Diary of a Preggo: Becoming Helpless

Diary of a Preggo: On what it feels like to become helpless

Lately I've had a hard time putting my shoes on, painting my toenails, or even stepping into pant legs. My uterus will be the size of a basketball in about a week, and that makes my back less flexible and bending over uncomfortable. I find this particularly annoying, and again, a symptom that no one ever seemed to mention pre-preggo. Being that I'm 5 and a half weeks, that means this is going to get much worse as my baby grows. So I can totally picture having to ask my hubby to help me put my shoes on later on in pregnancy.

Which brings me to the current topic at hand. I really don't enjoy feeling helpless and not being able to do some of the things I did before. Sure, I always found it nice and manly when a guy would hold open a door for me or lift something heavy. But it was just that - nice. It excused me from having to exert myself. But in most cases, except when something is really heavy, I probably could have done it myself. I mean, a door? Sure. I haven't found one I can't open yet. But as I get further and further in my pregnancy my body just seems weaker, and I'm definitely more off balance. The other day I was carrying something and tried to open the door at the same time and I pulled something in my already-painful back. Yea, I know, that's pathetic, but it is reality now. Sometimes people jump to try and help me with things, and I feel bad or embarrassed. I'm finally coming to terms that I do need their help, though.

Let me give you one example. For work I had to visit and oversee the videotaped interview of a 95-year old priest. He is nearly blind and walks with a cane and asked for some help getting back to his office. Surely he couldn't tell I was pregnant, but that didn't matter as my head sometimes forgets that my body is not in the best shape to be helping people around. So of course I agreed. He placed his hand on top of my shoulder and put a suprisingly heavy amount of weight on me and my knees locked in disagreement. As I shuffled around a couple of corners toward his office I felt increasingly off-kilter and even ran into the corner of a table (ouch).  I had pictures running through my head of me collapsing, along with that table and the poor blind priest. Lucky the man above was on his side and that didn't happen. But, that's what I get for trying to help out. Something like that would have been no problem pre-preggo!

Then yesterday, it was the first nice spring day and I was off work for Good Friday so I decided to take the dog around the lakes on campus. That was going to be my workout for the day so I thought I'd run around the lake once (1 mile) and then walk around it the second time. I didn't think much about the fact that pretty much my whole pregnancy, the little running I've been doing has been on a treadmill, which is very different than road running. I was just so happy to be able to run outside again, and I had one of those belly support belts so I thought it would be no problem. I started out fine, but towards the end my quads felt numb and my knees hurt bad. It's just a different type of impact and uses different muscles. Then when I got home and got in the shower, I looked down at my feet and they were all purple and veiny (sorry, gross). I was totally shocked and it freaked me out. That went away after a while but my ankles hurt and then when I went to the mall after, my feet hurt like crazy as if I'd been standing for ten hours. I decided I should either stick to the treadmill or at least work my way up again to road running slowly. I know eventually I will have to stick to power walking, but at least for now I'd like to continue running for as long as I can.

I guess the moral of the story here is that pregnancy is a total out-of-body experience. And it does make a woman completely helpless in some cases. I guess coming to terms with that is hard for me. I wanted to believe I'd be able to do everything I could do before, maybe just a bit slower. But I was wrong.

It's amazing how fast it's gone by. I am officially more than half of the way through, and before I know it, I will be holding my baby, rendering me even MORE helpless. So to those guys that hold doors and carry things, I say thank you. I need you now more than I ever thought I would. :)

Diary of a Preggo: Baby Kicks

Diary of a Preggo: Baby Kicks

Well it's been a wonderful week. My ultrasound has confirmed that my baby and everything else is healthy, I found out I'm having a little girl, and she has been kicking around a lot lately. It's a magnificent reminder of all that is in store in this new phase of my life. And it makes everything I've been through so far so very much worth it.

When I first felt her moving around, that is the first moment that I actually believed 100% there is a living, thriving life inside me. It's beautiful and scary and relieving and mind-blowing all at the same time.

