I am one of the extremely blessed ones who didn’t have the struggle of becoming pregnant. I don’t have any angsty stories of months or years of trying or going to fertility clinics. For some reason God just made it happen. I know that this child is a gift from heaven.
And I knew when I had received the gift. One day I just felt different. It was an odd awareness that there was something inside me that was new.
We didn’t test until about week 8-9. I had been procrastinating since the pharmacist wasn’t on my way to anywhere and it would mean a special trip to pick up a test – besides.. I already knew I was pregnant! But after my supervisor at work asked me if I was I decided it was time to know definitively and actually do something about it.
So what is it like for me?
I felt nauseous and vomited about 6 times. One time I remember just lying on the floor against the wall to keep my head up because it felt worse when I lay flat. I couldn’t vomit and I couldn’t eat. I just felt this feeling of wanting to throw up but not quite. Then when I finally did throw up I didn’t feel a whole lot better. It was dreadful and I felt a deep sympathy for those who experience this day in and day out for months. I also threw up on the way home in the car. I managed to hold it in with one hand while the other hand steered into a pub’s carpark. I threw the door open and let it all out all over the ground.
There is one thing about vomiting that does ‘release the valve’ on the nausea somewhat but it does leave you feeling exhausted and the awful taste in your throat takes a long time to go away.
Since this was not a big issue for me I think the most noticeable thing early on was the fatigue and low mood. I have been anaemic and that fatigue does not compare to this. You wake up, feel tired. Go to work and want to sleep. Come home and want to sleep. Then sleep all night and want to sleep some more. And then I read on the net that I should sleep at work. I am not sure who actually wrote those articles but they definitely don’t work in most ordinary work places. It was really quite incredible. I went to gym classes and couldn’t keep up. Normally I could be there for 1-2hrs. But half an hour was really killing me.
And then I got sick and couldn’t shake it. My nose was blocked and runny and I had become a first class mucous producing machine. Then my nose kept bleeding and I kept blowing blood out of my nose. (Don’t worry, all of these symptoms were mentioned in the book What to Expect When You’re Expecting – a good read for those in my category)
But if you asked me what was I suffering with the pregnancy now? The main thing is ITCHINESS. I have almost scratched my skin off. And its not always polite to say where! Apparently when the skin stretches it gets itchy and some of it is just down to hormones.
Moodiness is another awful factor to deal with. It is really easy to get mad these days. Doesn’t take much to trip the wire! Poor Darrell.. he has really taken a beating.
But apart from all this ‘sufferance’ that I (and other expecting mothers) endure. I cannot believe that inside me there is a real live person growing. And when we first saw our little one on the screen at the ultrasound appointment I started crying. It was dancing and waving its little arm and leg buds. I have an actual person inside. It is so incredible and makes me feel so blessed and amazed. I don’t feel like I deserve this but nevertheless here we are: parents in the making.
Never so humbled. Never so blessed.