This week is all about food – because morning sickness took over my life and it was all I could think about!
Friday
I’ve definitely noticed an increase in my sense of smell this week: I got whiffs of laundry detergent in Body Pump, colognes and perfumes in the air are super strong, and walking by Christian’s pizza on the downtown mall smells INCREDIBLE! Can’t even think about spices right now – ethic food spices or coriander or curry. Yuck! I can still eat most foods, but the thought of everything but yogurt and ice cream is a little nauseating.
I’m not sleeping as well these days. I can’t really sleep on my stomach – not because I have a huge belly but because my breasts hurt so badly! I would give anything to be back in our Jamaica king size bed. The queen is closing in on us. But instead of buying a king-size bed, I ordered the snoogle pillow that so many pregnant bloggers have recommended. Hopefully it will help me sleep more comfortably on my side. I found that it’s a bit hard for my head (I like soft down pillows that smush!) so I uncurl the candy cane part and put my pillow in its place. It’s great to have something to lean my back against.
Saturday
The Good: PIZZA, ground beef, cheese, red bell peppers, oranges, tomato sauce, mixed greens (sparingly), all fruit, bread, pancakes, yogurt, milk, smoothies, nut butters, frozen yogurt, ice cream, anything chocolate. CHOCOLATE!
Homemade pizza on bread – that’s how bad I wanted it!
The Bad: Oatmeal (!), soups, beans, very chewable veggies (broccoli, cauliflower), big salads, plain lettuce, ethnic food, sardines, tuna.
The Ugly: Lentils, oh lentils.
My nausea is a little better today – perhaps because of taking my prenatal before bed again? Getting up and breakfast was fine. I cut my workout a little short, but in general, I felt pretty good all morning. Lunch was difficult to plan, but I’m finding that once I have food on my plate, eating it is OK. It’s just the thought of food that is gag-able. I also feel like my appetite is increased. Lunch was on the small side and left me growling all afternoon. Can’t eat enough chocolate! It feels good to eat chocolate!
Sunday
This weekend we’re visiting my family in Durham for a belated Christmas celebration. Sadly no alcohol for me in this beer-loving group 🙁
I took my prenatal vitamin last night and again woke up feeling ok – and with an appetite! Cereal and milk/yogurt are still high on my list of delicious foods (I think because they ease morning dehydration). Hot oatmeal just sounds too soupy and filling. These Cheerios with banana and milk tasted heavenly!
After a mug of cheerios for breakfast I looked at the brunch menu and couldn’t imagine eating anything without small waves of nausea. Sickness returned a bit on our walk around Duke’s campus, but it was just a slight churning of the stomach.
I was fine through my shower, but afterward, while we waited to go to brunch and shortly after I’d put on a few generous squirts of my sister’s perfume, nausea hit me hard and strong for the first time. I really could imagine myself actually throwing up. I think the perfume smell exacerbated it – I couldn’t shake the feeling. My only solution was to try a Preggie Pop (what a name…) candy that Sarah had given to me the night before. These little hard candies are made of cane sugar and citric acid, so I couldn’t imagine it would do anything but create more saliva in my mouth.
But lo and behold, it worked. I felt fine in less than 5 minutes. Psychological? Maybe. But it still worked! And I was able to eat eggs, pancakes, fruit and bread at brunch.
I’ve noticed today that it’s harder to suck in my stomach. Obviously I don’t think I’m technically showing, but I wonder if an enlarged uterus is pushing everything out a little? Orrrr it could just be 3 nights of eating too much creeping up on me ; )
I took a nap on the car ride home from North Carolina, which isn’t like me at all unless I’ve gotten less than 7 hours of sleep. I don’t really think I’ve felt total fatigue yet, but the 2-3 naps I’ve taken in the past 6 weeks and the hundreds of yawns are enough to notice a slight difference in energy.
I felt fine after lunch and for the first 2 hours of the trip and then BAM – nausea rolled over me (probably around the time I was re-living those lentils!) It’s such a miserable feeling and I yearn to be home. I popped another Preggie Pop, and as disgusting as it sounds, I make myself burp and feel a little better. Actually I have a confession: on the car right down to NC, we stopped at a McDonalds to use the bathroom and I ended up getting a Diet Dr. Pepper to try to calm my stomach. Soda is obviously not my first choice of real food to consume, but you know what – it worked and it tasted delicious. I wouldn’t make this a daily habit, but on a car trip it was a great solution.
One more thing: I really shouldn’t be wearing this one bra anymore. It does. Not. Fit.
Monday
Today was awful. I woke up feeling just OK. Ate breakfast fine, although I have lost my taste for hot tea or coffee. All I wanted was orange juice! Cereal and OJ. If that isn’t a red flag for the blog world, I don’t know what is.
But about an hour and half after breakfast, I got hit with another huge wave of nausea. This time I really felt like I was going to throw up. Until now, I had always assumed I would be one of those pregnant woman who gets queasy for a few weeks, but nothing more. But today, that may have all changed. I was dry heaving into the toilet and soaking the couch pillows with my nauseous tears. Sickness today was a pendulum between extreme hunger and extreme nausea. During my moments of hunger, I managed to get down 4 sheets of graham crackers, half a grapefruit, an egg, some cheese and crackers and an Izze.
