The Amazing Puking Pregnant Lady

Week 7:

Consider yourselves warned - the first few months of pregnancy are a bitch. Being nauseous is bad enough, but being nauseous constantly for WEEKS ON END is the pits. Everything makes me sick - moving around, being too hot, smelling someone's lunch cooking in the microwave -even writing about those things make me want to hurl. All of a sudden, I just get THAT FEELING, you know the twinge in my teeth and the way my mouth starts to water, and I'm lucky to make it to the bathroom in time. I've stopped eating things based on how they taste, it's now all based on how it will taste when it comes back up. Sighhhh - what happened to that healthy pregnant glow? I look like a wrung out dish rag.

It just occurred to me that this is the first time I'm mentioning that we're having a baby. I just found a few weeks ago. One day, on a whim, I decided to take a home pregnancy test. I didn't really think it would come out positive - I mean, my periods have always been irregular and the only symptom I had was incredibly sore boobs. But since I take a bunch of medication that wouldn't be safe for a baby, I though it was better to be safe than sorry. Imagine my surprise when the little pink plus sign showed up on that stick! It took my breath away. I just couldn't believe it - we certainly hadn't been trying (although we also hadn't been using serious birth control either - unless you count the rhythm method as serious. You heard it hear first, ladies - THE RHYTHM METHOD DOESN'T WORK!) I wouldn't totally believe it until I heard it from a doctor, so I made an appointment for the very next day and began to mentally struggle with whether I wanted this EPT test to be wrong or right.

I went to the doctor's the next morning and they confirmed what I think I already knew - I was definitely pregnant. As I was driving back to work after the appointment, still in shock, my mother called to tell me that my grandmother had passed away. It's interesting the way that the life cycle works, isn't it? Before I could catch my breath - and before I could say anything about the pregnancy to anyone, including my husband, I was whisked off on a red-eye flight to Florida to help with funeral arrangements and to comfort my poor grandpa. (My grandparents were married for a whopping 68 years, but my grandmother was a very sick lady, so we're happy that her suffering ended sooner rather than later. It's still never easy though to lose someone you love, is it?)

I had been feeling fine before I left for the east coast, but over the course of the week I was in Florida, morning sickness began to rear it's ugly head. I started to become kind of green around the gills and I kept having to run to the bathroom. Since I was sharing a hotel room with my brother Jeremy, it soon became apparent that I wasn't going to be able to hide the fact that I was pregnant. As soon as I told him, the first words out of his mouth were "I knew it!" He was very excited and I was actually a little relieved to have finally told someone, although I felt guilty that he knew before my husband. The rest of the trip was pretty miserable, especially the flight home. I just kept feeling worse and worse and worse. I ended up having to steal one of the barf bags from the plane to carry with me in my purse, just in case I decided I needed to hurl in my mom's new Infinity G35 on the way home from the airport.

So it was with great relief that I finally got home and was able to tell my husband. Unfortunately, I didn't get to tell him in a special way like I would have liked to. I was so tired from the flight home, and so incredibly nauseous the next morning that I couldn't get out of bed so I just started crying, like a totally hormonal pregnant woman. When he asked what was wrong I sniffled, took a deep breath and said, "We're having a baby." Not the most romantic moment ever, but thankfully, he didn't care - he was thrilled! THANK GOD. Secretly I had been so worried that he would be upset, since this wasn't part of "The Plan" we had decided on, but one look at his smiling face and all my worries went out the window. And as soon as we stopped smiling and hugging one another, I promptly jumped up from the bed and threw up. Ah pregnancy. Ain't it great?

Now trying to get through each day is like trying to climb Mt. Everest. I'm exhausted, nauseous, and totally miserable. I have my first appointment with the OBGYN this Friday and I'm praying that she can give me something so I can stop puking and start enjoying being pregnant. If I can just make it to Friday.... ugh.