Symptoms Series: Post 2, Morning Sickness

I’m pretty sure every infertile woman out there has at some point claimed that she would NEVER complain about morning sickness once she finally got pregnant.  I was definitely one of those women.

Here it is ladies… I hate to admit it…

I complained… I think I even cried…

Have you ever had the stomach flu or been so car sick or so hung over that you prayed you’d just wake up when it was over?  Have you ever felt so awful that you couldn’t get up off the couch, couldn’t stomach the thought of food?  Have you ever wished you could go to sleep for the next 2 months so you wouldn’t feel that way anymore?  I felt like that for 14 weeks.

I never actually threw up which made me feel even more pathetic for complaining.  I couldn’t stand the thought of food yet the Dexamethasone made me STARVING so I ate anything I could get down.  Instead of losing weight I gained 10, maybe even 15 pounds (I’m still too scared to step on the scale.)  With the exception of Mickey D’s bacon egg and cheese biscuits, I didn’t enjoy a single calorie of food I put in my mouth for 14 weeks and always felt terrible afterwards.

Every time I ate I felt like if I didn’t puke that food up I might die.  I seriously considered making myself throw up and even debated with Blue over whether or not that made me bulimic.  On top of feeling totally miserable, I also felt guilty because I vowed never to be “that girl.” 

I really wanted to be that infertile woman who appreciated every moment of her pregnancy but I am not her.  I am proud to say that I did most of my complaining to Blue.  I tried to keep it from everyone else but I was miserable and it is hard to keep quiet when you feel that bad.

Every day during those 14 weeks (after telling Blue I was pretty sure this would be our only biological child) I thanked God for this baby, for the medical advances that made it possible, for the opportunity to get pregnant at least once, for fulfilling my dreams even if they weren’t quite what I expected, but I sure as hell did not say thank you for morning sickness because it was awful. 

I recently figured out why women are even willing to carry a sibling, it’s because just after the misery of the first trimester comes the beauty of the second trimester.  That’s why I wrote this post now, I wanted to get it all out before I forgot just how bad it really was.  I’m now 16 weeks and can finally embrace the pregnancy, I don’t feel like hell, I can feel the life inside of me wiggling around… suddenly, like a light switch was flipped, it’s like the first 14 weeks never happened. 

Magic.