Still pregnant!
Can’t believe it’s been a whole month and change since the FET transfer. My body has been pregnant for over a month now. To be honest, it’s been miserable. Morning sickness, or all day sickness crept in pretty early around 5 weeks and started to taper off around 7 weeks. Still miserable, but I think the weaning off of some progesterone and estradiol is what’s helping with the lessening of nausea and queasiness.
My tastebuds are still on their own planet, and most of the time nothing, and I mean, NOTHING sounds good, or even tastes good. Forcing yourself to eat is hard work. I went through two days where all I wanted was cucumber rolls. Cucumber rolls from the local japanese grocer, Mitsuwa, or the fancy delicious ones from Sugar Fish. Those went down well. And when I really couldn’t eat, or didn’t want to, I defaulted to asking my husband to make me a cheese plate. Mind you, I never eat cheese. It doesn’t speak to me, it doesn’t make me excited, and I certainly don’t even have much dairy in my normal diet…but I devoured the cheese plate with crackers.
My carb intake has skyrocketed…which has me a bit on edge. My diet prior to becoming pregnant was pretty clean and healthy…and for the past month, I haven’t even reached for much veggies and fruits. It’s really quite gross. My diet is pretty gross right now. I’ve tried to supplement with green veggie supplements in the form of powdered veggie drinks that I can up and guzzle quickly just to get the greens in my system. Not getting my greens hasn’t helped with constipation. Still going every day, but it’s starting to dry up. The doc recommends 3 liters of fluids a day and I think I’m lucky if I get a full liter. Gotta work on that.
Fatigue is still kicking my ass, but I’m grateful to report that this 7th week has been slightly easier than the two weeks before where I was horizontal and feeling like crap literally every day for two weeks. I remember thinking that there is no way in hell I’d be able to make it through another 7 or 8 weeks of this. How the hell do some women do it?! Lucky for me, the pain and suffering lightened up a bit. I still have a steady baseline sensation of nausea every day, but not horrendous where I’m completely sidelined…and I’ve noticed that in recent days, it gets worse in the evenings. My take on it is I’m probably not eating as consistently as I should be. A friend told me that she ate something pretty much on the hour when she was in her first trimester and it helped…I’m not doing that and I probably should. My nausea gets worse in the evenings if I don’t eat, and after eating, I feel a bit better, but still fatigued. I usually could go right to bed after…which you shouldn’t do because it makes your heartburn, if you have heartburn, which I do, worse.
Being pregnant has been the most interesting and uncomfortable journey I have had the pleasure to embark on. Pleasure probably isn’t the right word. I’m grateful, but it’s been nothing close to pleasurable. Your body changes before your eyes every single day and you notice your clothes getting tighter, more muffin tops around the waistline and while my skin, thank God, is still clear, you just don’t feel good. I mean, how could you? You wake up queasy, you go to bed queasy, and you don’t want to eat. But you have to. So you force yourself. And you’re tired all the damn time. I’ve put on a couple of pounds since my first official you’re pregnant weigh in…118lbs. I’m not sure how I feel about that…just taking it a day at a time. Learning to let go a day at a time. There is nothing I can control in this process except for making sure I’m taking my vitamins trying to get the proper foods ingested, get enough sleep, stay happy and healthy…other than that, it’s like you are literally a bystander, watching you transform before your very eyes. I am creating an environment to support the growth of this baby inside of me…and that’s all I can do. I have no idea what that baby is doing in there except for the googling I do, and I can only ground yourself in the sensations that I’m feeling in my body…except it’s hard trying to center yourself in your own body and make the mind body connection when your body feels so horrible.
This week, I’m bloated. That’s something new. Except it doesn’t feel like bloating from gas. Bloating from PMS symptoms. Cramps like you are about to get your period. Constant. Nothing shrieking or painful, but that dull, annoying, makes you want to curl up on the couch and sleep it off kind. Apparently this week, my uterus has enlarged to the size of a grapefruit…up from the size of a small plum when this whole pregnancy thing began. I can feel it being stretched, I can feel all sorts of going on’s down there…and while it’s hard to be present in my body when it’s causing me discomfort, I’m super grateful I’m still pregnant with our future child. I will add this: it’s hard to even think of the possibility of miscarrying when you feel so horrible all the time. There’s no way – your body is working so hard to keep up with the growing embryo inside of you…and you know it. It’s speaking to you loud and clear.
We go back for our 4th ultrasound next week. Our baby’s heart rate at 7 weeks flat was over 130 beats per minute…we got to see the embryo AND the yolk sack which wasn’t visible at 6 weeks. Every week shows some significant new development which is always exciting to see when you are are spread eagled and looking up at the monitor, but I think until my pooch starts to really expand, I’m not able to, at least just yet, feel like I’m really pregnant. It all still feels so surreal.
Update on the hubs: he’s back to the groovin’ and we started our pup on chemo a couple of days ago. Yesterday he suddenly developed fecal incontinence from the chemo which was really the last thing I wanted to occupy my day with…but what can you do? You can’t stop being a doggie mom…it’s a full time job.
Pineapples and Avocados 