I found out I was pregnant on a Monday morning in March after returning from a weekend in D.C. The only symptoms I had was one short-lived case of mild nausea right after I had eaten the Friday before, so I figured I just ate too much, and my hair had been super greasy. As in I would wash my hair in the morning and by the end of the day, it looked like I had worked out seven times and hadn’t washed my hair in between.
I took a store brand pregnancy test Monday morning thinking, ‘I’ll just set this here and come back and throw it out in a few minutes’ because I was sure it was going to be negative. Just like I had done in the five months prior, I figured I was hyping up my symptoms and imagining things.
I was about to find out how wrong I was.
The test was positive. Like extremely positive. Not positive in the way where you have to tilt your head to the right and twist the stick at a weird angle to try and make out if you’re actually seeing a line. There was no denying those bright pink lines. I think the line was brighter than when I took my first test with our son. But me being me, I thought maybe the store brand test was wrong so I went and bought a name brand test. Those were all positive too. I was shocked but in a good way. Since I honestly couldn’t believe it actually happened for us without the help of doctors and IUI, I called my OB and scheduled an appointment the next day to get blood work done. I needed to be sure because three positive pregnancy tests weren’t enough proof for me. My levels more than tripled between my first and second draw. I was without a doubt, 100% positively pregnant and just shy of four weeks along.
I had a friend make a ‘Big Brother’ t-shirt for our son that he had on that evening when my husband got home from work. My husbands shock rivaled mine when my son came around the corner saying ‘daddy, new shirt!’ and he read what it said. We had a big family hug, I cried a little and that was that. We were officially going to be a family of four.
That was also about the last time I felt good for the next two months.
The first trimester was rough. Honestly, I don’t even think the word rough does it justice. I remember being nauseous when I was pregnant with our son but I didn’t remember the nausea being as constant and debilitating. That may have been because I worked from home so I was able to work from bed when needed. I was also able to nap during my lunch breaks and go to sleep as soon as 5pm rolled around. Being pregnant, with constant nausea and a toddler is a whole new ball game, and it’s not the kind of game you enjoy.
The only thing that helped my nausea was sleeping… and eating, of course. I was eating all the carbs because it was what my body craved, and my doctor said that was fine. I was also sleeping every chance I got which definitely wasn’t as often as I would have liked because mom life and sleeping when we want is not a luxury we get. You can’t just sit in bed all day doing nothing. You have a small child to entertain, feed, play with and keep alive.
My constant state of nausea was met by a two-year-old that decided to go on a nap strike for a few weeks. Doesn’t that sound delightful? I counted on his daily two-hour naps to allow me to sleep as well. When I was out of energy and finished with trying to get him to lay down and nap, I took the alternate route. We piled in my bed and I turned on whatever movie he wanted to watch. He sat between my legs, enthralled with the movie of the day while I fell fast asleep. Yes, I intentionally and purposely let my son watch hours of movies solely so I could nap and I am not afraid to admit it so all you mom-judgers can save your breath. When you’re nauseous 24/7 with zero energy, you do what you gotta do.
Somedays when my nausea would get so bad I would think that being physically sick might be better than what I was experiencing. At least then maybe I would have an hour or two of relief. Weird, right? Who would think that you would ever wish to actually be sick in hopes it would make you feel better.
My nausea and need to sleep/relax any chance I got was also the reason for my lack of blogging. I couldn’t muster up the strength to type on my computer and honestly didn’t want to use any precious free time for anything other than sleeping. I wanted to blog but also had no idea what I would even talk about since I honestly couldn’t think about anything other than how terrible I felt.
Thankfully once I hit week 10 I started feeling better and, oddly enough, craving veggies. I started eating all the veggies and I haven’t stopped. The second trimester has brought me more energy even though I still take advantage of napping at the same time as my son a few days during the week because why not? If I don’t have anything pressing to do around the home, why not take a little bit of a snooze.
One thing that has changed so far between this pregnancy and my first? With the approval of my doctor, I have started drinking 4oz of coffee some mornings when I feel extremely exhausted after not sleeping well the night before so that I am not a total zombie. This is weird to me because I never ever drank coffee when I was pregnant with our son. Not even a sip. I asked my doctor at my 13-week appointment how much caffeine was too much because I was experiencing mom guilt for having a minuscule 4oz of coffee the morning of my appointment. He laughed and told me he wasn’t worried about it and thought I was going to say I was drinking a pot of coffee a day. A GIRL CAN DREAM!
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