And then... I felt poopy

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Back in the day (4 weeks ago), when I would think about being pregnant – I’m not quite sure what I imagined it would be like, exactly. But as soon as I peed on that stick and found out that I was pregnant, and then didn’t feel a lick of sickness that whole week, I was sure, absolutely SURE, that I would be one of those women who glowed during pregnancy.

To which I now say: HA. And also, HA!

Since the last entry, there has been much unhappiness and drama and general blah-ness. Let me summarize for you:

• It took me 40 minutes to eat a banana for breakfast one morning. I have been GROSSLY sick with morning sickness. No, I am not puking. But I feel like I might throughout the day. Fun.
• I have suddenly lost my appetite. (Me!! The girl who has more than one blog post titled “Food, glorious food.” This is just wrong.)
• Something might sound okay to me to eat, but once I attempt to choke it down, I can only manage 1-2 bites max. Then I’m completely done and don’t even want the smell of said food to linger.
• As a result, I’m not eating much.
• As a result, I’m feeling kinda sickly all day.
• I suddenly have bizarre food aversions. Grilled chicken breast? The most vile food on the planet – don’t even come NEAR me with that. Cereal? Sickening. Any type of meat in slab form? Urp. Tea? Ew. Gingerale? Yuck. Crackers (now that I’ve overdosed on them)? Can NOT choke them down.
• Pizza is my new friend. Had the frozen-style pizza for dinner more times than I care to admit.
• Also, Andrew made me a pasta salad last weekend and it turned out to be the only thing I could stomach.
• Ate it for the next 4 days.
• Still had to close the window when the neighbours were barbecuing though – oh, the smells. Ugh.
• Despite my inability to eat anything – my pants don’t do up comfortably. My stomach is more bloated than it’s ever been before, and I’ve resorted to the elastic band around the button and through the button-hole trick. It’s the only way I can wear my jeans day in and day out.

So, in summation: I haven’t been able to eat anything. I’ve been weak and sickly and never want to go anywhere farther than my couch for fear of a wave of nausea coming over me. Also, I carry a plastic bag with me everywhere I go. Yet, my tummy is still hugely bloated somehow.

Which is a nice segue to the “drama” part of my story. (The tummy is the segue. Though I wish it wasn’t.)

Last Friday night, I went to bed exhausted at around 9:30pm. (Wheeee!! Am party animal!) I woke up at 10:30pm with The. Most. Excruciating. Pain. Ever. It was in my abdomen and lower back. I had been having some cramping/mild pain ever since I took the home test, which is apparently par for the course during your first trimester of pregnancy. As long as there’s no spotting or bleeding, you’re all good.

I had no spotting or bleeding when I woke up that night. But I also couldn’t believe how intense the pain was.

Andrew said I went pale, I was sweating and he was quite nervous. I remember looking up at him and saying “this isn’t going to end well”. I was terrified.

After running out to get me some pregnancy-safe Tylenol, Andrew asked if I wanted to go to the hospital. I said no, because I wasn’t spotting. But he wasn’t too sold on the fact that I was okay. So, he called TeleHealth – an organization that always errs on the side of caution.

So – I wasn’t all that surprised when they sent an ambulance to our house that whisked me off to the hospital. Got there at midnight. Got home at 7am the next day. (Ugh.) A few blood tests, a urine test and another test (of the delicate sort) later – and I was told that everything seems okay. However, they wanted me to go get an ultrasound on Monday morning just to be sure.

I spent the rest of the weekend feeling relieved that nothing seemed to be wrong, but also sorry for myself that I was in so much pain and couldn’t resolve it. If this was going to be what the next 6 weeks or so were going to be like, I wasn’t 100% sure that I was going to like this pregnancy gig.

Anyway – to make an epic blog post somewhat less than epic – I had the ultrasound. My 3mm baby is fine. There was a heartbeat. The pain is probably just the uterus stretching and the baby implanting itself in there nice and firm. (Ew. Kinda sounds gross).

Since then, at least once every single night the baby wakes me up again in the form of horrendous abdomen and lower back pain. Just as a reminder that he (or she) is still there. You know – in case the morning sickness wasn’t enough of a reminder.

**Edited to add** (This was back on July 2nd... I've been feeling MUCH better for a while now. Posts in real-time to come soon!)