today i am 16 weeks pregnant.
how do i feel? terrible. okay, so what are my emotions towards my current state? excitement, confusion, uncertainty and a whole lot of self-pity.
why the self-pity, you ask. well for three of my pregnant months i have been a slave to my body and its hormonal changes. before i completely bare my soul, here's some background...
like most couples, we were ecstatic to find out we were expecting. then we waited to be in the "safe zone" and started telling friends and family, who were just as thrilled. however, a month into this process i began to feel all the usual first trimester "yucky-ness".
i've been surrounded by prego friends for the past three years while living in Connecticut. these girls where all around my age or a few years older. they were either getting pregnant, pregnant or had just given birth. i learned and experienced so much during this time. for the most part they shared how there was a light case of morning sickness involved, some backache, too much weight gain or the response i now loathe... "i feel great - no sickness at all!"
cumulatively these experiences (most shared with me in much more detail) brought wisdom and insight into what i thought might one day be my experiences with pregnancy and birth. yea right!
i honestly feel like there is a secret society for women who have had babies and their one goal is to tell women without kids just how AWESOME it is - read: leave out any gory details and only express the euphoric moments.
quote: "once you hold that precious baby in your arms everything else is forgotten."
okay, but could you have pre-warned me (in all its gory detail) about the first 9 months before you had baby-amnesia?
as i sit here typing i am holding a large lump in my throat, not from choking back tears, but rather from nausea and my 24/7 efforts to not throw-up. along with mood swings, fatigue, and the need to constantly pee... i am always one cough or swallow away from running frantically to the nearest toilet or drain. yummy, i know.
there's more, but before i go on i do want to make clear this is solely MY experience. if i have had one rather large revelation throughout these (seemingly very long) four months is that every women has her own pregnancy and birth experience. no two are exactly alike. and from what a lot of women have told me - most woman even have different experiences with each individual child they carried. i have been given multiple opinions along the way, some given with love and some i choose to simply forget. while i value knowledge through personal experience, i do not appreciate being told how i should feel. we haven't "all been there" because your "there" (read: hormones and bodily functions) are most likely very different to mine, as mine might be to the next woman. when your face visits the toilet bowl at least two to three times a day the last thing you want to be told is to pull yourself together, push through and not let yourself be consumed. ummm, okay.
know that i go on only to express what i wish someone had told me. if i'd known then what i know now, i would probably still have chosen to get pregnant, but been more prepared for the worst and a little less in lala-land. this is not a "DON'T DO IT" rant, instead it's a "JUST SO YOU KNOW" note.
henceforth the beginning of my self-pity. along with the moodiness, fatigue, need to pee, and tender breasts, the following is my most honest moment:
only read if you are okay with a large dose of TMI ------------------------------->
bring on the constipation! painful and frustrating only begin to describe it. i have since learned it is one of the most common symptoms of pregnancy for most women - that no one likes to talk about! constipation is brought on by ones moving organs to make room for the growing uterus, and the large amount of additional iron in the pre-natal vitamins. solution: eat Flintstones vitamins instead (as per my doctor), loads of natural fiber and few other methods. along with this unhappy situation, i also incurred a very heightened sense of smell. my nose literally dictates what i eat, where i sit or stand, whom i get close to and how quickly i throw-up. my poor husband had to change his deodorants and face wash... that's minimal compared to the changes i had to make. my biggest loss due to my smeller situation? i can no longer wear perfume. oh, and working out is not even a thought when i can barely stand up with out running for the porcelain throne. okay, least i'm doing
some running.
while i don't feel as bad these past few weeks as i did before, i am still throwing up daily and dealing with the aforementioned symptoms. sometimes i think i'm turning a good corner and other times i think i am just becoming accustomed to my new state of normalcy. what was supposed to be "just a really bad first trimester", has now followed me into my second trimester. i'm desperately waiting to suddenly wake up and get all my energy back, which people say does happen. in the mean time, i remind myself of the blessing growing inside of me. i try to focus on all the joy that will eventually come of this journey... and then i remember i still have to push the thing out! but it can't be that bad, right? women have been doing this pregnancy thing for years. that baby-amnesia must be really strong.
if you care to know how it all works out - i'll keep you posted.
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| if only it felt as great as this girl makes it look// |