It's so incredibly weird to be walking around for 4+ months knowing you are pregnant but not feeling it, and sometimes not even looking it. I mean sure, I was having all kinds of crazy symptoms, and I haven't had a period for a while, but a human life form growing inside of my body?

 Really?

 I am capable of that somehow?

I spent so much time wondering why I wasn't showing much, thinking maybe the baby had died inside me or wasn't growing on schedule. Worrying that there must be something flawed about the process and my body couldn't possibly be capable of such a complex undertaking.

I even bought a fetal heart doppler so I could check to see if the heart was still beating now and then. Then when I heard it, I would freak out thinking it was too fast, or too faint, or too slow.

When you can't see, feel, or hear something, it's just so hard to believe it exists, even though all of medical science and a blood test and my doctor confirms it does, in fact, exist.

I guess it's the same thing as faith. You trust God is there for a variety of reasons, even if you can't see him or always feel his presence. And what I've found is eventually that faith is in fact confirmed.

When I first felt her kicks, I felt foolish for all that worrying I had done. The baby was there all along. Just like my faith, although at dark times in my life I've felt that was missing as well.

If anything, feeling this baby move inside me has confirmed my faith, confirmed everything wonderful I thought I knew about this world and this life. It's like rediscovering some sort of magical naive wonder, believing in things I haven't believed in for so long.

Yes, it is possible. Yes, I am capable of this.

Look around, every person on this planet - billions of them - was birthed by a woman. That's the only way they could have gotten here. As I type, the baby is moving all around and poking me as if she knows I write for her.

A reminder to keep the wonder. Remember the magic. Trust in your faith.

Never stop being amazed by the beauty all around us, and inside of us.

Diary of a Preggo: Being sick while preggo

The Joy of Being Sick While Preggo

So, Eve ate the forbidden fruit and Adam went along like the fool he was. According to the story of creation, that is why we women now bear the excruciating pain of child bearing.

Well, thanks a lot, Eve. This post is dedicated to you.

But first: Although you may not be able to tell from these posts, I am incredibly grateful to be carrying a child and happy that I am healthy and physically able to do so. It took us a little longer than planned to get pregnant, and it’s been a life-long dream of mine to be a mom. I know this will be fulfilling in every possible way, and I am so grateful and blessed that it worked out for us.

However, as you’ve read in my previous posts, this pregnancy has been no walk in the park. Or run in the park….in the rain, for that matter. So this blog happens to be a perfect place to air my complaints. I'm sure once the baby comes the posts will be sprinkles with happy baby and mom stories. I'm just not there yet.

I’ve realized that being sick while you are pregnant must be some sort of torture, a pain so incredible that can only be designed to punish Eve. I’m sure it’s nothing compared to the actual act of childbirth, but at least that only lasts a day or so, while I’ve lost about a month total to different sicknesses while pregnant (And I’m only halfway through!)

My first trimester, on top of being incredibly nauseous and tired, I also got a nasty sinus infection. I missed my husband’s work Christmas dinner and my head was in so much pain one night I was literally holding a heating pack on it and crying. Of course I could not take anything else but Tylenol and we all know Tylenol is a joke – it did nothing. It’s the first time in my life I’ve been in so much pain I was scared. I felt like I was having a panic attack and I was afraid my baby could feel how stressed and scared I was. I’ve always struggled with sinus issues in the past but I’ve been able to take decongestants, mucinex, and Advil sinus, which took away the pain and cleared it up quick. Nope, can’t have any of those while you are pregnant. And instead of knocking myself out to sleep with Nyquil, I struggled to sleep trying to mouth-breath since I couldn’t breathe out of my nose.

