12w 6d

I'm not sure how many more posts I can write about how sick I am. I'm officially out of my first trimester, yet you would never know it with the violent puking this morning. I barely made it from my house to my parents house before getting so sick. Let's see...things that have changed since my last post.

I had another two ultrasounds. For those keeping track at home, that was number 4 and number 5. The nuchal scan is a relatively new test that measures the fluid behind the baby's neck to test for Down's Syndrome and Trisomony 13/18. Unfortunately, the baby has to either be on its back or stomach with the nasal bone visible. Here's my kid, clearly lying on its side waving at the machine:

It looked like my uterus was super cozy. After an hour, the ultrasound tech gave up and KGII and I were told to come back.

So I guess that was new. After not speaking for two weeks, KGII reached out to me and we talked. I invited him to the ultrasound and he drove down and met me at the doctor's office. I'm a fairly physical person, but with him, in that room, there was just so much touching and rubbing! He wanted to hold my hand and rub my arm and the whole time I was like, "What the heck?". I would swear it was during that ultrasound he realized that I was having his kid. Something clicked. I had so much resentment towards him that it was hard for me to experience that next to him. I didn't want to completely shut him down, but I wasn't sure how to handle all the emotions he was having. He was protective and kind.

After the first ultrasound we went down two hospitals and I got all the fluid out of my band. The hunger is like nothing I've ever experienced. Even after I eat, the hunger pangs claw through me. It feels like I have a gaping black hole where my stomach used to be. I literally can't eat enough to satiate myself. Sometimes I'm so hungry that I get nauseous. Basically, I can eat whatever I want now, but: 1) I don't want to. After 18 months of learning portion sizes, it's difficult, to say the least, to expand those triplefold. I have no restriction and feel like I could eat the side of a car if I put my mind to it; 2) I'm still sick and sometimes I feel so sick that my stomach physically aches. Yes, I'm taking B6 for the morning sickness. I am taking so many supplements right now, that my supplements have their own supplements. The iron for anemia accompanies the fiber supplements and stool softeners. The B6 accompanies the B12. The prenatal goes down like a rock.

Within the past week, I've started showing and I would swear I've gained five - ten pounds. Although, wow, I just stepped on a scale and I'm still at 186. I was supposed to be at least 187 coming out of my first trimester. Weight gain is challenging for me, emotionally. Although I know that my doctor wanted me to gain weight and it's perfectly normal to gain weight during pregnancy, it feels like a failure and I don't know what to do with these emotions.

Ugh...these emotions. Hello hormones. Good bye all rational logic.

11w 6d

Who the hell was I kidding with that last post? I've been dying with morning sickness throughout week 11, going home from work sick on Monday and then out mot of Wednesday for genetic counseling and testing. After a very long ultrasound to measure the amount of fluid behind the baby's neck, we left with another appointment for yet another ultrasound (that will make number 5) because the baby wouldn't roll on its back or stomach to get an accurate measurement.

Most surprisingly, KGII went to the ultrasound with me. I had completely walled myself off from him after our brutal fight. I told him I would tell him when the baby was born and the he would hear from the attorney general's office. But then about a week ago, he contacted me and apologized for what he said and said he was sad that we weren't talking. Slowly, we started talking again and I invited him to the ultrasound. What's funny is that this is his first child and he's never been exposed to any prenatal reading or information. He was shocked to see the baby move it's arms and legs and switch positions. I knew from an early ultrasound with zac that babies move in utero. It was just funny to see his shock.

There is no easy way to describe my feelings toward KGII. I'm still incredibly angry at him, but I care about him and don't want to take experiences away from him with our child, even before it's out in the world. It's just very complex.

In the meantime, I would pay money to not feel like I'm going to throw up. I've also caught a bit of a cold and I'm coughing. It's Labor Day weekend and I haven't left my bed much. I'm ready for my second trimester and to start feeling better.

10w 6d

The vomiting and the nasuea are finally start to taper off. Of course, because I typed that sentence, I'm guaranteed to be doubled over in pain and extreme discomfort tomorrow. I'm still fighting bone numbing fatigue, in part because of my untreated anemia. I was diagnosed anemic back in week 5 but due to some....how do I say this? gastrological problems, I couldn't start taking an additional iron supplement. As it is, I take fiber supplements and stool softeners twice a day. Even then, it's a little dicey down there. The medication I take for nasuea, Zofran, stops everything - including poop. So, right now I'm trying to slowly build up to taking an iron supplement, especially after reading my friend Melanie's post about what anemia can do to a woman later down the pregnancy road.

