We had found out we were expecting on the Thursday, and had a lovely weekend. This was short lived, as on Tuesday I was woken up in the early hours with severe stabbing pains in my right hand side. ‘This can’t be normal!’, I thought. We got ourselves to the Doctor later that day- who happened to be the same doctor who we’d seen the day after the pregnancy test. (It’s quite funny- you go to the doctor to tell them/confirm that you’re pregnant, and they just say OK/congrats!! They don’t do another test- just take your word for it and get the ball rolling on midwife appointments.)
I told her about my pains and she looked concerned and booked us straight in for a scan to take place the following day- she said to the person on the other end of her telephone that she wanted to, ‘Rule out Ectopic pregnancy’. At the mention of the word Ectopic I crumpled and fell into fits of tears. I tried to contain them but they just kept coming. My bubble of happiness had burst already and I couldn’t believe it. Matt was supportive, trying to console me, but devastated himself. I wasn’t sure how much I really knew about Ectopic pregnancy, but I was pretty sure that if the baby was growing in one of my tubes I would have to have the tube removed, which would surely half my chances of getting pregnant again? In any case I didn’t want to try again; I just wanted this baby to be ok.
Matt and I spent a tough night waiting for the scan, most of it him drying my tears. I wanted to be calm because it’s better for the baby but I found it impossible. I went to sleep that night with the doctors words ringing in my ears, ’Children give you worry even before they are born’. I was willing to go through the worry, as long as there was a chance of this baby being born.
We attended the scan the following day- it was too early in the pregnancy to detect a heartbeat, but they found a foetal sack in which a baby could grow in the uterus- not the fallopian tube! We both cried with happiness and were booked to come back in another ten days to make sure a heartbeat was there- which it was! We were so relieved, as we had been convinced that getting pregnant had been too easy, so this was our bit of turmoil. (Pessimistic I know- but sometimes in life you can’t believe it when things just seem to go right.)
This left me free to concentrate on my morning sickness! First of all, I think they should change the name from ‘morning sickness’ to ‘morning noon and night sickness- with continuous nausea in between’. I was continuously, violently sick- so violent, that one day that the water from the toilet splashed me in the face. Matt had to laugh at the splash in face incident, though normally he was very supportive through my heaving coupled with groans of, ‘It’s ok… I don’t mind- it’s for a good reason’. I didn’t want to grumble about anything after our scare- I was just grateful the baby was ok, and I heard the sicker you are the healthier the baby!!! (Although in retrospect I’m sure that’s just something that pukey women tell themselves to ease the hideousness of it all.) Matt knew that his job was to give me sympathy, give me space to be sick alone and tell me how well I was doing afterwards (hmmm, well done for being sick so vigorously?! Cheers!). My sickness only made him puke once- which he did outside the front door- as he knew the bathroom was my domain! And I only cried about it once, after many weeks of relentless vomiting, there were some tears of ‘I can’t be sick any moooore!’
The sickness lasted pretty much the whole first trimester- but I didn’t give up eating- as during the physical act of consuming my dinner was the only time I didn’t feel sick! I knew that said dinner would come back up afterwards, but for that 20 minutes during feeding time I felt normal. I did refine my diet though, chilli con carne is not nice backwards- it burns more than when it goes in- so I committed myself to eating ‘beige’ food (plain pasta, bread, chips, pastry- any beige carbs with as little flavour as possible, relatively inoffensive when they come back up)- and resolved to write a cookbook for pregnant women at some point, that will be called ‘Recipes in reverse’!
I tried all of the supposed remedies, ginger, cream crackers, eating little and often, but nothing helped much. The best tip I recommend is using anti sickness wrist bands which hit the pressure points- bit of an alternative remedy. I think these may have helped some days, although it’s hard to tell. I got mine for about £8 from a leading chemist, but I since found out they did 2 pairs for £1 in The Pound Shop- which Matt bought and brought home to show me! Not sure what purpose that served at the time- other than to annoy me- but I have since been able to give them to friends, so it’s all good.
During my period of worry followed by morning sickness, I managed to lose half a stone, which was quite a nice silver lining to the cloud. My loose jeans were short lived however- as my body started to change a lot at the start of the second trimester…
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/pregnancy-articles/understanding-my-pregnant-body-916885.html
http://100percentpeople.com/health-beauty/features/recipes-in-reverse/
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