Category Archives: symptoms
The last two weeks
… have been full of vomiting and non-stop nausea. Ok, I’m exaggerating because there are gaps of a good hour or two when I feel really good.
It’s hard to get out of bed in the morning, because it’s hard to fall asleep. It’s hard to work because I’m extra fatigued and I’m nauseous all day. My head pounds, my stomach hurts, my mouth waters like I’m on the verge of projectile vomiting, because I am.
I’ve tried several methods, from eating a teeny bit of food all day long (literally with no respite) to eating smaller meals but more frequently. Candy and gum trigger a nausea reaction now. Foods that I ordinarily love make me terrified that eating them will end in a binge of barfing.Â
Today, my head spun so hard that I thought there was some non-zero chance that I’d pass out at work.Â
Don’t get me wrong; I’m so happy about being pregnant and having our baby. I just never expected the nausea to be never-ending and so relentlessly painful. My eyes feel bleary all the time, and there is a sharp pain in my head.
In good news, we are in the very beginning of week 11! That means we can tell most people after the next week or so. It’ll be better after we go to the doctor on Tuesday and see if everything is progressing normally. My husband already accidentally let it slip to two close friends who are expecting a baby. Basically, she asked him head-on and he was caught off-guard. Haha. This makes 7 people who know so far: my best friend, my sister, my high school friend, one of my local friends, our housemate, and those two.
More food-obsessed musings
I wrote up a little list on my iPhone of foods I could think about eating. I guess this means that in the 1.5 weeks since the doctor’s visit when I told her that I still wanted to eat everything, I’ve developed some food aversions, because some foods make me feel queasy.
Appetite
I thought about food all day today. This is not that unusual, as I tend to go on these food fantasy benders, but today, it was all about trying to think of various foods that didn’t make me gag. My food observations so far:
- Sour/tart/vinegary foods seem to keep my nausea away. I had a couple of tiny cornichons the other day at brunch with my husband’s cousin and his girlfriend while we were down in LA, and I’m still thinking about it. I also downed a couple of pickles today.Â
- Skim milk really hit the spot today! That was weird, as milk is not my thing. I generally only use milk for cereal, coffee, tea, and ice cream.
- Fatty things make me queasy. This was something that had almost always been true when I was younger, but as I got older, I had gotten past the queasiness to the down-and-dirty deliciousness of most fats. But now, I find that fatty, greasy things (unless in spicy or soupy form) make me really nauseated. I find breaded, fried things to be particularly off-putting. The mere thought makes me want to vomit.
- Keeping food in my mouth, whether it’s actual food-food, snacks, gum, or candy seems to keep the nausea at bay. Barely.
- It’s the worst in the mornings and about 20 minutes after a meal. I feel worse than I usually feel when I’m legitimately sick. It’s also bad when I move too quickly.
In other news, my doctor left me a message saying that the blood tests all came out clean, confirming being clear for various diseases (I’ll need to call back to figure out exactly what this list entailed), and that my rubella shots seem to be up to date (I had no idea you could tell from a blood test), but that I seem to have a bladder infection that needs to be treated right away. Ugh. So they called in a prescription of antibiotics for me, which I’ll be picking up and starting tomorrow.
I read up on it and it’s apparently not a big deal unless it travels to the kidneys, which the antibiotics should prevent. A kidney infection could mean premature delivery, so it’s important to get rid of the infection. And the antibiotics are supposed to be perfectly safe for fetuses, so hopefully everything is ok.
Back to appetizing food talk — a perfect segue from talk of bladder infections, I am sure… 😐 Anyway, tonight was delivery from a place nearby that specializes in Northern Chinese cuisine. We got some awesome handmade dumplings with a vinegary sauce, pork w/ preserved vegetables noodle soup, spicy chicken & dry-fried string beans, and pea sprouts. I think the preserved vegetables were mainly pickled mustard greens, which hit the spot with their tartness, as did the sauce on the dumplings.
I told you about the tart thing. 😐
I even contemplated at some point today, if I could chug a little vinegar. Would that be bad? Probably. But it provides relief. I honestly had not anticipated that I’d be overwhelmed by such crappy feelings during the incubation of our future baby. I had sort of smugly imagined a perfectly happy, healthy pregnancy, untainted by even the tiniest of discomfort. I have no idea why I was so pre-smug about things. What a humbling experience. Heh.
Blood!
Today, I went to a phlebotomist near my work (or, rather, my husband drove me) instead of going back to the lab near my doctor. This person stuck me within 2 minutes and got blood almost right away and sent me on my way. And she was really pleasant the whole time too. Ah, the small pleasures of interacting with nice people…
I sucked on Jolly Ranchers all day, which was strangely helpful. The dear husband unit ran out in the evening to get me some sugar-free candies and gum so I don’t rot my teeth out. It seems like the gum is helping! Good! I could live with that.
Second Doc Visit
This past weekend and some was truly full of barforama. Things moved from indigestion and heartburn to full-on nausea and vomiting. AND I’m still hungry all the time. This is a bad combo.
We saw our official doctor (as opposed to the nice nurse practitioner) today together. She answered a buttload of questions for us, as well as conducted a transvaginal ultrasound, as I believe it is called. We saw a little ultrasound pic of the fluttering heartbeat, which is truly strange. The measurement came out to 9.7mm, putting the age at 6 weeks and 6 days, and the due date at October 7th, 2009, exactly as my charting calculations had shown. Hee! She said it’s one of the rare times that the date based on conception and the date based on the size has been so dead-on.
We have to call to schedule the prenatal tests and I have to go get my blood drawn tomorrow for some of the screening tests. I hope this time they will be able to get some of my blood! I am going to a facility near my work, which had a woman that was able to draw my blood in mere moments, so I have high hopes.
I will be posting the ultrasound pics of the embryo soon. 😀
There's a first time for everything
And last night was the time for pregnancy-induced vomiting! Win! Except not really! 🙁
This is not a drill
Oh yes. We went to our first doctor’s visit yesterday, and we’ll be going back next week. The doctor’s test also checked out positive, and they gave us a ton of information. We’ll have to make a list of questions to ask for Tuesday, because we were kind of caught like deer in headlights yesterday. Heh.
On the drive there, I joked to the husband unit that I felt like the doctor/nurse practitioner was going to laugh hysterically at us and ask us how we could have confused a “food baby” with really being knocked up. She didn’t, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had!
Today, I am feeling like the vomit is only being held back through sheer will and my esophagus. There is a sharp burn in my chest up to my throat, and I am salivating in that “gonna vomit any second now” way that I’m familiar with from years of motion sickness. I just want to put my head down on my desk and go to sleep.
I’m totally tired, always hungry, but the more I eat, the worse my close-to-vomiting state gets, to no one’s surprise. It’s like the food is stick in my throat and my stomach is hungry because no food is reaching it. Oy. Plus, I think I’ve already gained three pounds, which is too fast, too early.
Visiting Family
My husband and I have been visiting family in an undisclosed suburban location for the last several days. The trip is from Saturday to Saturday.
My stomach had intense cramps the first few days, which made me wonder if something was going wrong with the pregnancy, then the cramps more or less stopped, which made is wonder (again) if something was going wrong with the pregnancy. Ha! Can’t win! 😀 I think it’s actually going ok though.
I feel constantly hungry. I’m embarrassingly gassy. I think it’s a combo of the pregnancy plus the daikon kimchi (white/not spicy) I’ve been eating. That stuff is potent for gaseous activity.
My mom, as expected, has dropped a couple of comments here and there about having a kid. She wrote me a letter, which was so sweet that I cried, which said stuff about how proud she was of me and incidentally *cough* mentioned that she’d like to see us welcome a little one into our family this year. It is hard to lie to the family, but I am determined to keep things under wraps until later. My sister is picking up sashimi tonight for dinner, so I’ll have to somehow figure out how to get out of eating it without attracting attention. Heh.
It’s been a fairly good visit so far. We’ve fixed the cable modem issue (with money) and have played with the kids and tried to entertain the little bro. We’ve gotten small gifts for the kids and had some tasty frozen yogurt.
My husband brought his book about expectant fathers, and I brought a Jenny McCarthy memoir about her pregnancy, which I’ve blasted through already.
The body wants what it wants
I think I’m hungry all the time. This might be psychosomatic though.
What’s definitely not psychosomatic is the intense cramps I had last night. My stomach area had a ton of sharp pains that had me panting shallowly. I hope nothing is going wrong.
Also, now we are in Day #3 or 4 past expected period date, so it’s pretty safe to assume the tests were right and I am preggo.
Oops & making plans
My friend Y IMed me today, curious if I had heard rumor or news regarding our mutual friend M being engaged! During our excited/happy speculations about our beloved friend, I totally spilled to her that I had seen positive pregnancy results.
Seriously, I need to keep it wrapped up! It is hard. I knew it would be hard.
I didn’t have as severe cramps today. I did, however, have increased backpain. Boo! Boo-urns! My breasts are as tender as they were several days ago. It’s all very exciting.
I took yet ANOTHER test and it also came out positive. 🙂 I called my doctor and made two appointments: one with the nurse practitioner I’ve been seeing and one with the OBGYN that I’ve never seen. It’ll be exciting to talk to them about what is going on.
We had a two-hour discussion of our budget for the coming year. It was all pretty positive and we have set some goals to see where we can improve. We discussed the possibility of welcoming a child into the world this fiscal year, as well as potentially getting a new car if we have to.
I really need to file our taxes. I am expecting the last of the papers to come in this week and next, and I’ll have them done by Valentine’s Day. That’ll make a nice little impact on our operating budget.