Fast forward to the second trimester. I’m feeling much better and my energy is up. But right when I get back on a workout schedule and start getting some sense of normalcy back, I get hit with a nasty cold virus, which then turns into bronchitis, which then morphs into another sinus infection. Wowza. I coughed so much my entire throat, esophagus, and lungs deep in my chest felt like they were on fire and swollen. A couple of Advil would have taken care of that swelling easily, but no. When I did get on a pregnancy-safe antibiotic, my throat got better but lo and behold, my nose closed up. I seriously went through an entire box of Kleenex in four days. I’m still dealing with it now, and although I’m a bit better, two weeks later and I’m still coughing sometimes and dealing with bouts of teeth pain and sinus headaches. Last night, my husband pushed me out of a blissful sleep to tell me I was snoring. 

If you are pregnant, you know it’s hard to fall asleep in the first place. And the minute you get woken up you have to get up to pee, which means by then you are going to have a hard time falling back asleep. Hello, I was snoring because I can’t breathe out of my nose. I don’t really have a choice in that. Sometimes I wish he could be pregnant…just for like a week or two…seriously.

Let me also add that I’ve been this sick even though I am a healthy person with healthy habits. I wash my hands often, have hand sanitizers in my car, purse, and office and use them frequently, take several vitamins daily, eat fresh fruits and vegetables, exercise, drink lots of water, etc. etc. So there is no fathomable reason for me to be getting this sick unless it has to do with immune system changes due to pregnancy.  Just Googling “pregnant and have a cold” gave me solace as there are thousands of women out there struggling in a panic with the same problems. Yet another crazy symptom!

I know once the weather clears I will start to feel better, but this sick stuff is starting to get ridiculous. Can I pretty please just spend the second half of my pregnancy healthy? 

I swear, I will not make my husband eat the fruit!

Diary of a Preggo: Pregnancy makes people forget their manners

 Pregnancy Makes People Forget their Manners!

Now that everyone knows I am pregnant (18 weeks), I’ve noticed some strange reactions from well-meaning people.

For example, shortly after the “congratulations” go around, some women love to start talking about my weight. Now, I haven’t gained much yet - the normal amount of weight for being this far along. But even before I’d gained a couple pounds, women started focusing on weight as soon as they found out I was pregnant.

I’ll need to give you a little history here which explains why this bothers me so much. Since shortly after high school, I’ve struggled with my weight. I gained a little in college and spent a couple years kind of chubby before figuring out it was the stupid birth control shot I was on. As soon as I got off that, the weight melted off in like two months without changing anything. But that time period was still damaging to my self-esteem. I spent the next 8-9 years as happy and skinny as could be, without even exercising. Then my marriage and finances started to take a downhill turn and I became depressed. I could tell my metabolism had also slowed as I neared 30 years old. What do you know, the weight started coming back on, a little bit every month. I made some feeble attempts at exercising but didn’t have a gym membership or a gym buddy, so it was hard to stay motivated. Every time I tried to run, treadmill or not, my exercise induced asthma kicked in after 10 or less minutes and I quit.

Instead I started surviving on carrots, slim fast shakes, protein water and the occasional yogurt, eating like 800-1,000 calories a day. I was starving and miserable all the time and couldn’t understand why I couldn’t lose even a pound. After seeing a nutritionist and fitness experts years later, I learned I had actually broken my metabolism by eating less than half the calories I should have been taking in every day. Plus, being so hungry and depressed makes it really hard to get motivated to workout. If I had eaten enough calories of nutritious food plus practiced a good workout plan, I’m sure I would have been able to lose the weight. But I had no idea what I was doing and was too emotionally traumatized with everything in my life weighing on me to figure out how to fix it.

