The pregnancy diary: Week 9

This was written in secret before we went public with our announcement of being pregnant, which you can read here. I’m now sharing these with everyone, until this is up to date. As this gets published, I’m now 13 weeks along.

I think I’m finally starting to find my groove a little bit. I’m still eating way too much sugar to try and get through those super fatigue days, but I’m starting to understand my routine a little more. There’s a few tricks I’ve learned that are helping me get through the days. Maybe there’s a light at the end of the tunnel? Everyone keeps assuring me it gets better after the first trimester.

The daily routine:

• Wake up somewhere between 1am – 4am busting to pee. Go to the toilet (potentially wake the husband up because of the bright light, try to use the flashlight on the iphone instead so it’s a bit more defused)
• Depending on how I feel, snack on something, otherwise my stomach will have the hollow hunger feeling, and then I won’t be able to sleep (potentially wake the husband up by the sounds of chewing on biscuits or a muesli bar, or by being absent in the bed at all by eating in the kitchen)
• Wake up again at the more usual time of about 5 – 5.30. Get up and pee again. If I don’t eat crackers or a muesli bar immediately I will have nausea set in within the next 10mins, and I won’t be able to shake it for hours
• By 10am I’m ready to sleep again. Make some sort of a hot drink (if I’m allowing myself some caffeine for the day I might have a normal coffee or a cup of English Breakfast Tea, otherwise it’s decaf or a hot chocolate)
• Lunch time – eat whatever try to survive. Working from home so catch a 10min nap on the couch
• Afternoon – just focus on getting through until it’s time to knock off work. Start to feel a little irritable.
• 4pm finish work, crash on the couch and apologise to husband for being a sloth. Get grumpy because he acts understanding, but I’m convinced that he doesn’t get it and thinks I’m lazy
• Eat dinner somewhere around 6pm
• Try not to fall asleep on the couch immediately
• Feel bad for the lack of intimate relations with the husband because of any of the reasons below:
  • Depending on what I’ve eaten, I may be extremely bloated and feel fat
  • Feeling fat and unattractive
  • An inability to keep my eyes open, and playing starfish isn’t appealing
  • Somtimes super fatigue sets in, and when that happens just sitting hurts
  • I’m worried I’ll puke everywhere
• Rinse and repeat the next day

Self image issues

I’ve put on a few kilos now, and I know it’s because I’m not eating the greatest of foods. My sugar intake is too high, but I have no other idea of how to get through these clouds of fatigue. I’ve got some crazy deadlines at work that I need to hit, and I can’t spare a single moment.

I keep praying for the first trimester to be over soon, because people keep telling me it goes after that. Every day is a new opportunity for me to not give in to bad food, but I’m failing at the moment. I just need to keep trying to be optimistic.

It’s so hard not to feel ugly.

Ultrasound

We saw the baby for the first time last week in the ultrasound. It was the dating scan where you can see how far along they’ve come etc. At the time we saw them I was 8 weeks on the dot, she estimated it to be more like 8 weeks 2 days, so not far off. It had a heart beat of 170bpm, motoring along!

I expected it to be some big emotional moment like you see in the movies. I also expected it to be harder to find. Instead it was there the very second she touched me with the ultrasound wand-thing. As soon as I saw it, my initial reaction was to utter the lady-like word of “fuck”.

This thing was really there. I am really pregnant. It resembled the pictures in my apps. It was a jelly bean with little arms and legs poking out. OH MY GOD.

Telling people

We’ve started telling more people, mainly because I am not too good at pretending. This morning at breakfast a friend asked when Mario and I would be looking to have kids. He gave the line of “we’re not preventing”, and “it will happen when it happens”. He looked at me, I was biting my lip, he started laughing, and I said “oh screw it” and we told them.

I know we’re still at a risky phase (more in that in a second), and it means that if anything happens we have more people to tell it wasn’t successful. Having that discussion would be very hard to deal with, and there’s probably a lot of people that wouldn’t know what to say to help us cope (when it’s happened to friends/family of ours I’ve felt completely helpless).

We are blessed to have amazing people around us, and having them there to support us in that time would be something invaluable. I think dealing with it on our own would be a lot, lot harder. I read an interesting comment the other day, where the opinion is that we shouldn’t talk about miscarriage because it makes people feel awkward. In actual fact, maybe what that mother needs to cope? Honestly? I have no idea. I’ve never been in that position so I can’t even guess at what is best. I’ve seen friends and family go through it, and I hope to god I don’t.

I hope this isn’t coming out as insensitive to those that have, and I apologise if that’s the case.

The risks

I know we’re still not past the risk phase and there’s a chance that the baby isn’t growing inside me anymore. I know that I could potentially miscarry at any time. Luck is on our side, since apparently if you see a heart beat at 8 weeks you’re at a 98% chance of it continuing. The main issue we have right now is the down syndrome test. This will open up a political can of worms, but if we find out the baby has down syndrome it’s unlikely we will continue. I don’t think it would be the greatest quality of life for the child or us. Having to care for a child is stressful, having to care for a child with special needs is so much more difficult. I will put my hand up right now and say I honestly don’t think I could.

Have your own opinions, but that is mine. I would choose not to continue.

We get that test somewhere in the next fortnight, as well as meet with the ob for the first time. Once that’s done we’ll be able to announce it officially to everyone.

As for how I’m feeling? Still very overwhelmed, still fearful, and still very disconnected from this process.