What I'm really struggling with is finding productive ways to talk about KGII. About two weeks ago we got in the kind of knock down, drag out fight that only two people who have history together can get it. On both of our sides, we said things that we can't take back and every comment was designed for maximum pain. I just kind of broke after that fight. I had to wall myself off from the pain and stress he was causing me. I told him that I don't need him and that I can do this pregnancy by myself, with the help of my family and friends. I had no problem leaving FOB across the country at four months pregnant and would and could certainly distance myself from KGII. So we stopped talking for about two weeks. During that time, my doctor's office called to schedule my 20 week anatomy scan (also known as the "You finally find out the gender!" ultrasound). I scheduled it for late October and because I didn't want to be alone during the scan, I invited my Dad. That's the same thing I did last time, with Zac. It made me so sad because I felt like I was repeating an incredibly difficult period of my life, voluntarily, a full eight years later. My Dad agreed to go and I cried most of that day.

As I mentioned before, it's not so much my feelings toward KGII that I'm struggling with, so much in how I can talk about them. People have very strong opinions about what is appropriate and moral for a pregnant woman to do with her body during pregnancy. One friend said I had no right to isolate KGII from the baby's medical information during pregnancy and keep him from going to the doctor's apointments because I was little more than a vessel for the child. I argued that the baby's medical information is essentially MY medical information for the next 9 months because my actions and decisions directly affect the fetus. If I decide to become a heavy alcoholic and smoker, the baby will not progress in the same way as if I had abstained. Some people feel a woman is autonomous in her body and more than capable of making her own decisions regarding her health and her child's health. Whatever end of the spectrum you find yourself, undoubtedly, you have an opinion. With my luck, you are going to feel inclined to share that opinion with me. Even when I don't ask for it or explicitly ask for you to keep your opinion to yourself. I get it. Pregnancy engenders opinions. Just be gentle please.

9w 5d

I like to celebrate each week of the world's slowest pregnancy passing on Friday's when I get off work. Of course, I don't actually start counting a new week until Monday, but that's another story.

My pregnancy continues to read like a "What to Expect When You're Expecting" chapter. I'm unbelievably sensitive to smells this time. Maybe I was last time as well, but I really don't think it was this pronounced. Recently, my cat, Piper, decided to start peeing in my front room. I mean, it wasn't just one or two urine spots, it was like she carpet bombed the room. Even from three rooms away in my living room, I could smell it and had to breathe out of my mouth until I begged KGII to clean the carpet (it helped that I bought a small carpet cleaner and some special "pet spot" cleaner"). The worst smell that I've ever encountered and to this day can make my stomach turn was my dog's vomit. My dog, Samantha, is the dumbest big dog you've ever met. She eats cat litter and cat poop and then pukes it up. If that sounds appetizing, trust me, it isn't. She was in her crate in the kitchen (thank God - on tile) and puked out the front of her crate towards the oven and then turned around and puked out the back of her crate, towards the kitchen table. I had just finished cleaning up one side of the puke and realized I could still smell it. I moved the crate and found an entire other side! Then my cat urped up cat food on the carpet and I was done. I got very, very sick and no amount of Zofran could help me cope with that day. I went to the Ob-Gyn for an Ob Education and another ultrasound (my third so far) and I was so miserable and must have looked so bad that my doc offered to give me an IV of Zofran and fluid. I declined, but then ended up not going back to work and just went home to lay in the fetal position.

This was my first abdominal ultrasound, which was a nice change. Baby Bean is looking more human like and less like a blob. I've settled for nicknaming this baby "Bean" because KGII put up such a fight to"Gremlin" (as in "I have a Gremlin inside of me that is making so sick that I want to die"). But, we could see little legs kicking in the ultrasound and the gestational sac is getting smaller and smaller. My next ultrasound is on August 31st to capture the world's most photographed baby in action again and check for genetic abnormalities. After a brutal fight the other night, I don't imagine that KGII will be accompanying me to any further Ob appointments or ultrasounds.

