The First Trimester: Woe and Wonder

I think many people don't spend much time talking about their first trimester. Most likely this is because it is conventional wisdom to wait to tell family and friends that you are pregnant until the first trimester is past and you are widely recognized to be through the "danger zone." Trevor and I recognized that by telling our immediate family and close friends right away, we were taking a calculated risk, but we're blabbermouths and keeping it to ourselves in the case of phone and face-to-face conversations with those people was simply not feasible. As a side effect this means that many people, outside of just Trevor, are having to live with day by day updates on my first trimester angst. I apologize for that and I hope that I can get some of it out of my system here so that the next time someone asks me "how are you feeling?" I can comfortably lie and say "fine," knowing that if they read our blog they are aware that "fine" is not in the first trimester vocabulary. Here, for your general amusement, is a recap of more appropriate first trimester answers to the dreaded "how are you feeling?"

Nauseous. Read as every morning. Worse the past few days than it had been before. Pregnancy has its own weird kind of nausea. The kind that is not helped by throwing up or by doing anything, other than pretending it is not happening, consuming way more saltines than any normal human being should and laying around in the morning, "to digest" which sort of makes me feel like a lazy housecat.

Tired. Here is where I am feeling ripped off. All these pregnant women have told me that in their first trimesters they were super tired and slept 20 hours a day. Great. I love sleep. Bring it on. But, alas, while I have the enormous fatigue and seem to turn into a pumpkin at 9:30 or so, I have not had more than 7 hours sleep in a night since becoming pregnant. Don't get me wrong, I am not per se complaining about 7 hours, I am just pointing out that there is a huge distance between 7 hours sleep and 20 hours sleep. A distance magnified when you spend an additional 45 minutes of your 7 hours on trips to and from the bathroom. Now, I would be fine with my measly 7 hours if I weren't fatigued all the time, but I am tired, and yet unable to nap or get an obscene amount of sleep at night. Sigh.

Moving on to the good stuff:

Fascinated. Even the bad symptoms are fascinating. The first few days of nausea are even exciting and adventurous. "Wow! Look what's happening!" It goes a long way toward making the pregnancy seem real. I admit that, even though I yearn to wake up and know I am going to have a full day of feeling fabulous, or even just "normal," each day I am sort of excited to see what my body is going to throw at me. It's easier to feel crappy when you know that the feelings are a part of supporting a new life.

Grateful. Every day I wake up grateful. Even when I can't imagine how I could possibly eat another cracker or I'm having rolling waves of nausea, I am still hyper aware of how lucky I am. I married a person who makes my soul sing. We have good jobs that we enjoy and I am lucky enough to be able to continue on as a student and a teacher because he makes good money and we have good insurance. We just bought a house. A great house, with plenty of room for us and the baby, in a nice neighborhood, in a city that we love. We have two great dogs. I type this as they sit in back of me fighting over a stuffed goose. They may be a lot to handle, but they keep everything lively. We have wonderful friends and family who have always helped, supported, encouraged and loved us. We got pregnant quickly and easily at a time when we are ready, financially and emotionally (as much as you ever can be) to have a child. All of this makes me grateful. So grateful, in fact, that even when I answer "how are you feeling?" with a decidedly unhappy grunt, what I really mean underneath it all is that I feel blessed.

The Naming of Blogs is a Serious Matter

I feel that we should get this out of the way now. Trevor named the blog "A Hypothetical You." The hypothetical you referenced is, of course, the baby. I did explain to him that the baby was decidedly not hypothetical, at least not to the one of us who has nausea, fatigue and a variety of aches and cramps. But, I understand his thinking. We are having a baby. The baby is an actuality, a real presence already in our lives - see aforementioned pregnancy symptoms and also the growing stack of books and magazines on pregnancy and babies that we are accumulating. Despite that, all our thinking about the baby at this point is purely speculative - hypothetical, if you will. We don't know if it's a boy or a girl, or what his/her personality will be like. We can read every book in the world, but we still face a lot of the unknown.

Every time I stop to think that this is a whole human being that we are creating here I am overwhelmed. A little person made up of bits and pieces of me and Trevor and our families, but also uniquely their own being with their own tastes, moods and character. It makes me think about the idea of what we leave behind. Whatever else we do, whatever else we may contribute, having a child will be our lasting contribution. It is the legacy that we leave.

So . . . ummm . . . no pressure or anything.

6 Weeks!!!

According to the fancy 40-week pregnancy calendar that they gave me at the doctor's office yesterday, today is the first day of week 6! Yay!!!!

The First Doctor's Visit!

Yay! We're Pregnant!!!! The first month of trying, with moving and family coming to visit, who would've thought we would get pregnant right off the bat?!?! I picked up a pregnancy test on Father's Day, since I had been feeling a little "off" for about a week. Positive. I held off calling the doctor til Tuesday, the 20th of June, the actual day of my missed period, and took a second, positive, test.

The first week after the positive test was rough. I had pretty intense morning sickness, a roller coaster of "new expectant mom" emotions, and lots of fatigue and breast tenderness (more information than you need?). But excitement has taken over and some good advice from my grandmother helped me curb the morning sickness, so by the end of the week, I was learning to take the early symptoms in stride.

Trevor has been amazing throughout it all. Now, I'm assuming if you are reading this, that you have some knowledge of my husband. He is not, as you probably know, an excited dude. But I think, underneath his cool exterior, he is mega excited about the baby. He's been sweet and helpful and he seems to be enjoying reading the "expecting father" books. He makes sure I have protein at night and eat my Saltines in the morning (to help with my nausea). His patience, understanding and love has been truly wonderful for me, especially when I feel overwhelmed. I am a lucky girl.

Today was the first doctor's visit. Mom went with me, which was great because I was a nervous wreck and having her there for support was great! Nothing like a Mom to put the nerves at ease and hold your hand in the waiting room. I saw Dr. Schlichter at the Women's Healthcare Group. I love her. She was absolutely wonderful and super friendly and helpful. I was poked and prodded in all ways and given lots of advice, info and brochures to read. The important things from this first appointment were that I am 5 weeks along and the estimated due date is February 28th, 2007. My next appointment, at the end of July, we are going to try to listen for the heartbeat. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much about that because Dr. Schlichter says that 9 weeks is pretty early to hear it, but just the thought of hearing our baby's heartbeat is . . . well . . . overwhelming.

Perhaps the best part of seeing the doctor today was the sense I got of this pregnancy as something that is really happening. Sure, the morning sickness and fatigue is a constant reminder, but with no growing belly I have spent the last week feeling like a "pseudo-pregnant lady" and slinking around the baby aisles in Target feeling like I was going to be ambushed and kicked to the far end of the store by a mob of "legitimately pregnant" women. That feeling is mostly gone now. I feel excited and nervous and happy, and really, truly, pregnant.