Hi friends! I laughed when I looked back at my last blog post, because I actually haven’t done any of the things on that to-do list! I was so well intentioned – and tired. Very, very tired. With good reason.
We are expecting baby #5!
It’s common knowledge to those around us, but I have been asleep at the wheel of this blog so I thought it was time to show up, explain my absence, and get back to writing. Maybe you’ve been wondering how pregnancy has been treating me this time around. Wonder no longer!
I basically don’t remember the month of February. I feel like I slept straight through it. I slept at least 9 hours every night, and napped for a few hours every afternoon. My waking hours were spent dragging myself around not accomplishing much of anything except growing a human. Add to my fatigue the fact that I was quickly getting knocked out with NVP, and I was pretty much out of commission. We ate a whole lot of nothing good and just locked down into survival mode. (As an aside, let’s stop calling nausea and vomiting in pregnancy “morning sickness”, shall we? Where are the lucky women who only have to deal with it in the morning?)
Around 7 weeks into this pregnancy, I reached a point where my nausea was so overwhelming that I spent an entire morning in a walk-in clinic waiting room so I could see a doctor for a Diclectin Rx. I’m all for treating things naturally, but trying to treat my nausea naturally was like bringing a knife to a gunfight. Sniffing essential oils, eating ginger candies, and small, frequent meals only got me so far. I needed something stronger. I explained to the doctor in no uncertain terms why I was there. He laughed about me having done this before, and quickly wrote me a prescription. The Diclectin did help, but I still struggled with nausea for over a month.
While battling the nausea and exhaustion I lamented to Clay one evening, “Why didn’t anyone warn me it was going to be this bad?! ….oh, wait….I knew. I’ve done this 4 times already.”
I have to brag on my husband for a minute here. While I was busy sleeping and fighting to keep my food down, he was a rockstar. He made sure people were fed, kept the house relatively tidy, did laundry, or made the kids do any of the above things (also very helpful). On one occasion I recall tearily thanking him for all he was doing, and he acted like it was nothing. What a guy. I am blessed.
School was reduced to bare minimum requirements, and we have still not quite recovered. Now I face the usual struggle to get book work done when the weather is beckoning us outdoors, and the desire to try to catch up on what was lacking over the past few months.
Around 12 weeks I suddenly didn’t need to nap anymore and I could handle cooking and eating again. Sweet mercy! I felt like a human being again!
That about sums up the first trimester: sick and tired! I have a lot more I want to say about having this baby, but I’ll pace myself and be back with some more posts in the near future. Thanks for reading – see you soon!