Another fun side effect of the hormone surge going on inside my body is my absolute craziness. I wouldn't trust my emotional reactions with a ten foot pole. I honestly have no idea how anyone puts up with pregnant women. We're insane. Obviously, I'm particularly talented and separating myself from the men that get me pregnant, so I'm not sure I can be any kind of relationship expert during pregnancy, but really, I don't even want to be around me sometimes. I watched "Baby's First Day" on TLC and started sobbing when a woman had a C-section and her and her Mom started crying. Just sobbing uncontrollably. Awesome. I love being a complete wreck. I love freaking out on people for no apparent reason when they don't actually deserve it. It makes me feel like a very accomplished human being. I went and saw Officer Hotness sing last night at a local coffee shop and had to force myself to not listen at times because she was singing so beautifully about love and I didn't want to start blubbering over my smoothie.

I'm told this is normal. I don't know. I have to wait until month 4 before I can consult my old archives and see what I wrote about last time. Between the morning sickness, the acne, and the hormonal craziness, I feel like the second trimester can't come fast enough.

8w 2d

I'm in that part of pregnancy where everything is dramatic and quite possibly the worst thing that has ever happened to me. Except I've been through this part before so I know that the hormones never really go away and I'm not going to feel like myself again for at least another year, if that. If that sounds overly pessimistic, let's not even talk about the fact that my Mom predicted my hormone-induced depression and encouraged me not to get pregnant again to avoid it. That's how bad it was the first time.

Yeah, clearly I did not take that advice to heart when I accidentally got pregnant seven months after she gave me that speech.

A huge part of my stress centers around my job - the job that I cannot reference on the Internet and directly address in any way. I tried once on Facebook and was promptly "talked to" about it. I cannot discuss any part of my job, my coworkers, the stress, or how it makes me feel in any "public forum". Although my semi-private blog did not come up in a google search of my name, I can only assume that it's just a matter of time before I'm in my boss' office discussing this with him. And that makes me sad. Most of the time, it makes me mute. I don't want to fear the wrath so I avoid the behavior. The only problem with that strategy is that I don't really have anyone I can talk to about the stress and how it's affecting me. Writing is part of who I am and how I cope.

It wasn't until after I got pregnant that I realized how much I was relying on vices and addictions to cope with my job. I drank, a lot for me, both socially and alone. I smoked cigarettes before cold calling and when I needed a break during the middle of the afternoon. I would text. Most of all, I took anti-anxiety medication when my throat felt like it was closing up and my heart was hammering in my chest and I still had to make 75 more phone calls. Then I got pregnant and all of those coping mechanisms (as faulty as they were) were stripped away. I can't drink. I can't smoke. I'm not dating and don't have texting to distract me. My friends get tired of hearing how sick am I and how hard this pregnancy has been on me so far. So I'm left with the anti-anxiety medication.

Here's the problem. The medication is a Class D, which is just one step about Class X in terms of safety during pregnancy for mother and fetus. The Reproductive Psychiatrist wasn't concerned when I told her I used the medication "as needed". She said it was a small, unduplicatable study that led the FDA to classify the drug as a Class D. My Ob-Gyn, however, keeps emphasizing that I should really be weaning off the drug and only taking it under EXTREME DURESS (her emphasis).

All I can say is, "I'm trying". I focus on breathing, but feeling like the world is falling apart around me and I will be homeless, living in my car with son in under three months, means there is only so much the mantra "I breathe in. I breathe out" can get me. There is no happy space I can escape to at work when my job is on the line. I take the medication, keep my head down, and worry with every pill that I'm causing irreparable damage to my unborn child.

In other fucked up news, I got in a car accident and my dog potentially broke the neck of my kitten. I found her dead when I came back in from doing errands. If bad things happen in three, can I at least keep my job and my baby? That's my hope right now. Keep my job. Keep my baby. Don't cause any birth defects. Focus on the little things.

7w 6d

I'm such a tease. I promised an ultrasound picture and then...I don't know...I think I got tired. Or sick to my stomach. Or tired of being sick to my stomach. Something along those lines. Here are the ultrasounds so far:

7w 1 d

5w

First of all, can we give a holla for my uterus? Look at the size of that thing in just under two weeks. The gestational sac is still visible in my second ultrasound, which means that I'm definitely closer to 7 weeks than previously thought.

