Being pregnant has clearly affected my body in countless ways. The simple truth is that my body is no longer my own… I am sharing it now with my future child. Which is pretty amazing. In general, growing a new person inside of your body is awesome! Thinking about it usually leaves me awe-struck and I am so thankful for this experience.
However,
I can only sincerely type these words now because I have been medicated with anti-nausea meds for about 4 weeks. If you were around me 5-6 weeks ago you know that I was playing a little bit different of a tune.
So here is the story:
For a week after we found out that I was pregnant I felt fine. I had some headaches and sometimes felt dizzy, but I worked out and ate completely normally. I bought and borrowed baby books and registered to the BabyCenter website. I was super pumped about taking really, really good care of my body during the time that I was pregnant. I wanted to keep up my exercise routine and eat right all the time. I read and researched; I made a diet that I promised myself to stick to; I just figured that if I am entrusted with this life inside me I am going to do my best to take care of it right from the start.
Then, at 6 weeks, the nausea started. It hit me on a Saturday right after I worked out with my sister. I felt like I needed to lay down, so I did. And I didn’t get up until that night when I transferred myself to bed. Now, some people will talk about morning sickness like they are nauseous for spurts throughout the day. Or they will describe how they puke a couple of times each day, but then feel fine. I am sure that these experiences are not fun… but what I felt was constant, intense nausea. At any second I felt like I was going to get sick. I had absolutely no appetite. I gagged at any strong smell, including my own deodorant (I am still wearing unscented). For the first couple weeks of nausea, which were also the last two weeks of school, I tried my best to get up in the mornings and make it to class. Most days I got sick at least once and I rarely ate anything except for Goldfish and Sprite. I had gracious people in the Math department sub all of my classes because I had no energy to teach. I felt helpless and miserable every day… it was a really, really low point.
During this time I felt so overwhelmed by the fact that I had no control over my body at all. And that I would have to endure 40 weeks of it! Or even just one more day. I know it sounds dramatic, but most nights I would cry to David in bed because I just didn’t want to go to sleep knowing that I would wake up the next day, having to face the nausea and vomiting again. I also felt guilt. Guilt that I was a wimp… because I had heard others talk about morning sickness and a loss of appetite, but I was literally debilitated and I thought it was my fault. Mostly I felt guilt that I wasn’t taking care of the baby inside of me. Clearly it isn’t getting all of its vitamins from Goldfish! I stopped reading any books or websites because all of them just amplified this guilt and shame and just made me feel like I was being a bad mom already.
After school was over I thought that I could just get some rest and get better. But it just got worse. This was when the vomiting intensified. I couldn’t keep down my prenatal vitamin, coke, water, anything. Within these two weeks at points my appetite would increase, but then as soon as I ate anything my body would reject it. I struggled with feeling angry toward my own body and just really frustrated. I thought I would figure it out for a bit… like if I don’t eat anything in the morning but instead suck on a peppermint I can get myself up and somewhat ready for the day without getting sick. This worked for about 3 days, and then it didn’t work anymore. My WONDERFUL husband was literally bathing me and helping me to get dressed each day because I was so, so weak. And on top of everything I was attempting to study for my prelims, the huge exams that I had to take in the beginning of June.
Then on May 19th I got a wake up call and a glimmer of hope. The Wednesday before May 19th I had thrown up 8 times. My body had kept nothing inside of it. I felt awful! On Thursday morning David came into the bedroom to help me sit up before he carried me into the living room. This was our morning routine… pretty pitiful. When I sat up I blacked out completely and got all hot and dizzy. So David called the doctor and they said I needed to go to the hospital. I looked and felt so gross, but we immediately got in the car and drove to the UK hospital where we checked into triage. The nurses quickly took a blood test and got an IV in my arm. Within 30 minutes I felt like a different person. We stayed there all day, getting the IV and repeating the blood test which wasn’t normal at first, but once I had fluids looked great. We got to see our baby again and hear the heartbeat and I was reassured that baby was perfectly healthy and wonderful! I know it sounds bad, but it really helped me when the doctors called it a big parasite. They assured me that it was taking everything that it needed from me and that while I was feeling terrible, it was doing just great.
Along with the IV they pumped some Zofran into me, the anti-nausea medicine that I have been taking since then. THANK THE LORD FOR ZOFRAN… seriously. Ever since it has been in my system I haven’t gotten sick once. However, I still had a road of recovery ahead of me. The doctor at the hospital warned me that my digestive system would be messed up for a while since I hadn’t really eaten for a month, so he suggested that I re-introduce foods very slowly. The weekend following my trip to the hospital we decided to go to NKY for a change of scenery and to give David a break from the intense care he had been giving me. This was such a hard weekend because as soon as my nausea lifted I was SO HUNGRY. I have never been this hungry in my life. I wanted everything… steak, salad, milkshakes, fruit, pasta, cheese. I wanted to eat everything in sight but I knew that it would just backfire if I did. So instead I ate toast and bananas.. for 4 days. You may think I am exaggerating, but I am not. That is all that I ate. One time I had some Cheezits and they hurt my stomach; as in I could feel them being digested for 5 hours. I had to lay down it was so painful. After eating like a sick person for a few days I got my appetite under control a little bit more and started adding certain things back into my diet. Some chicken here, some pasta there. And eventually I could eat normally again.
So here I am, at almost 14 weeks and if you ask me how I am feeling I will tell you that I am WONDERFUL! Because, those 4 weeks of feeling awful definitely gave me perspective. Yes, I still feel nauseous sometimes; no, I can’t eat how I used to; yes, I am still under my pre-pregnancy weight because my appetite hasn’t completely come back; no, my digestive system still has not returned to normal. However, “normal” is now very relative. Because who knows if my pre-pregnancy “normal” will ever be normal for me again. My body is no longer my own and I know that it will most likely never be the same. Babies do crazy things to you! But I have been told and I very much believe that it is all worth it.
Thus, I will end with some little pieces of advice so that if you are pregnant, or if you ever do get pregnant and you are feeling sick and like no one understands you can read this and remember that you are not alone. Because that was the overwhelming feeling that I kept having during my month of being debilitating-ly sick.
1. You are not alone… for real. Your husband won’t understand because he isn’t pregnant and your friends may not be as sick as you. But someone, somewhere out there feels worse than you. So try to stay positive.
2. You are not a wimp, nor are you a bad mommy. Your body knows what it is doing, and while being healthy during pregnancy is important, many things in the beginning are completely out of your control. As long as you are a healthy person to begin with you really don’t have much that you can do to hurt or help the pregnancy.
3. Along those same lines, don’t stress about your prenatal vitamin. You should try to take one, but if they just make you sick, try to switch and see if there is another one out there that is better for you. You should of course talk to your doctor first because they know best. When I was stressing about not being able to keep my vitamin down my doctor told me to get a chewable flinstone vitamin. No joke! So I did, and some days I take that and other day I take a chewable prenatal vitamin without iron in it.
4. Ask your friends and family for help. You won’t be able to go through this whole journey alone, so stop trying to be independent already! If you are like me, you may feel weak when you need other people but that is just silly. You will most definitely need those around you who love you when you are pregnant.
I think that is all for now. Sorry about the ridiculously long post… but so far this has been the hardest part of my journey by far. I hope that someone out there can relate with my experience and that it can help encourage someone who is struggling also.
More details to come… and some non-baby posts soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment