Confession #8
I have pregnancy amnesia.
I have something I like to call pregnancy amnesia. It's not the same as pregnancy brain. Pregnancy brain is where you walk into a room and forget what you were going there for, when you forget your best friend's name right in front of her, and when you forget your point halfway through a sentence. Pregnancy amnesia is different. Pregnancy amnesia is what women get that makes them want to get pregnant again. They forget about all the aches and pains and stretch marks and Braxton Hicks and hop on board for another baby.
I must have early onset pregnancy amnesia. I think this is due to the blissful second trimester I've had. As I head into the third trimester, I get ready for less sleep and more uncomfortable days. But, I feel the need to look back on that first trimester and remind myself that this pregnancy has not been all peaches and cream. Maybe if I document it, it will delay that full on pregnancy amnesia that will make me want to get pregnant again. Note I said delay. I'm sure I will have more kids, but I don't want to be too hasty.
So, come with me, let's reminisce about that first trimester.
Let's start with this. At one point I declared that someone should name a Catholic school after me. We could call it Our Lady of Perpetual Barfing or of Perpetual Morning Sickness, whichever is more tasteful.
Morning sickness kicked in at about week 4 for me: right after I found out I was pregnant. And man, did it hit hard. Automatically, I couldn't hold anything down. That included water, food, and prenatal vitamins. I hit a point where I had gone 3 days without being able to hold anything down. I obviously began to drop weight rapidly and got to a point where I was just at the end of my rope. Don't think I didn't try everything in the book. I did. I tried everything with ginger, crackers by my bed, eating before I got up in the morning, eating and drinking all the kinds of things I read about and people told me about. I even started brushing my teeth a different way. Nothing worked.
I had made an appointment with a doctor's office in my area that I had heard was good. I gave them a call, concerned that I was getting dehydrated. I asked them for help, and you know what they said? They said no. For real.
The woman told me there was nothing that they could do for morning sickness and that if I thought I was dehydrated to go to the Emergency Room. I told her several of the things that doctors could prescribe or give me to help, but the woman told me no. She said they didn't do any of that at their office. I asked her if I could move my appointment up (it was still 3-4 weeks away) and talk to the doctor about it. She told me if I wanted to change my appointment, the only times she had open were 6-8 weeks away. So obviously I said no. Like duh.
I decided to go looking for another doctor. I had asked around but I only knew a couple of people because we had just moved here a month before. Besides that, apparently a ton of people in my area go to their family practice doctors for babies instead of an OBGYN. And I wanted an OBGYN. I finally found another place that was relatively close and was actually at the hospital. Well, in one of the neighboring buildings to the actual hospital. I decided to give them a call. The woman who answered the phone was sympathetic. She suggested some things that I could do. When I told her I had already tried those things and was still beyond sick, she went ahead and made me an appointment, for the next morning. I called the first doctor and told them to cancel my appointment. I would not be their patient.
I went in the next morning, a total mess. I was pleased seeing the building and the hospital though. They looked good, clean, and newer than the hospital I would have been going to with the first doctor. I also found out later that this hospital had an amazing NICU. Knowing that I would probably have some high risk components to my pregnancy, a good NICU was more than welcome.
I was in an exam room within 10 minutes. The head nurse was the one who saw me, since the doctors don't typically see patients that early in the pregnancy. She gave me a huge bag full of sample prescription prenatal vitamins that supposed to help with morning sickness (a month and a half supply). She told me to take it for a few days and if I was still super sick to call her and she would call me in a prescription for Zofran (which, can I just say, is like THE PROMISED LAND of morning sickness medicine).
I started feeling a little bit better after that. Of course, that weekend I flew to Utah for my niece's baby blessing. The flight was miserable. Thanks for asking. Let's just say I most definitely used the air sickness bags, several of them.
When I got to Utah I stayed with my brother and his wife and had to try my hardest to hide my pregnancy and outrageous morning sickness from my family. I thought I did a pretty good job. The blessing was beautiful and it was so good to see my family. I then turned around and flew back home. The way back was also miserable. When I arrived back home, I called the doctor's office and got the Zofran.
I started doing much better after that, and when we finally told our family, I asked my brother and sister-in-law if they at all suspected while I was staying with them. They said no, but that was just because I'm always sick. A very fair point.
A little over a month ago, one of my close friends told me that she is pregnant. When her morning sickness hit, I tried to help her as much as I could by bestowing on her all my morning sickness knowledge. A few weeks later, when I was at her house, she had thrown up a total of 3 times. She said she was going to keep track and see how many times she threw up during her pregnancy. Then her husband asked me how many times I threw up. I told him somewhere upward of 40 times if I had to guess. He was astounded. Then I told him my record was 7 times in one day. He couldn't believe it. When I said I was super sick, people, I was not kidding.
In those first two weeks that the morning sickness hit, I lost 13 lbs. It took me until around week 20 to gain back what I had lost. It was incredibly awful. The Zofran helped me stop losing weight and I was finally able to eat, but not much.
I got around a month into the second trimester and suddenly life was good. I wasn't sick. I had energy and wasn't tired all the time. My mood was great and I started to feel my baby move. Soon after that we found out the gender. And cue pregnancy amnesia. This little flashback to my first trimester has been a good reminder. It has also prepared me a little more for the third trimester, which I hit next week. It won't be all rainbows and unicorn poop anymore. I know I'm going to get so uncomfortable and miserable in this last stretch of time.
Au revoir, second trimester, you've been good to me. Hello third trimester, please be more gentle than the first trimester was. And let us all avoid pregnancy amnesia as long as possible.
