Oh thank god it’s over!
I won’t lie to you, the first three months of pregnancy have been hard. Horrible. THE WORST. I was on fourteen bits of medication a day at the end there. Trying not to puke up several of them each day has been quite the challenge.
I have felt like such utter shit. So exhausted, so worn, so sick. From the moment I started taking medications for the frozen embryo transfer in late January, I have not felt at home in my body. The puking definitely doesn’t help. I have a round belly, but the rest of me is bonier than I have ever seen it. Collar bones, shoulder bones, they all stick out. I never expected to be at my lowest adult weight ever while pregnant.
The worst part is that this whole pregnancy thing is supposed to be wonderful. We all know it isn’t really, but somewhere in the general zeitgeist, this is assumed to be the best time of my life. I walk into the pharmacy, saying “I am six weeks pregnant and I haven’t been able to hold down any liquids…” “Oh, congratulations!” “…right. So I need prescription medication…”
The gynaecologist congratulates me. The midwives do. Nurses, people I don’t know, they all think that this is celebration-worthy. And it is, right? I set out to do this, and it worked, so yay me.
But in truth… IVF was hard. IVF was crazy, but I had such support. Everyone was rooting for us. I had a whole medical team I saw every other day, every complaint of mine was treated seriously and with care. But after the IVF worked? After we got our positive pregnancy test? It all fell away.
Doctors don’t care how sick I feel now. Have you tried eating a biscuit? Apparently, you need to lose 5kg before you’re admitted into hospital. Anything less than that is classified as normal, you’re good, keep it up.
It feels like a terrible flu, for weeks and weeks on end. The only difference is that with a flu, you are allowed to stay home and stay in bed to recover. With pregnancy, there is no recovering. You’re only getting more pregnant, life is going on, so you have to keep on going as well.
So I puked for weeks. In airport toilets, hotel toilets, airplane toilets, in a hostel dorm, and at home, where it doesn’t matter, where it’s just me crying a little over a toilet bowl, then I clean up my face and we’re good, we’re good.
I don’t know if anyone could have properly warned me for this – I wanted to be pregnant after all. But this isn’t in the books. I have read pregnancy books, and it’s like they are talking someone on an entirely different journey than I am. She’s all warm and glowing with pride at the life she’s creating. I have icy cold fingers, I am shaking, and I can somewhat imagine that there is a baby involved in this but mainly I am so tired…
This was the marker to make it to though. Twelve weeks. The placenta takes over, I can stop taking most of the medication. I will stop puking. My life will come back.
As I write this, it’s already much better. I am eating normally again, I can get through the days. We’ll make it.
But I won’t be silent about this bit. This isn’t in the books, no. But it’s real too…
I’m sorry you’ve had such a rough time so far. I hope the worst of it is behind you!
I hope so too! Thank you xx
Seriously, I’m with you. I was puking and exhausted through the first 16 weeks, and lost around 10lbs. (I was still, apparently, not bad enough to get anti-nausea meds.) Then It took another couple of months to recover my strength. I’m glad you’ve made it through the first trimester! I hope the rest of it involves that happy and glowing period ^_^
Yes!!! Thank you for telling me, for a while there I was feeling as if I was the only person on the planet to find pregnancy THAT hard. People do seem to have stories like that, but then there is barely anything in the books or admitted to by the medical community about any of it, it’s like it’s all just laughed off, or filed under ‘you’ll forget about it soon enough’ :/ I am slowly feeling better now luckily, I can eat normally again so I’m sure everything else will follow, but yes, this did such a number on my body… I’m totally ready for the happy glowing times!! ;D