When I finally made the decision to separate from my ex-husband, I made a lot of other big, life-changing decisions. I would do whatever I could to not be back in that horrible place. Some of the weight melted off immediately, probably just a reaction to not being in crazy stress 24-7. I also talked to my doctor to figure out why I couldn’t breathe when I ran. I signed up for fitness classes and went to the gym by myself, even though I felt totally incompetent there. I started running outdoors, with the help of my new inhaler, and forced myself to push through the hard moments when I  thought I couldn’t breathe after one block. Getting away from negative influences and finding newfound hope in life gave me the happiness and peace to be able to sleep at night, giving me more energy during the day. I started getting interested in nutrition, and read up on how to eat right. I may have been broke and in a small apartment, but I had cheerios, laughing cow wedges, and drawers full of fresh fruits. My apartment gym was a walk away; I always ran there and back. I made new friends who were fitness oriented. I made sure any guy I even thought about dating was also active and interested in fitness. I needed a life partner who had the same goals as I did.

And what do you know, the pounds continued to melt off. Fast forward two years, and I’m at my happy weight, doing triathlons and 5K’s and married to a wonderful man who takes bike rides and runs with me daily.

With that history, you can see why I am a little sensitive when it comes to weight. I’ve always been careful about what I eat and would never call myself lazy, regardless of the couple of times I have gained weight. But it hasn’t been easy for me. I have never been the kind of girl that can eat dessert regularly or not pick and choose every little thing that goes into my mouth.  At  5’2 I am petite but also short and stout, so even two extra pounds is obvious on my small frame. Some women haven’t worked out a day in their life and stay skinny. Me, I have logged everything that goes in my mouth in a food journal for like two years. I work out most days a week, and if I didn’t, I would gain weight, even while eating healthy. But instead of taking the hand life dealt me and focusing on how “unfair” that is, I fight back with fitness and nutrition.

Normally, it wouldn’t be socially acceptable for people to walk up to me for no reason and say “how much weight have you gained?” or other comments on my body. But for some reason when I am pregnant, women think they can make rude comments like this all the time.

Women, hear me: Someone’s pregnancy does not give you a license to talk about their weight or give them unsolicited opinions on pregnancy weight gain. It’s rude. If anything, pregnancy is a time when women are even more sensitive about their weight. If they are like me and spent their whole life trying to keep it off, the prospect of gaining it on purpose, even if you have to for the baby, is incredibly scary.

The one I hear the most is “I gained 60-70-80 pounds when I was pregnant, that was such a mistake. I was stupid. It was SO hard to get it off. I’ll never do that again. Don’t be like me. Don’t eat everything in sight...”

Seriously?

How much of an idiot do you think I am? Of course I would never “eat everything in sight” or gain 60 pounds on purpose! What an insult to my intelligence! I mean yes I am much hungrier than usual, which is normal, but I’m eating a lot of protein shakes and healthy foods and not like entire pans of brownies (like Jenny McCarthy said she ate every day in her pregnancy book – yikes).

The only reason I may gain a few more pounds than I’d like is due to decreasing my exercise level. My first trimester I could hardly move and even now, though I’m back into a workout schedule, I often have back pain or other sickness that prevents me from doing as much for as long as I’d like. Even on the bad days I will sometimes force myself to power walk on a high incline for 40 minutes or do a yoga DVD, but that’s nothing compared to the almost daily 5k’s I was running in my neighborhood.

However, even if I do gain more than planned, I will be back at a major diet and fitness routine as soon as my doctor says I can. I’m already signed up for a 5K in October, giving me two months to train. I already have not one, but TWO jogging strollers given to me by friends and family. (one that has seats for two kids)To be honest, I’m only 4 and a half months and chomping at the bit to get back to my normal workout routine. And, I’ll be burning 500 calories a day breastfeeding. So suck on that.

I’ve also heard this a couple times: “I only gained 15 pounds. Just because the doctor says to gain 30, you don’t need to do that. Back in my day, pregnant women didn’t gain that much.”

Please, don’t pretend to be smarter than my doctor. The only way I could gain that little is by dieting, which is dangerous during pregnancy. I am not underfeeding myself so that my baby can leach calcium from my bones and cause me osteoporosis in later life. Babies will find a way to get proper nutrition to survive, it’s science. And modern science has seriously evolved since “back in your day.”

Oh, and with all due respect, shut up.

