After I
managed to stop sobbing/laughing/stomping my feet and “got over” the urge to
shout it from the rooftops, I looked up my due date and then confirmed it on 72
different apps/websites. To be clear, I don’t actually believe in due dates,
but it is nice to have a date to countdown to. That being said, I’ve chosen not
to share that date with most people and instead say I am due mid-June to mid-July.
Because
there were almost no symptoms that early on and nothing to be felt physically,
it didn’t feel real at all. Honestly, even now in my second trimester, it’s
only just starting to feel a bit more real.
The most
significant symptoms I had all started around 5-6 weeks. I was sick for about 2
weeks, finally realized it was my vitamin making me sick, quit the vitamin and
haven’t been sick since. I had (very few) random days that I felt nauseous but
mostly I just felt unsettled. Always tired. I sneeze a lot? No particular food
aversions, but no desire at all to eat. I’ve developed a horrible gag reflux
when brushing/flossing; really hoping that goes away soon! And the thing I had
heard about so many times but apparently no one that I know has ever actually
experienced, the disgusting mouth taste. I’ve mostly heard it described as
being metallic, but for me it tasted like my mouth was unclean (despite
brushing 3-times daily!) and my tongue needed to be scrubbed to remove the
taste – scrubbed with a tooth brush, causing me to gag.
Looking back
now, I’d say I had a fairly easy first trimester. Ryan might disagree, being
that he had to listen to me whine constantly, did all the cooking and cleaning,
all the driving and had to put up with my ridiculous demands. Most notably, the
only craving I had was for ice water, but I wanted it in a specific glass, with
3 ice cubes and my reusable metal straw because it made it taste colder. The
only other part of that time that I would say was quite difficult was the first
week that I was getting sick. I couldn’t drink water, couldn’t eat much besides
soda crackers and I spent my work days running for the bathroom (while trying
to look casual and hoping no one else was in there.) The few things that did
make me feel better were orange Fanta, deep inhales outside in the cold winter
air and being asleep.
In
mid-November, around the 8-week mark we decided it was time to tell our
parents. The original plan was to wait until Christmas and tell everyone at
once, but even managing to keep it to ourselves for that long was challenging. Since
I had never shared our desire to start trying this year, they were
understandably shocked. Once that wears off everyone has been excited. A few
weeks later, we finally told our friends and siblings, receiving some
interesting reactions from some.
I’ve been
emailing myself throughout with thoughts or ideas and I’m going to share those
too.
-I really
wish someone would have explained to me how much the sickness was as much a
mental struggle as it was physical. Pregnancy aside, when I am sick I don’t
want to eat, period. During my pregnancy sickness if I didn’t eat, it made
everything worse. However, the idea of eating and most likely not keeping it
down made it extremely difficult to convince myself to eat. I fought a vicious
cycle with myself about it every day. I never thought I could struggle so hard to
just chew and swallow a cracker.
-Another
interesting realization about pregnancy is that it basically turned me into a
toddler with a driver’s license and a job. I need naps, I only wanted food that
is plain and usually devoid of nutrition, I need to be paid attention to a lot,
I may have a tantrum or start crying for no good reason and there will be no
calming me down. And I became pretty useless around the house, not cooking or
cleaning.
-That
mind-blowing moment where I realized that I have created human life. This one
gets me every time I think about it and it doesn’t get any less mind blowing.
-And
finally, I am not the person I thought I would be. I expected to be super
strict with myself about eating, drinking water, being active, getting enough
sleep, etc. I also thought I would be super connected/obsessed/excited as soon
as I found out, but I honestly have days where I hardly think about it at all,
not to say I am not excited, because I am, but it feels very different than I
thought. In a way I’m disappointed in myself, but also this is my first
pregnancy and it’s a very new experience; I’m doing the best I can and making
an effort to improve myself all the time. I’m fine and baby seems to be fine so
really, that is all that matters.
On the
note of baby doing fine, I guess I should also mention that we were fortunate
enough to be taken into midwifery care within 2 weeks of finding out about
baby. We haven’t had an ultrasound yet (we will at 20 weeks) but we have had a
few appointments with our midwife and baby had a strong heartbeat. I also got
to hear kicking which was very exciting since I cannot yet feel it.
A few
things that people like to ask so I will leave them here. We will not be
finding out the gender. We are planning for a home birth. We have agreed on a
girl name but no luck with a boy name yet. No, I will not tell you the names.
