The first trimester of pregnancy is the hardest to get through.
Morning sickness – a misnomer if there ever was one – had arrived in earnest around week seven, and overnight, my favorite foods, like my
homemade gluten-free crispy chicken or “banana bites” (banana slices topped
with melted dark chocolate and peanut butter, then frozen) were suddenly
unappealing. Even smelling ripe bananas in the cupboard made my stomach churn.
Brushing my teeth made me feel like I was going to barf.
And yet, I spent an inordinate amount of time each day
obsessing about, and shopping for, food.
Blueberry muffins, mango popsicles, Honeycrisp apples, tortilla
chips, fish sticks, hamburgers – every day was a different craving, and
whatever I’d craved the previous day now turned me off. With one exception:
potatoes. I could consume potatoes in any form, all day, every day: baked
potatoes, tater tots, waffle fries, crinkle fries, hashbrowns, sweet potato
home fries…I could have sworn this baby was Irish based on my potato cravings alone.
I tried to obey the cravings in the hopes of assuaging the
nausea, but after eating, I’d feel seasick, as if I were stranded on the deck
of a small boat in the middle of the storm with no land in sight. I’d curl into
the fetal position on the couch and try not to vomit.
“I feel like you’ve gone somewhere,” my husband said one
night.
“I have,” I said. “The land of nausea.”
Because I had reduced the intensity of my exercise regimen
due to the
subchorionic hematoma, my body image was also tanking. I felt doughy and
hated looking at myself in the mirror. My husband’s perception was different.
He thought I was a “sexy mama.” I felt anything but. When I elaborated aloud
about how gross I was, he replied, “I’m going to ignore you right now. It’s
going to be hard to support you while ignoring you, but that’s what I’m going
to do.”
Soon we made it to OB-1. No, not a Star Wars reference. That’s what Dr. Baby-Maker’s office
called the first official prenatal appointment at eight weeks gestation. It was
a huge milestone in pregnancy because the risk of miscarriage drops after that
point.
The appointment was epic: a blood draw, a flu shot, a urine
sample, an ultrasound, a long talk with the nurse, then a breast exam, pelvic
exam, and pap smear. I was given a huge folder of reading materials – what to
eat and not eat, safe and unsafe medications, warning signs to look out for and
prenatal tests to consider. It was an overwhelming welcome to the Preggo club.
All told, I was at the clinic for 90 minutes.
The best part was seeing the baby on the ultrasound. The
sonographer called her a “gummy bear baby” because we could see her stubby
little arms and legs. The baby seemed to be facing us and waving. There
was also a cord visible, meaning the placenta would soon be up and running. She
was measuring three days ahead of schedule and her heartbeat was a strong 174
BPM.
In the clinic’s bathroom, I noticed a tampon wrapper in the
garbage. I was so grateful that I hadn’t bled in several days…a dry streak that
ended that afternoon, when, while walking the dog, I felt a gush, as if I had
just peed myself. I cut my route short and went home, where I discovered I had bled through my shorts. My hands shaking,
my heart racing, I put a pad in my panties and called Dr. Baby-Maker’s office. A nurse
told me that bleeding after an internal exam was not unusual and that I
should call in the morning if it continued. There was nothing to do now but pray
and wait and hope.
“I seriously don’t understand the ups and downs of all
this,” I wrote in my journal. “I just
made peace again with being pregnant and
having a baby and living with the nausea. It would be especially cruel if the
worst came to pass today, after seeing her cheerful shape on the ultrasound and
getting the ‘Congratulations!’ from the nurse.”
By morning, the bleeding had eased and what was left of it had
turned brown, indicating old blood. I called Dr. Baby-Maker’s office anyway to
check in.
“You just had a scan yesterday,” a nurse reminded me curtly. “As long as you're tapering, you don't need to come in.”
I felt like I
had garnered a rep at the clinic as “the girl who cried blood” and
silently wished I had my own ultrasound machine at home (and the ability to read the
scans myself) so I could check on the baby whenever I needed reassurance.
One night at dinner, my husband referred to the baby as “the
little traveler.”
“She’s not a traveler! She’s staying put!” my eldest teen
said.
“But she travels with your mom everywhere she goes,” my
husband clarified.
“She’s more like my roommate,” I said. “No, my womb mate!”
My womb mate and I were attached at the hip…or something in
that vicinity.
By Oct. 31, I was officially 12 weeks pregnant. Halloween
brought another milestone in the pregnancy – my final progesterone shot. After
injecting myself for the last time, I stuffed the syringe in my sharps
container and threw all my medication paraphernalia away. It felt like a little
victory – three long months of medication done.
“I didn’t know if we’d get this far. But we did,” I wrote in
my journal. “I hope time just keeps passing and the baby keeps growing and
persevering and that my body can do its (natural, supportive, life-sustaining)
thing.”
Making it this far came with a new source of anxiety,
however. Because I had sustained a pregnancy to the 12-week mark, my contract
with West Coast IVF was now considered complete. We would not be eligible for
any more embryos – which was fine so long as the pregnancy sustained itself and
resulted in the birth of a live baby. But if, God forbid, I miscarried after
this point, we would be out of chances to get pregnant.
At my 12-week prenatal appointment, the baby had grown enough to be seen with a regular ultrasound instead of a vaginal one. Her profile looked
perfect and her little limbs were moving. Her heart rate was 154 BPM.
Of
course, the sonographer also saw the bleed in my womb, too. It was smaller than
the previous ultrasound and appeared to be old blood, but it was still there.
Dr. Baby-Maker greeted me in an exam room with her usual
sunshiney disposition. I felt like Eeyore in comparison.
“You’ve been here a million times but I haven’t seen you!” she
said.
She didn’t seem concerned about the subchorionic hematoma –
which, oddly, concerned me. This woman was never worried.
“It’s reassuring that it’s not growing,” she said about the
bleed. “It’s not small, but it’s not huge, either.”
She said I could return to more vigorous exercise but should continue
abstaining from sex. At 16 weeks, I would have another ultrasound and she hoped
the bleeding would be resolved by then.
I sent my husband and my teens the ultrasound picture as
soon as I left the clinic.
“Whoa! That’s a baby!” my husband replied. Then he added: “I
mean our baby! I mean two other people’s genetic material.”
“She’s huge!” my older teen said.
“She THICC,” my younger one chimed in.
I liked looking at the baby's picture and thinking about her being
born, but I still didn’t know how to allow myself to feel the joy of pregnancy. I
felt emotionally flat. I knew that numbing out wouldn’t stave off any
heartbreak if the worst came to pass, but I didn’t know how to disregard my
fear and have faith that it would all work out.
With each passing day, though, I felt more confident that this pregnancy was going to progress. I soon found myself saying, “When the baby comes” this and “When
the baby comes” that. My husband and I started talking about nursery paint
colors and other baby-related preparations.
“We may not have told anyone yet, but in our minds, this is
happening,” I wrote in my journal. “She’s coming. And we will be ready.”
My depression had lifted. And in its wake, a
whole new state of being overcame me, and took me (very pleasantly) by surprise...
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.