Last but not least, for those women I hear going around telling everyone in earshot how much weight they gained during their pregnancy and how dumb they were, I’ve noticed that each and every one of them are at a healthy weight. Not one person who has come up to me and said that was slightly chubby or overweight. So, obviously it was a temporary situation for them and not the end of their life.

So please, women, stop running your mouth and trying to scare the crap out of already sensitive first-time pregnant women.

And if you ask me “how much have I gained,” I will smile politely and say something vague, because I am not going to give you that answer. It’s none of your business.

Diary of a Preggo: Weird Symptom Day

Weird Symptom #1: Feeling like everyone wants to murder the hell out of me.

(Because sometimes pregnancy symptoms are so strange, they need further explanation.)

Okay. So I choose to believe this symptom is not just a side effect of my crazy self, but instead my elevated maternal brain that is now wired to keep my infant safe. I don’t know, but it is definitely a huge difference from my former somewhat rebellious/fearless self.

So here’s one example. When I’m in a parking lot, daytime or night, I’m pretty sure any person that comes near me or any person surreptitiously sitting in a running car -- male, female, teenager, whatever -- is planning on stabbing me to death and/or dousing me with a bucket of acid (yes, I read too much weird Yahoo news).

I used to be scared of men in parking lots raping me, and now I’ve jazzed it up a notch because I don’t seem to be too worried about rape. Nope, I am pretty sure they all want to kill me. Don’t they dare even hold my stare too long or I’m about to start running in the other direction. Or hurt them with my pepper spray or pointed metal thing attached to my key ring … or blow the really loud whistle also attached to my keyring and embarrass myself when they were just an innocent walking person.

Then there are those scary public places with lots of people. When I’m in a movie theater, or mall, or high school, or pretty much any place where there have been mass shootings, I think one is going to happen when I’m there. I look for the exits and think of spots that I will dive for cover. I ponder the thought in my mind: If I am face-to-face with a gunman, will I tell him I’m pregnant and beg for my life, or will that make it worse and make him want to kill me more since he is obviously trying to create enough destruction to make him famous?

Yes, I’ve played out that not helpful scenario in my head more than once.

Also, if I am anywhere near a driving car – it could be like 500 meters down the road – I am pretty sure it is going to run me over, maybe even purposefully. I look at a car and hesitate like a million times before I cross a road or busy traffic area. They probably just think I’m nuts since I’m not visibly pregnant. But regardless, I am pretty sure everyone on the road is a drunk and/or reckless driver who wants to kill me.

One time, very early in pregnancy, I almost had a major anxiety breakdown because a speeding driver ran through a red light two cars in front of me and my husband (a few more seconds and it would have barreled into us!!), and then it ran into a light pole and careened into a building. The light pole fell, and a sparking fire fountain like the fourth of July replaced it. Now, I was a little shook up but doing okay because it wasn’t very close to me. All we had to do was proceed through the intersection and keep going, since it was to the right of us and a little down the road.

No problem, right? That is what any normal person would do – get away from the accident.

 NO.

All of the sudden my hubby, against my very stringent and pleading advice, decided he was going to TURN RIGHT and DRIVE in the DIRECTION of the ACCIDENT and FIRE, because “someone might need help.”

Well good Lord I needed help after that. I thought HE was trying to kill me. I freaked out on him so hard, I was shaking and screaming at him to turn around until he finally pulled into a parking lot across the street and got out of the car to walk over to the accident. 

No, thank you very much, I did not feel like hanging out near a car that might explode. Nor did I think it was a good idea in my nauseous state to see some mangled bloody body crawling out of a car.

“Now is NOT the time to be a hero!” I told him. “Someone else will help them! Do not drive towards accidents and fire with your pregnant wife in the car!”

Now, maybe I was being selfish, I don’t know. Hormones don’t always make for sane behavior.

 But I do know I felt like I was going to puke and cry for the next two hours and it was on Thanksgiving and that was not fun.

