won the lottery when my family doctor suggested I get an early ultrasound due to some spotting in week 4-6. (Yes I know, I didn't mention the spotting before, but no one really wants to read about that.) Anyways, we were SO excited to be able to see our little one, and while it really only showed up like a tiny blob on the screen, I fell in love immediately. Strong heartbeat of 163 BPM and measured at just about 8 weeks. Perfect.
***Update on the candies... they were great until all of sudden they weren't. If I ate too many they gave me heartburn (oh yes, haven't I mentioned that lovely symptom??) and made me feel like, well, like I ate too much candy! Note to self: Reserve them for when absolutely necessary and don't eat too many!
Week 8. Oh boy. By this time I am feeling like an all out failure at this pregnancy thing. I haven't made a meal plan (or a meal, for that matter) for weeks. Things feel like they're falling apart at home. The flower beds look more like weed beds, and only the bare minimum is being done for cleaning. I've had to resort to buying some prepackaged foods just to get by. Granola bars made they way back on the grocery list which breaks my heart- I've been making my own for nearly two years, and I hate that all that junk and sugar is getting back into our diets. Diet. Pfft. Don't even talk to me about what I've been eating. The only thing that seems to help the nausea is carb heavy foods. (read:Chips) I'm not kidding. Crackers make me gag, but somehow Pringles do the trick. Ugh. Chris is helping SO much. Actually, it feels more like I try to help him as he takes over. He's been cooking all the meals and doing most of the cleaning and laundry. So thankful for this man of mine!! I've been feeling worse in the mornings, and making my lunch is a struggle. NOTHING looks good. Taking something out for dinner requires the foresight of an appetite later in the day which is just not happening at 8 in the morning. Sigh.... end rant.
I woke up to Week 9 in Vancouver- our first day of vacation. Boy oh boy was I nervous about this! Chris and I had booked this trip long before we were pregnant. My greatest fear was that I would spend the whole week laying on the couch and Chris would be sad that we weren't doing any of the fun things we had planned. Thankfully, I only had one or two bad days where the majority was spent lazing around, and the rest of the time my sickness didn't get in the way of our fun. Once or twice there was a "I need lunch NOW" emergency, but we always found our way to food that I could stomach before I fell over ;)
Week 10 was the one I was most looking forward to! We go to Fairmont Hot Springs with Chris's family (all the aunts, uncles and cousins) each year, and it happened to fall right on target with when we were planning to tell our families about the pregnancy. I couldn't wait to share the news with everyone all at once! I'll probably do a post dedicated to some of the fun ways we've revealed the news to everyone, but I can say it went just as well as I hoped! It was so fun to share, and so great to then spend the weekend with everyone. I'm starting to feel like my belly is rounding out a bit- especially in the evenings. Probably just a bloat after dinner, but it feels like more than just the tight clothes / fat feeling I've had up until now, so it's pretty exciting. No changes in symptoms this week. Still pretty sick - more so now that I'm back to work actually. I think the fresh air on holidays helped quite a bit. Hopefully I only have a couple weeks of this left!!
I think I got a little cocky at the end of Week 10 because I had a day where I felt pretty great. I thought perhaps I had turned a corner? Day one of Week 11 set me straight. I got about as close as one can get to throwing up (sitting on the floor of the bathroom at work) Ugh. Sure enough, the rest of the week was much of the same that I've been experiencing since the beginning. I think perhaps my exhaustion may be lessening. I seem to be able to get through the afternoon without wanting to lay my head down on my desk. I am certainly starting to feel more round in the belly. I've been wearing a couple maternity skirts that I picked up in Seattle as much as possible because they are just. so. comfy.
Wow. If you made it to the end, you deserve a congrats! That was one loooong post! I'll be posting my first of many weekly updates soon for Week 12. Stay tuned!
P.S- While I will be posting weekly about the pregnancy, I promise this will not turn into a pregnancy blog. I will still most definitely be posting other content. :)
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Thanks for stopping by :)
~M
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