Tuesday 14 November 2017

BumpH2t: The First Trimester

So if you caught my news the other week you will know I am in fact now pregnant again after a super rocky few years of trying. Thanks to everyone who called, messaged or commented on our posts, it really helped me feel more relaxed with putting that update out there and it brought some welcome excitement around the prospect so that was really lovely for both of us!


As I said in my last post, previous loss has not made this the most straight forward time but I still want to try and share my experiences with the first 3 months. I feel like sharing it like many other bloggers would naturally just do, will help me to appreciate those months more than I could at the time as they have been pretty fraught with anxiety.

We knew I was pregnant from SUPER early on, like legit this tiny thing must have been a few hours old, just enough to show up on a test and we knew about their presence. Got to admit that makes the first part of the journey feel pretttty long.  We decided we had no choice but to keep our cool in case it was a chemical pregnancy  or that it might be taken away from us much earlier this time. We just plodded along as normal and then at 5 weeks pregnant those super symptoms kicked in and It was a bit harder to ignore...

attempting to feel normal 10 weeks in for a day of visiting pals
First time round I didn't have any sickness but just an incredible level of exhaustion, a cold to the bones type feeling that was constant and I was actually very low and quite blue for a lot of it ( not uncommon in people who have been through fertility treatment). But I had no other real 'expected' pregnancy symptoms which I did find hard as I was looking for reassurance that something was happening!  This time however I had 24/7 extreme nausea,breasts growing like no ones business and that same extreme exhaustion as before. I didn't have that lingering blueness of before which was nicer but I was still determined to ignore the pregnancy as much as I could and just see where we got to. The never ending nausea definitely made that pretty tough and I actually wept a few times in hiding at work, over what you ask?? Simply that it was 4 o clock and I still hadn't managed to put a forkful of lunch in my mouth. That thought would genuinely bring me to tears as I knew I needed to eat something never mind drink something! Eventually I just had to figure out what I could actually have and unfortunately for my poor body (sorry IBS), that was milk, cold potatoes and cake/biscuits/any kind of energy. It was quite the overwhelming experience. This of course was just leading me to putting on weight in funny places which was difficult to reconcile with, of course I knew my body was doing as it was meant to, but like many pregnant woman I didn't feel myself anymore, and with no actual bump to show. I just felt a little alien really!

All the while Ally as you can imagine was a wonderful Florence Nightingale, but between my tears we would laugh, because as much as he felt awful for me there was the aspect of him that was thrilled that these were big obvious pregnancy signs that others experience. For him my inability to actually eat  was an odd comfort!  I was hell bent on not going in for an early scan as I just wanted to try and ignore my fears of being back in the hospital, but then I had  a large amount of pain around 8 weeks which coincided with my first midwife appointment and seeing as it had lasted a few days she was straight on the phone to get me booked in to check it all out. We saw the same tiny form of a baby that we had the first time around and once again heard that little heartbeat. It did feel good to know that so far something was legitimately in there, but that of course meant we had met them again and reminded me it was all real which was hard to keep the same distance from.

With our 12 week scan not booked in until I was at 13ish weeks the midwife kindly suggested we should go back again at 10 weeks, just to keep any eye on the changes and to break up the middle wait. Whenever I was in a panic about it all, Ally would just keep repeating to me what she had said at the scan, a "good baby with a healthy heartbeat", and do you know it was just the mantra to keep be plodding on between the visits. I was sure when we finally got to 12 weeks I would be able to accept it all and move on to the delighted stage but that was definitely not the case, and as I explained in my last post, I had come to terms with that side of things. The big 12 week scan was still really difficult to actually go to, as even though we had been in twice to the Early Pregnancy Unit, this one was back in the normal scanning clinic and actually even in the same room with the same person who had seen us way back in March. We battled through though ( there was an awful lot of tears) and left with a little image of the 'good baby, healthy heartbeat' that we had been rooting for for 3 months. 

keeping up the adventure whilst heaving at the thought of enjoying fish, chips and ice cream at the seaside!
I did have to do a LOT of jumping about and lunges to actually get the baby seen properly which was no fun, especially sinking all the liquids needed considering how sick I felt. We still couldn't have their chromosomal measurement check that is usually done  at 12 weeks and as it was chromosomes which was brought our pregnancy to an end before, we were upset to leave without some peace of mind on that front. Waiting another 5 weeks for blood tests to check was pretty difficult but once again it was about keeping our heads down and getting on with it.  My exhaustion and Nausea stayed with me full force until 15/16ish weeks  and other that that, sore boobs, some serious short temperedness ( sorry everyone along the way!)  some crazy dreams stopping my sleeping, a huge amount of bloating, and the fear of never being able to poo again....were the most obvious signs anything was going on. Looking back I didn't realise just how many signs there were!

I was glad to set into the next trimester and see what it had in store for me, the first certainly taught me a lot about my limits and just taking it easy, and the restorative power of cold potatoes of course. I'll be updating on my next weeks shortly, feels like now people know I have lots to catch everyone up on!

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