Funny note, later on the news it said that the driver of that vehicle was pregnant, transporting a man with an urgent medical situation to the hospital. (Miraculously, they were okay.)

Who does that, anyway? Not this pregnant lady. Too dangerous. You better call an ambulance with your injured self!

Diary of a Preggo: A snapshot of daily life

December 19, 2012 (7 weeks, 4 days)

I jotted down these notes in my paper journal in December, so I thought it would be funny to share them here as a snippet of an “average day” of my first trimester. Enjoy J

•  Woke up @ 5:50 a.m. for no reason.
• Refused to get up that early and instead watched hubby get ready and leave for gym.
•  Attempted to fall back asleep for another 20 minutes.
• Failed.
• Got up feeling queasy and hungry at the same time so immediately downed a glass of milk with carnation instant breakfast powder and a hostess donut stick (damn hubby for buying those things!)
•   Got back in bed and fell into a weird half-asleep state for another half hour.
•   Got up and put dirty hair in a ponytail to run to campus and get in line for some football team signature tickets hubby wanted. Drank decaf coffee in the cold pretending it was caffeinated.
•   Got tickets @ approx 8:15 a.m.
•   Hungry again so went through McDonald’s drive through to get an egg McMuffin.
• Went back home and ate it with orange juice.
•  Took a hot shower because I was so incredibly cold.
•  The hot shower made me incredibly tired and so I got back in bed with wet hair and a robe on and fell back into a fitful sleep for approximately another half hour.
•  Woke up. Gave in and slammed a cup of Earl Gray tea because I needed some sort of caffeine just to get moving.
•  Got ready for work.
• Worked in a fog-like state from 10:30-7:45.
•  Ready for a nap @ 4p.m. Stared listlessly at internet instead.
•   Went home exhausted and went to bed at 9:30 p.m.

Diary of a Preggo Introduction

Diary of a Preggo Introduction: Finding out you’re pregnant and why first trimester sucks

I’m in my second trimester of pregnancy! Now that I’m feeling better, I’ll be blogging about my experience. Sorry, it’s not all pretty. But it will be honest. And hopefully funny at times.

Holy Crap.

It worked? Is there really a baby in there?

In a nutshell, those were pretty much my first thoughts when seeing the faint positive sign on the test. 

Granted, it was a happy “holy crap.” I mean, I’d been waiting for that test to finally become positive for what seemed like forever. But soon, that happy holy crap quickly turned into a holy crap, holy crap.

Let me be more specific: It doesn’t matter how long you try to have a baby or how long you’ve discussed names and dreamed of decorating nurseries, the moment you find out you are actually pregnant, the next moment involves a minor freak out.

How am I going to pay for this?
How am I going to be off work for three months?
How am I going to give my baby to daycare strangers and go back to work?
What if I have a miscarriage or genetically abnormal baby?
What if my husband decides to leave me?
What if I get fat? 

What if I’ll be a terrible mother?
Will I ever get to have any fun anymore?

And that is just a small percentage of some of the crazy things that start whirling around in your head. If you’re like me you get over these thoughts pretty quickly and move on to the acceptance and excitement phase.

If you’re like my husband, you go into instant denial and think a faint-line-is-not-really-a-line, so you’ll make sure by waiting for the blood test. But then again the way men deal with pregnancy is a whole different blog that I’m definitely not qualified to write. J (FYI, now he is very excited and even installed a “dad app” on his phone to track my pregnancy!)

Soon after your freak-out moments and subsequent mental bliss, you then hit the reality of the physical and mental issues that are the first trimester. (Picture the words “first trimester”’ spoken by a loud, deep, booming voice like that of a scary movie trailer announcer. That is because I’ve been through it and it really was like a scary movie.)

Women always talk about being sick to their stomach. That is literally the only thing I had heard about in regards to first trimester side effects. But in reality there is so much more.

There is the insane tiredness that is not just sleepy tiredness, but also a constant fatigue that makes you want to become one with the couch all day long and makes any small task seem incredibly stressful and insurmountable. For me, it truly felt like a mental and physical depression.

