Yesterday marked my 11th week of pregnancy. It's unbelievable to me that I'm about to turn 12 weeks this coming Saturday and enter the proverbial "safe zone" when suddenly your risk of miscarriage plummets. It's the "safe zone" (although no one is ever safe and I know I will still find ways to worry) yet I know that the 12th week isn't some magical point where your risk is high one day and drastically lower the next. Week by week as a baby's major milestone develop your risk of miscarriage drops bit by bit. Perhaps I'm eager for the 12th week because (depending on who you talk to) marks the end of 1st trimester which NO ONE is excited to endure and hopes to rush through. At week 5, week 12 seemed like unchartered territory and might as well have been a decade away because it seemed like so much could happen between those weeks in between. How ever would I get to this point? And although at the time it seemed like the weeks were passing like molasses, in retrospect, I can't believe how fast it went, too.
A few days ago I had my first midwife appointment. Although my ultrasound at 8 weeks was stellar and reduced my risk of miscarriage considerably, I still had this itching fear that I was not going to be able to hear the heartbeat on the doppler. Not because I'm pessimistic and expecting the worst, but because this is all unknown territory for me and none of this ever came easy to me. Getting pregnant and staying pregnant is hard. Statistically speaking it's not, but when you hone in on one individual who beat the statistics and played to their own frightful tune, statistics become sentimental and are thus deemed meaningless to you. I still have moments where I think, "how in the world can something this amazing be happening to me?". Women have babies everyday. There are nearly 7 billion people in the world and nearly ever married women you meet over the age of 50 has at least one child, if not many more. It's sort of easy--right? So why do I still perceive it to be so challenging?
Needless to say, I sat in eager anticipation during that first prenatal visit at 10 weeks and 5 days when the midwife popped in and knew immediately that the first order of business was to try and track the heartbeat on the doppler. I sort of wanted her to do this for a peace of mind, but I also knew I was entering that gray area where sometimes the heartbeat isn't heard yet. What if she didn't hear it? It didn't mean anything was wrong, but I needed that reassurance and I would surely be disappointed if she didn't find it. I sat up on the patient chair as she set up the doppler on my abdomen and patiently listened to the sound of my own blood flow magnified through the device. Nothing yet. That's OK, I know sometimes it takes a few minutes to find it. She moved the device around for a few seconds as I listened to her talk. Suddenly she stopped talking, looked me right in the eye and gave me a big smile. My own heart stopped pounding so hard for just a second as I contemplated what this reassuring smile meant. I suddenly and heard the rapid sound of what reminded me of horses galloping in a wild west film. "Is that it?" I asked unsure and she said, "that's it!". And there it was--I was hearing the sound of a little heartbeat of my growing fetus. How in the world can there be a second heartbeat growing inside me when I can't even feel it nor see it? How is this happening to me? I'm not good at making babies yet here I was with a 10 week old fetus whose heart rate was thumping away! Every visit makes this experience more and more real. It's completely unchartered territory that has been so well in my favor that it makes me all the more excited yet cautious at the same time because it seems too good to be true.
Several of you have been asking how I'm feeling. My symptoms began to kick in around 6 weeks getting more pronounced around 7 weeks and then steadying around week 8 and easing by week 9. I only threw up once at 7 weeks, felt slightly nauseous every once in awhile (especially when I was exercising), but I never felt that hardcore morning sickness that so many women wear with a badge of honor. I wanted that badge, too. Coworkers come up excitedly to me and ask "how are you feeling?". I know they're expecting my answers to invoke nostalgia about their own pregnancies. Everyone loves a good vomit story or "Oh my gosh, I was soooo sick I would throw up at my desk!". Sometimes I would shrug my shoulders and say, "I'm OK, it's not that bad" and watch their eyes stare at me blankly as though I gave the wrong answer (or maybe it was all in my head). When I respond with, "well I was really sick on the elliptical today and started gagging" I find that the response is much more uplifting as they engage themselves in their own tell-tale stories of nausea as though it was happy memories. I know that everyone is different, but it seems like only women with morning sickness talk and the ones that have symptoms say nothing at all.
Nevertheless, I know I shouldn't complain because morning sickness can be debilitating and absolutely miserable for some. I do have my symptoms, it's just not as intense as others describe theirs to be. Yet, I do have some interesting twists in my pregnancy that have made me go "hmm?". Here are my favorites:
1. I used to love room temperature water, but now my water better be ice ice ice cold.
2. If I eat Jimmy John's, I want Sprite (oh man, that sure sounds good right now). The last time I had a sugar soda was after I ran the 10 mile race 2 years ago, the last time before that was after my half-marathon (ok, you get the idea...). Where does this craving come from? I learned through my sister that too many simple carbohyrdates causes your blood sugar to spike and crash. And the cravings for sugar come when your blood sugar is low. Our bodies have not biologically evolved enough to the point that the body knows we have an unlimited supply of glucose for the growing baby in pregnancy (it still thinks we live in the ancient times when food was more scarce). Therefore, your pancreas doesn't produce as much insulin in pregnancy so that way your baby is ensure to get more glucose. However, since we do have unlimited food supply, foods like Jimmy John's sandwiches and their ginormous chocolate chip cookies (I'm not saying that I had one of these cookies.....) produces more glucose than the baby will ever need. When I consume these carbohydrates, my blood glucose spikes and then plummets.
3. I no longer enjoy coffee the way I used to. I used to love my morning cup, but a few weeks into the pregnancy I realized I wasn't feeling the psychological benefit and decided not to drink it for now. Wow! Didn't see that one coming.
4. Our dishwasher stinks. It smells just like it did before pregnancy, but now the smell bothers me. The smell leeks onto our tupperware during a wash cycle, I put cut fruit into the tupperware to bring to work and then my fruit starts tasting like the stinky dishwasher. I made Jon wash the dishwasher with bleach and vinegar this weekend--we'll see if that fixes the odor.
5. If you put a bowl of chocolate candies in front of me and a bowl of cantelope or watermelon in front of me, I would choose the melons over chocolate easily (say what?!).
6. Grilled cheese dipped in tomato soup sounds divine.
7. Jimmy John's is God's gift to pregnant women. Of course it's not the same when I have to heat my own deli meat at home to stuff into my now meatless "Beach Club" sandwich, but it's still just awesome.
Those are a few of my updates. Each week brings more confidence to this journey and I will continue to share my thoughts as I progress.
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