I will be the first to admit that this current pregnancy was a huge surprise. We were a happy family of 4 with 1 boy and 1 girl. It has been perfect. Most places we go cater to the good old fashioned family of 4. It has been a dream. Our last family trip was a week-long adventure in Disney World this past fall. While heading back home I started to feel nauseous in the Orlando Airport TSA security line. Admittedly, it is not completely unheard of to want to throw up while waiting in a long ass line, but this felt different. By this point, my “Aunt Flow” was 4 days late. I wasn’t too worried about being off on my period. sporadic/irregular periods have been the story of most of my adult life, but as the trip went on, my nausea got worse and worse. While seated in the middle of 2 people on the airplane my tongue began to swell, saliva built up in my mouth, and I prepared to hurl. If you have ever dealt with throwing up, you know this is the telltale sign that you’re about to lose your lunch. Of course the plane was crowded and filled with screaming children. It was pure hell! I was sweating, holding onto the plane-issued doggy bag, my daughter was crying cause she wanted to snuggle, and I kept standing up then sitting down (I couldn’t decide if I could make it to the bathroom or not or if I should just chance the doggy bag. I looked like an indecisive prairie dog!) As the flight went on, the nausea went from bad to terrible. Dry-heaving was now added to my list of symptoms. I thought maybe I had the flu or food poisoning, but I didn’t have the same stomach cramps that usually accompany that type of illness. I looked across the aisle hoping my husband could at least lend some morale support, but the big butthole was sleeping like a baby! The nerve of that man! Finally the possibility of being pregnant started to sneak into the back of my mind. I kept trying the push it away and bury it in the ground, but as hard as I tried, I couldn’t stop from panic slowly surfacing.
As soon as we got home I rushed upstairs to my sanctuary (aka my bathroom) to barf and then take the dreaded pregnancy test. For those that have had the pleasure of having a surprise pregnancy, you understand the “thrill” of staring incessantly at a urine-soaked piece of plastic while you sit on your bathroom floor! Those three minutes were pure torture! I seriously went through every scenario in my head: baby, no baby, disabled baby, false negative….lizard. I was a wreck. After what seemed like ages, the results were finally in. I was PREGNANT!!! Now, I know you will judge me, but I believe in being honest, so here goes…..I was NOT happy! I was devastated!!! We don’t have enough bedrooms, our car is too small, and how would we afford another human being?! I started to hyper ventilate. When I went downstairs to break the news to my husband, who was trying to stop our two “blessings” from killing each other, I just started to cry. All of my emotions came pouring out. I guess, seeing my kids fighting was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I can laugh about it now, but at that moment, I was freaking out. How would we survive this? When I told my hubby that the test was positive, shock was written all over his face. We thought we had done everything right, but somehow it just happened
After we wrapped our minds around it long enough to calm down, we went straight to bed. Sleep was the only answer at that point. The next several days were filled with stress, questions, anger, more nausea (for my husband), but as time has passed, our outlooks have changed, and we are now over the moon excited and in love with the growing little one in my belly. Don’t get me wrong, we still have our “what the hell are we going to do?!” moments, but we’re slowly figuring things out. Our kids are going to share a room (pray for me), we’re saving money for a bigger car, and we’re getting rid of as much junk as possible! There is still a ton to do, but I feel like we finally have a plan.
I have decided that “Pregnancy Amnesia” is a real thing. It’s when the most horrible memories of your pregnancy are forgotten just long enough for you to be ok with another one. So many things are coming back to me that I had completely forgotten about. Hopefully some of you can relate so that I won’t feel so alone in this.
First, I am tired all the time!! I do remember being tired when I was prego with my other two but never this much. If I don’t take at least a 30 min. nap, I turn into a witch! Sadly, with my weight gain, I’m going to need a bigger broom!
Everything makes me sick….. EVERYTHING! Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I honestly don’t remember having this many aversions to simple, everyday food. Depending on the time of day or which hormone is raging, I can take a small whiff of some random smell and be rushing to the toilet. Oh, and another thing, I hate the term “morning sickness”. It’s more like “all day sickness” or “wake up in the middle of the night with the overwhelming need to poop your pants sickness.”
My Emotions are insane! I have already yelled at my husband too many times to count during this pregnancy, and maybe it’s because I’m older than I was with my others, but every symptom just seems so much more intense. At one point my daughter had to stand up for my husband. I was yelling for some stupid reason, and she walked right up to me and said, “you don’t yell at my daddy! He is my daddy! He is my brother’s daddy! We love our daddy! Don’t yell at daddy!” Naturally, I immediately yelled back at my toddler, but then I calmed down and decided I need to try and relax a bit. I’ve now limited my bouts of insanity, but the crying is still out of this world. I cry every day! Who am I kidding??…..I cry ALL day! You’d think I’d lose some water weight, but alas.
I know there are many out there that would say that I should shut up and stop complaining. That I should be grateful for this miracle growing inside of me. Trust me, I understand. I want to tell myself to shut up sometimes. I just think we as women need to admit when things are hard and look to each other for help and understanding. None of us have all the answers. Life is extremely difficult, and pregnancy is no exception. I truly am so excited to meet this little and begin this new chapter of life. In the meantime, I would just like to avoid throwing up in the grocery store and not immediately run out of breath when I get up off the couch. Is that too much to ask?!
-Namaste Bitches!