In round 6 of nausea this afternoon, I fell asleep on the couch and woke up feeling better. In an effort to prevent it from returning, I took a bite of leftover grapefruit and sat there for 10 minutes before getting up. Then I noticed it was snowing! I felt good enough to go for a walk and ended up strolling in silence for about 30 minutes.
We had dinner plans tonight to go to a friends’ house and I almost didn’t go. But then a wave of hunger hit and I heard we were having Italian and my appetite agreed. Upon arriving at Karen’s before we walked over to dinner, I burst into tears! I don’t know what came over me, but it was probably the climax of such a down day.
After my cry-fest, photo edited to hide the redness!
Luckily things turned around for the better at dinner. (And luckily our hosts already knew I was pregnant!) They were kind and the small portions of food I ate tasted good – even a few bits of salad!
But the best part was the ice cream for dessert. Man did that taste good. Must put some in my freezer!
I really, really hope this isn’t just the beginning of a month or more of sickness. I really don’t think I could physically handle a month of nausea this bad. Maybe my body will get used to it.
Tuesday
Get used to it – ha! This morning I was much, much worse!!!! I spent the first few hours of the day alternating between dry heaving, sobbing on the couch and moaning. I haven’t had a stomach flu in so many years I forgot how awful it really is to be that nauseous. My tears were mostly because I just couldn’t imagine myself living like this for a month – or longer. One day, maybe, but this nausea was some of the worst I’d ever felt. The thought of food made me gag and I could barely stand up. I forced myself to make a smoothie – the least worst thing I could imagine – and ate one bite at a time for an hour. This did not help one bit. I’m really not being melodramatic here – I felt truly awful. There were even moments of “I wish I weren’t pregnant” that I now regret thinking (and am embarrassed to say…) but I was really starting to second guess this whole thing.
Mid-morning I called the doctor. I spoke with a nurse who said to go to a pharmacy and get myself some Vitamin B6 tablets (50 mg) and Unisom, a sleep aid known to help with nausea. These two medicines together had helped many women in the past. Somehow, I managed to brush my teeth and find my coat to walk half a mile to the drug store. I found both medicines and purchased them along with the following:
Meds, animal crackers, Tylenol, peppermints, lemon drops, graham crackers, mac and cheese and lotion with no smell.
Let’s zoom in on one of those – how the heck did this end up in my hands?! I must have had a window of appetite for it. Just about the only thing that sounds appealing right now!
Back at home I took the meds – 25 mg of Vitamin B6 and half a Unisom tablet. And I waited.
45 minutes later I wasn’t much better. In fact, my stomach suddenly increased in pain and I ran to the bathroom to dry heave again. Something about that heave changed something inside of me and I felt better. In these windows of feeling better, I tried to eat, knowing that will help, so I went upstairs and ate 100 animal crackers.
Karen came by a little while later with a ginger ale and moral support. She was also super sick with Matt and it wasn’t until she finally had a drug in the last few weeks of her first trimester that she was able to function. She offered to write a blog post for me, but I didn’t have anything but the animal crackers and ginger ale to show. So she made herself a peanut butter sandwich, which turned into two sandwiches and suddenly I found myself eating bread again. [Note the lettuce was just for show!]
Moments later the mail arrived and I unpacked a pair of sea sickness bands I had ordered from Amazon.
Now armed with a trifecta of defense, I hoped for the best.
By dinnertime, I felt like eating ravioli. Mind you it was plain ravioli with sauce and cheese. No veggies in sight.
It seems that even on my worse days, I do get a little better by dinnertime. I gave myself a 75% normal by the end of the night – up from about 5% that morning.
Wednesday
Woke up and took my meds right away with some graham crackers in bed. After that, I actually felt well enough to make pancakes! A HUGE improvement from the beginning of the week.
Nausea returned a bit mid-morning, but for the most part, I felt like the meds were working. By afternoon I felt much, much better and by dinnertime I couldn’t wait to eat pizza! Even managed some salad! I had to eat slowly though, because my stomach still feels very sensitive. Hard to tell if I’m really better or this is just a temporary fix.
Thursday
Felt good enough today when I woke up to eat oatmeal – which is something I haven’t wanted for weeks! A good sign indeed. Note that it’s on the extremely simple side though 🙂
I definitely wouldn’t say I bounded out of bed or anything – I still feel sick – but the nausea is minimal and my appetite is mostly back. Lunch was even easier – but I can tell I’m going to need to eat more frequently than I used to because by the time I was ready to eat I could feel the nausea creeping back just a bit. After lunch, though I felt great.
I even managed a quickie elliptical workout – it wasn’t much, but it happened.
This afternoon Matt and I had our first appointment with the nurse at our practice. She went through everything from morning sickness to the two ultrasounds I will get to food rules (got it!) to genetic risks. We are so fortunate not to have any genetic disorders run in our family, although I did have to answer YES to the “Do you have twins in your family” question. Yikes!!! I came home with a prescription for Zofran “just in case I need it” with our big trip to NYC this weekend. I’m glad to have that in my back pocket, but the B6 + Unisom seem to be working well for now.
I asked Matt what he thought of the appointment and he said it made him a bit more nervous about labor and delivery. I think he’ll make a great coach once he learns more about how it all works, especially since he’s been so supportive and great while I’ve been sick.
Felt pretty good this afternoon and evening! About 85% normal. Not ideal, but definitely something I can live with for months.
Previous weeks
4 Weeks
5 Weeks