Forget motivation of any sort, forget things that used to be easy like cleaning or painting your toenails or putting on eyeliner. Nope. Too hard, don’t care. Exercise? Psshht. Walking up a flight of stairs? Didn’t matter that I’ve ran triathlons, I was out of breath at the top.

There is the incredibly embarrassing acne that you can do “nothing” for, according to my doctor.  

There is being ridiculously cold all the time.

The insane boob pain. Seriously...I could not even accidentally rub against the armchair of the couch. Searing pain.

The bloating. The dry mouth. The constant dizziness and lightheadedness and, if you get it bad like I did, the possibility of blacking out and fainting in public.

Waking up at 4 a.m. for no reason with a painful kind of hunger/nauseous feeling in your stomach – two feelings that really don’t go together. 

The crazy cramps and other painful twinges that you get as your uterus grows. The smells that make you want to puke on everyone for daring to bring that nasty smell near you (fish, body odor, cleaning fluids, etc.).

Don’t forget about the lower back pain that hurt so bad it prevented me from bending over to pick something off the floor or grab something from the bottom of the fridge.

Oh and the jackpot - the greasy hair that hit me in month two that regular shampoo would not wash out no matter what I did. (the answer – Dawn dishsoap. Thank God for pregnancy advice forums).

 Last but definitely not least, you get these fabulous pregnancy hormones that make you feel incredibly sensitive and vulnerable so you cry for no reason.

Add to all of that the fact that even though all of these things are on your mind constantly, you can talk to NO ONE about what you are going through because you aren’t telling people until the second trimester (if you’re like me and have miscarried before), and that makes you become seriously anti-social.

 Also if you get sick (like of course I did) you cannot take medicine for any colds, sleeplessness, or aches and pains. Plus you have no obvious baby bump so you get sympathy from no one and everyone at work probably thinks you are a forgetful lazy slob who stopped putting eyeliner on.

And then you have those women who tell you how perfectly fine they were in their pregnancies. No, no, they were never sick to their stomach, and they ran five miles a day up until nine months …. acne? Haha, they laugh, of course not. Oh, and they only gained 12 pounds even though the recommended amount is 30-35 pounds.

Trust me, these women will make you want to punch them.

I absolutely love it when someone says to me, “I was sick my ENTIRE pregnancy,” because it makes me feel more normal. I've had people tell me they missed tons of work in their first trimester, and that makes me feel better too. I may have been late a few times, but I never called in sick purely because of pregnancy symptoms.

Now, my disclaimer here is that pregnancy is different for everyone. So apparently some women really are fine in their first trimester. But a lot of women aren’t. So this is my story. And it can be summed up in one sentence: I was not myself.

Now that I’m in the second trimester and am feeling better every day, I still look back and think I have no idea who that person was. It was like I was just in survival mode, walking around in a fog. I kept saying I hoped I had twins because we are only having two and I did not want to be pregnant ever again. Thankfully, I discovered ginger pills which took away a large majority of the nausea early on.

Some things haven’t gone away though. 

The wild hormones, for example, pop up randomly here and there in the form of a short temper or grumpiness or this weird laugh-cry thing I do when something is funny (but not that funny to warrant crying). But it’s not constant. Sometimes I have good, happy, energetic days -- more like my old self.

The tiredness still plagues me. If I’m busy or running all day or if it’s past 7 p.m., I can fall asleep like nothing. In fact it’s tough to do anything after 7-8 p.m. because all I do is yawn and think about being in bed. Sometimes I take a mid-day nap on a weekend if I can’t fight it anymore. (I was not a napper pre-pregnancy). 

However, the horribly lack of energy, motivation, and constant fatigue has dissipated. So has the majority of the acne J

And that is my sob story. Apparently my hair and nails are about to get amazing, and the second trimester is about to be the “best part of my pregnancy.”

Let’s hope those stories are true!