On pregnancy and the need to slap people.

Pregnancy has not been a walk in the park for me, but I'll live. Almost immediately after peeing on a stick and it saying "Come on, really? You're going to act like you don't already know?", the vomiting started. And continued constantly. I was so dehydrated from the constant throwing up and inability to eat anything that I had to sit in the waiting room at the health department for another half hour downing a bottle and a half of water before I was able to pee a tiny bit in a cup so they could confirm what I had known in the back of my head for a few weeks. Something just felt different. Even though many of the symptoms of MWW were present, they were a little off. Funny how most of the MWW symptoms are the same as pregnancy symptoms, eh? A little cramping, fatigue, sore boobs, skin issues, bloating... Only the main event of MWW never started.

I was super excited. Well, as excited as possible what with all the hurling going on. Whether I have anything in my stomach or not doesn't matter, because it seems I have a lifetime supply of stomach acid to throw up. (Pretty sure I'm going to end up with the heartburn symptoms later because of that.) Within a weekend I had lost about 4 lbs, and I have continued to lose weight since then. Absolutely nothing worked. I tried eating crackers, eating crackers before getting out of bed, eating this or that, avoiding this or that, getting out of bed slowly, acting casual while getting out of bed to see if I could trick my body into forgetting it's supposed to be throwing up, sleeping in every position to see if that would help, eating some peanut butter before bed so my stomach wouldn't be empty in the morning, etc. For every person that suggested I eat some saltines? Fuck you. You should be slapped. You don't even have to be pregnant to have heard that helpful little tidbit, you moron, you honestly think that wasn't the first goddamn thing I tried? And if it's been weeks of sickness, do you really think you're the first person to make that totally original suggestion? The ones smilingly saying "I don't know what to tell you, I had absolutely zero problems during pregnancy, my pregnancies were so easy and perfect and all rainbows and happiness that the sun practically shone out of my vagina," are also unhelpful and deserving of slaps to the face. "Well, bully for you, Bitch!", is all I want to say. But I digress.

All in all I have lost about 10-12 pounds, and have never looked forward to gaining weight so much in my life. That will mean that baby is growing healthy and that I'm able to eat again. I've only just gotten to where occasionally I can eat before I go to work. I'm not sick every day now, as of last week it was about half and half. And although I was totally miserable for the first few weeks, my apparently amazing willpower meant the only porcelain god I prayed to was the one in my own home. No getting sick at work (couldn't do it, because then everyone would know and I'm not really wanting to deal with that), no getting sick out in public, no getting sick when visiting the families, no having to pull over to the side of the road to grace the grass with my stomach acid. It wasn't until my second prenatal appointment, where we got to hear the heartbeat, that I threw up somewhere outside of my own home. I have been keeping a trashcan in my car for a while now, and it got put to good use that morning. And my car is my second home, so I'm going to say that doesn't count either.

Then there was the time I threw up in the trashcan in our kitchen, because The Hubby was in the bathroom. Unfortunately, the trashcan contained some used kitty litter from when he had cleaned out the litter box, as well as the empty, fume-y can of Scotch Guard since we had just gotten new living room furniture, and various other chemicals from the housework that had gone on the day before. All that was inhaled as I gasped for breath between heaves. Worst. Experience. Ever. My throat burned, I was shaky as hell, and I was terrified that I had seriously fucked up my chances of having a normal kid. Or remembering what a door is. The jury's still out on the whole "normal kid" thing, I guess. Although any child released from my womb is already at risk of being a bit odd, so we may never know.

Another infuriating symptom is that my skin exploded. (Figuratively. Sort of.) Acne like I have never known before has plagued me incessantly since this whole shebang kicked off. Granted, I've never had the best of skin, but I've never been this broke out all over before. It's awful, and I hate it.

Then there's the fatigue. This paired with the "morning" sickness means all I do is work, sleep, and vomit. I've been a night owl for a while, and the shift I work definitely doesn't help, but I can't imagine trying to work days right now and having to deal with the nausea and vomiting. I have always been someone who had to eat before going to work, and I haven't been able to for a few weeks now. I'm not even hungry then. I only take snack stuff to work, because the idea of an actual "lunch break" is a joke for me. By the time I get off work I'm starving, so I eat, but I'm exhausted, so then I sleep. The past couple of weeks, though, have been different. I'd been staying up later to spend time with The Hubby before he left. And now I'm staying up later after he's gone in order to take care of the things that he had been taking care of during the day while I was at work. Laundry, dishes, cleaning, grocery shopping, etc. All taking place after 9-ish PM now. Still, it's so hard for me to get up early, because that just means more vomiting and fatigue and longer awake-time without being able to eat.

I'm hoping that now I'm starting in the second trimester of all this fun-ness I'll be able to start experiencing less of these pesky symptoms. Really I just want to be able to eat regularly again, so the nurse won't say to me again at my next appointment "You've lost some weight again... Are you sure you don't want us to prescribe you anything so you stop getting sick?" The thing is, right around the time baby showed up in the picture I had just started to cut way back on my soda habit, and my job description changed so that I was thankfully able to be up on my feet a lot more at work rather than sitting in front of a computer screen. And we weren't buying as much junk food, because The Hubby was having to watch his weight and stay healthy too. That, paired with the nausea/vomiting and work schedule that restricted my ability to eat was going to lead to some weight loss. Although I have to admit 10 pounds in a couple of weeks is maybe a bit excessive.

I really want to make it through this without having to take any kind of medication (except the prenatal vitamins, of course). I hate taking medicine anyway, but I really feel like even though it sucks the nausea isn't bad enough or debilitating enough to warrant medication. If it was seriously interfering with work, maybe, but again, I have yet to actually throw up at work, and I don't think I'm going to. It seems to be on the down swing now, so hopefully it'll start to fade and I can start chowing down like a pregnant woman's meant to.