Being pregnant: part 2

Secrets, Sickness and Tiredness.

When it comes to discussing morning sickness, I'm afraid I have only bad news. My sickness started about week 6-7 ish (I can't be sure now, be prepared to lose parts of your memory).  I woke up and was instantly sick.  Most of my sickness occurred just after getting out of bed, sometimes after breakfast, sometimes at about 10am (while your at school and about to start your phonics lesson) and on occasion, not very often, in the evenings.  This made it quite hard to keep my pregnancy a secret.  Doctors will tell you not to tell anyone until after your first scan.  I had to tell my bosses and the other teacher in the base at work as I felt I needed the support (as well as the time off for appointments).  Family were told instantly, as was my best friend, who I wouldn't have been able to hide it from as we usually shared a bottle of wine at meal times.

Look away now if you don't want to read about what morning sickness is really like.

Morning sickness is quite different to other vomiting experiences I've had.  It's defiantly more draining and so very painful.  

If you are lucky/unlucky enough to be sick after getting up, you actually don't have anything to bring up, so it's fairly easy to clean and not get any in your hair.  However as there isn't anything in your stomach I found that I'd be heaving for ages before I was able to get anything up.  Each time getting more and more uncomfortable as I could feel my stomach almost turning itself inside out to get whatever the offence was out.  Then I'd get this awful luminous bile that I'm pretty sure, is the worst taste in the world.

If you are lucky/unlucky enough to be sick after breakfast, throwing up was much easier and less painful, but I found I had seconds to get to the toilet before it was forced out of my gut, and on occasion all over the toilet seat, down my clothes and in my hair.  When your in a rush to get to work, this is not very helpful.

Lots of people would ask if I was having sickness,  I'd say yes but to be honest, I was so happy to be pregnant that I didn't consider it a sick pregnancy. I wish I could say that after week 12, the sickness went away, as was many people's experiences, but it didn't.  It lasted until about week 30. Some weeks were worse than others. I seem to remember week 10 being the worst. Unfortunately, drinking water was one of my biggest triggers for being sick!  I got to a point in week 10 when I was in tears because I was so thirsty.  I survived by drinking Coca Cola, milk and eating Fabs.

All advice will tell you, and rightly so that you should follow a super healthy diet while your pregnant, drink plenty of water and always take your vitamins.  If only it was really that easy.  I had to eat and drink what I could, which unfortunately consisted of high levels of sugar and take aways.  I seemed to develop a love for beige food and went off my old favourites spinach, broccoli and salmon. I could not touch them for months.  I also went of tea, I remember before I knew I was pregnant, that I had a cup of tea and I thought to myself 'that was the worst cup of tea I've ever had'.  So I just didn't touch it until I got to my third trimester, I was offered one and forgot that I now hated tea so said yes.  Turns out I got over that eversion. 

One of the best things about those early months was the taste of milk.  Nothing could compare! Suddenly it was all I wanted and I would drink over a pint a day.  Something happened to me, the taste of milk become a delicious elixir!  I still frequently drink it now, but the magical pregnancy effect seems to have worn off somewhat. 

The tiredness!  I could not have expected the tiredness in pregnancy to be as bad as it was.  Throughout my first trimester, as soon as I got home from work I'd need a nap.  I haven't felt full of energy since August last year! I can't even remember if feeling full of energy is a real thing (and from the horror stories people like to tell you in the 3rd trimester, I probably never will again). I was promised that in the 2nd trimester sickness would subside (pah!) and the tiredness would go, I'd feel like I'd got a second wind - 3 weeks left until my due date and I'm still waiting for this to kick in.  I have felt tired since the beginning, 1st and 3rd trimester were definitely the worst but 2nd trimester was no walk in the park.

My advice: If you can follow a healthy diet, then do.  If you find this almost impossible as I did, don't worry about it, make sure you are eating and keeping fluids down, whatever they are. Stock up on iced lollies!  I don't know how they do it but they can make your sickness feelings disappear for the day, plus if your finding drinking difficult, it's a good way to get some more fluid into your body.  Buy sweets and keep them in your bag.  I found the fizzier the sweet the better.  I'd pop one in my mouth at work before phonics just to try and hold off the sick feeling for as long as I could. Take naps whenever you can.