Look what I found!

So, I wrote this in early August when it was still early in my pregnancy. Granted, this is NOT the way I feel now LOL, which is why it's funny to look back at and read about. I hope you enjoy :) 

Wednesday, August 03, 2011

So, I would like to entitle this "My First Pregnancy From Hell." Now, hear me out. Yes I am so blessed to be pregnant and I can not wait to hold that little sucker in my arms, but my experience thus far has been far from beautiful. Therefore I decided to document my pregnancy in hopes to support other women who feel like the odd ball out because their pregnancy isn't the most wonderful, beautiful, and amazing thing on earth. To those of you who had an amazing pregnancy experience, I applaud you and wish I knew what that felt like; truthfully, I'm jealous :)

The morning of May 19, 2011 started off just like any other morning for me. I woke up, immediately got dressed and prepared for the gym; which I had been so diligent about (even getting tons of compliments!!). I was also excited because John and I were doing last minute preparations for our long awaited mini vacation to Boston! Well, in the midst of gathering my belongings to embark on my journey to the gym, I attempted to suck down my everyday chocolate protein shake for some extra energy and satiation [yum]. It was then that something weird happened; I gagged uncontrollably while the chocolate protein streamed from my nose and mouth into the kitchen sink. "Okay" I thought, and just held my breath and guzzled down the rest despite my disgust. After this incident took place I went to the bathroom and while sitting there I thought, "Today is the 19th and I still haven't gotten my monthly gift, but my boobs hurt." Okay, no big deal; I have been under some stress lately so maybe this is a symptom of that. I decided to rule out the possibility of being pregnant with no doubt in my mind that I was indeed [NOT] pregnant and took a home pregnancy test. Positive. "POSITIVE?!?!" The plus sign popped up so quickly and I just knew it wasn't a false positive. I immediately called John and proclaimed, "What the he!! is this?! I just took a pregnancy test and it came out POSITIVE!" He came back at me a bit calmer than I was and just said, "Jessica, what are you talking about? That's impossible. It's probably just your body acting weird again." Okay I thought. Now, mind you, I had been dealing with issued with my cervix for a while when this happened so it was [normal] for weird things to happen to me during this time frame. I was already scheduled for a followup appointment at my OB/GYN for when we came back from Boston due to a prior issue, so I figured we would just have the doctor confirm it then. Shortly after my conversation with John I began to feel "more in tune" with my body so to speak and I began feeling that dreaded symptom of nausea. It was as if a dark cloud of sickness engulfed my entire body and soul.

The incidents that happened this day led me to think more about my symptoms leading up to this discovery. My very first symptom was breast tenderness (almost immediately). I just assumed it was because I was due to get my period. Extreme fatigue was also my best friend for a while that I initially attributed to the possibility of over training. I would sleep 10-12 hours easily and would wake up feeling as though I hadn't slept a minute! At this point I was about 4 weeks along, so thank you morning sickness and fatigue for coming so soon, you are far too kind. We went on our mini vacation and let me tell you, flying with nausea is the worst thing I could have done. We did have such a wonderful time together and decided to take precautions, so I didn't partake in the excessive drinking festivities I had initially planned on. BOO!!! And it was there that food began tasting weird to me. Yep, you guessed it; Mr. Food Aversions himself.

The day we returned from Boston, I almost immediately had to go to work. Now, here is where my life as a pregnant gets "really fun!" While taking a shower, the smell of my once delicious Pantene shampoo and conditioner are making me gag and quite frankly plain disgusted. I rushed to wash my hair so I could get away from that smell and noticed that clumps of my hair were falling out of my head. Next, the act of brushing my teeth? Forget about it! Good Lord Jesus. Talk about a horrendous experience there, I gagged and dry heaved from the time I put the tooth brush in my mouth until I dried my mouth off. Needless to say, those 2 minutes felt like 20 minutes in a torture chamber. My perfume, hair spray, mousse, lotion; {EVERYTHING} made me sick. It's almost as if the pregnancy Gods were flying over me looking down and laughing about how miserable they were going to make my pregnancy.

In the middle of week 5 is when the super nausea began. This goes along with my now {COMPLETE} food aversions, excessive vomiting, inability to eat any meat, drink water, heightened sense of smell, emotions, and a lot of crying. Crying over just about everything! Crying because I was angry at how terrible I was feeling, watching commercials, movies, if I was happy, sad, mad, listening to music; {Wah, wah wahhhhhh, CRY, CRY, CRY}. On the very first day of week 6 is when we went to the OB/GYN, which like I said was initially for a checkup. I asked my nurse to test my urine to see if I was indeed pregnant and she said I was very much so! At this point in time, due to how I was feeling and the positive home test, I knew that I was for sure pregnant. It was John that was still a bit reluctant, especially because I had a checkup appointment on May 3rd and my doctor told me I wasn't pregnant when indeed I already was at that time. That day I weighed in and had lost 6lbs due to vomiting, lack of eating, and dehydration. So, after 3 hours of waiting in the waiting room, we get called into the examination room for an ultrasound. There it was. Clear as day. Our beautiful 5mm tadpole baby on the screen. We could see it's heart beating and instantly fell in love. We could just not believe it was real! It was OUR baby. WE created a life together as our own.