20 wks along

Here I am at 20 weeks, half way, and I am just getting around to writing this. I felt I was pregnant early. I had one night where I woke-up with intense pains in my lower back. It seemed every time I fell asleep I would awake again with this excruciating pain and just when I was about to cry it would disappear. I only had 3-5 of them through out the evening. Looking back on it I think it might have been the fertilized egg attaching to my uterine wall.

For the next few weeks I had this low back pain that felt like menstrual cramps. When these started I began to suspect that I was pregnant, but I knew it had to be too early for a pregnancy test. Finally I got to a point when I could test myself. It was positive. I made an appointment with my ob/gyn. But that appointment wasn’t for another week or so. So throughout the week I used the rest of the pregnancy test in the box. I am not sure if it was to double check, or to see if I was still pregnant. I was nervous, I was still having the menstrual like cramps throughout the day.

For my first appointment I told Chris he didn’t need to come, after all they were just going to weigh me and predict a due date. OK…. Big mistake. That was way too emotional. First of all Chris and I had not planned to get pregnant so quickly, second of all this is the first time I was pregnant. I was fine in the beginning of the appointment and then it all hit me and I started crying and I had to reassure the nurse we really were happy about it I was just overwhelmed all the sudden because it became real. Chris asked me what we talked about in our first meeting and I couldn’t remember anything, but the crying. The first due date was set at 8/2/04.

I had an ultrasound a few weeks later at nine weeks. We got to see the heartbeat and look at the little bean, cuz that was all it was measuring in at 17 mm. The NP asked me if I was feeling nausea at all, which I wasn’t, but the power of suggestion is funny, cuz shortly thereafter I began to fell sick.

I found that if I was sick in the morning, it only lasted a few hours, but if it didn’t come until the afternoon it was the whole blasted night. By the way, for me it was more than nausea. I found that pregnancy puking is different than the flu or other puking episodes. First of all, this will sound gross, but it doesn’t taste as bad. It still very much keeps its flavor and consistency. And it usually wasn’t the entire contents of my stomach. I felt almost like my stomach was saying “everything was fine until those last two bites, so I am just going to get rid of those two bites.” Now that was not always true. Some days were worse than others. Brushing my teeth became difficult at times cuz it really made me gag and dry heave a lot… which hurt more. I kept thinking I was going to see a fetus come flying out of my mouth. I always made sure I kept a disposable cup in my car for emergencies. What I found helpful was that if I didn’t feel like eating it, no matter what the reason I didn’t, cuz I never kept that down. It wasn’t a perfect method, but it certainly helped.

With one of my check-ups, at about 14 weeks we got to hear the heartbeat. That was really neat. The NP was asking me how the problem was clearing-up and I said it wasn’t. She said she wasn’t too concerned because I hadn’t lost weight yet, but I had only gained 3 lbs. At that point and I was miserable so she prescribed some anti-nausea meds for me. I was supposed to take one pill twice a day. The first night I took one pill at 7pm and by 9pm I could not keep my eyes open. By 8 am I made my self get out of bed and go to work. I took two naps, and was a zombie but my stomach hadn’t felt that great in awhile. I didn’t take it again until I talked with the doctor’s office and they suggested taking half a pill once a day; a quarter of what they originally prescribed. I was nauseated and not eating much, but not throwing-up and I wasn’t falling asleep, but I was tired enough to be cranky. So I stopped taking it all together, and the weirdest thing happened. I wasn’t sick anymore.

When I went back two weeks after I got the prescription I had gained 9 more lbs. I think a lot of it was from being dehydrated. But I still was not showing. At 17 weeks I went to register for baby stuff and had a hard time convincing the lady that I was pregnant. I thought to myself, “what the heck do you care if I am pregnant or not if I get people to buy stuff from your store.” All the weight had gone to my butt and hips. I had to buy new clothes, but more because the waist of the old stuff was binding, but I could still fit. I showed a little in my stomach, but it more looked like I had a pooch, not a baby. The difference was, with my normal stomach pooch I could suck it in, this I couldn’t.

The next Wednesday I was talking to my co-workers about how I was not showing and the next day the most bizarre thing happened. I was at work in the morning and began to feel nauseous. Then my knees began to feel week and I was light-headed, so I went home. I was that way the rest of the day. I could only lie on the bed; whenever I would try to get up I would feel terrible. When I looked down later that night my stomach was big, well, at least compared to the day before. My coworkers all made comments the next day.

I began to desire to feel the baby move, cuz I hadn’t yet. I began to do some research on the matter. I found that most places said that if the baby was attached to the back of the uterus it might be more difficult to feel the baby. I think this might be what happened to me, maybe that was the reason for my back pain early on, and why I feel it more on my innards and not my abdomen wall. I didn’t begin to feel anything until I was a few days from 20 weeks. I didn’t feel it like most others describe, the typical feather or butterfly feeling. It was more like I felt like I had gas bubbles. I was never truly sure if that was what I was feeling, but hindsight is 20/20. It was the day before I was supposed to see the doctor and I swore the baby was jumping on my cervix like a trampoline.

That was less than a week ago and now I feel it all the time, but it still feels like gas bubbles or like it is pressing on my intestines, bowels, and bladder.

That is where I am at so far. I have my big ultrasound this week. Brushing my teeth will still make me a quite nauseous occasionally. Chris still can’t feel the baby or hear it when he presses his ear against my stomach, but that will come soon enough.

I now deal with the anxiety of giving birth. I have found a book that has helped me. I skim a lot of it, but I still liked it. It is called Birthing From Within. I can only find Lamaze classes in my area, so I have looked for some on-line or video classes. I have found some on hypnosis.