The biggest news was that we saw the baby's heartbeat. I saw it immediately, just a flickering on the screen and it was such a relief. I had pretty much convinced myself that the baby just would stop developing at 6 weeks and never get a beating heart. Fortunately, that didn't happen. We both saw and heart the baby's heart beat, which was right at 144 beats per minute.

Notice I say "we" saw the heart beat? That's right. KGII came back into town (he lives two hours away) to go the Ob-Gyn appointment. When he saw the heart beat, he turned to me and very quizzically declared, "We're having a child?!?" I crunched my eye brows and said, "We were having one two weeks ago, too" and he said, "But now it's real".

Real indeed. I have more to say about KGII and what happened between us, but I'm still trying to process everything and learn from the experience. He is still around occasionally and we are trying to work on being friends. I literally just take it day by day, between the debilitating morning sickness and fatigue. I can't wait to put the first trimester behind me.

7w 1d

This post should really be called, "Bitchfest 2012: Edition 1".

As always, I'm trying to figure out if my symptoms are heightened this time around or if I'm just more knowledgeable about pregnancy and more aware of the subtle changes in my body. I got into the bath tonight after work and realized that my access to prenatal information was extremely limited when I was pregnant with Zac. We didn't have Internet access in the house in New Hampshire that I lived in and can remember going to the library a couple of times to go online. Even though it was only seven-and-a-half years ago, it might as well been the dark age. Even more surprising than my lack of Internet was the fact that I didn't buy any books about pregnancy. I honestly went through most of my first trimester completely in shock, wondering if I had ovarian cancer instead of a fetus.

So, this time it's an overload of information. I've seen more pictures of 6 and 7 week old embryos than one woman should (and yeah, quite frankly, they are freaky looking). Every time I read an article about first trimester pregnancy symptoms I feel like I should have a checklist handy:

• morning sickness (nausea and vomiting): Check
• heightened sense of smell: check
• sore breasts: check (sometimes it hurts to walk, even with a bra on)
• constipation: check (I miss pooping)
• food cravings: check (cheese, anyone?)
• food aversions: check
• peeing constantly: check
• acne: check
• insufferable hormonal moodiness that makes me fear interacting with humans: check
• insomnia and bad dreams: like you wouldn't believe. I haven't woken up to an alarm clock in more than a month. I also go to bed at 8:30pm at night. That makes getting up at 4:30am a little more bearable.

Did I mention that I live in Houston, in late July/early August? It's hot here. I mean, really, really hot. You know what happens in the heat, even when you are only outside to transition from air conditioning to other air conditioning? You sweat. A lot. There is actually a quote from me in an article on pregnancy during the summer talking about how much I sweat (you're welcome, Zac!). What's killing me is not so much other smells as is my own stench. My armpits, in between my legs, my hair...everything stinks and makes me gag. It's distracting at work and no amount of anti perspirant /deodorant could mask this (I should know, I apply twice daily). I smell earthy, like if you were to dig a small hole in dirt after the rain, and musty like a winter coat in August. I'm not sure how anyone actually stands to be around me, to be perfectly honest. Now I'm just trying to figure out if I've always smelled like this and no one has been kind enough (or cruel enough) to tell me to my face or if I'm imagining smells with my super powered nose. If I had a partner I would offer to smell them to see if I'm sensitive to everyone's smell or just my own, but since I don't, I'll spare you the awkwardness of having to write about being repulsed by someone else.

I don't want to jinx myself, but after a rough weekend, I seem to have turned a corner with the morning sickness. Well, at the very least I'm hopeful after two good days without clutching my stomach in pain and avoiding food at all costs. Thanks to a couple of Sonic milkshakes and a strong love of cheese in all its wondrous forms, I've gained 2.5lbs. I'm hoping to impress my Ob-Gyn with the weight gain tomorrow.

Ahh..tomorrow. I'm both nervous, excited, and trying not to feel anything at all. We (yes, KGII said he wanted to come) are going back for a second try at the pregnancy viability appointment. I'm going to have another transvaginal ultrasound to check for a heartbeat. There is no reason to think that I wouldn't see one, other than the fact I'm totally freaked out and convinced that I'm going to lose the baby. Those completely irrational hormones coursing through my body are doing a number on my reproductive self-esteem. I have no reason not to trust my uterus, but I just don't this time around. Just pat my head, tell me I'm pretty and don't stink, and that everything is going to be ok.

Be on the look for another ultrasound picture tomorrow.