So anyone who knows I’m pregnant has heard me complain about this countless times. The morning sickness seriously sucks. And I’m one of those outliers that hasn’t managed to escape it yet. It’s a lot more manageable thanks to the Diclectin, for sure – but if I forget about it even once, I’m back in the washroom bent over the toilet seat again. On Friday, I vomited 3 times before I even ate dinner. 3 times. This morning I woke up an hour before my alarm rang – to throw up. I’m 7 months in. It’s beyond ridiculous.
And honestly, I don’t know why the human body thinks it’s fair to balloon up when you’re not even eating like you want to. My favourite flats don’t fit me anymore. My wedding ring doesn’t fit me. I know it’s water retention and all, but honestly the bloated whale look doesn’t work with my wardrobe and I am not here for it at all.
Of course, couple the nausea with the third trimester symptoms and you get a double whammy. I had literally never experienced heartburn in my life before, and now it’s that clingy friend that wants to be my shadow. My appetite has increased though. I’m starving in the mornings when I used to skip breakfast before pregnancy. I want to pig out all the time, but if I do I hate myself for the next few hours. Every time I find myself enjoying a full serving of a meal, my stomach feels like a volcano on the brink of eruption. Each burp burns like acid. I used to live for spicy food, but it makes things worse, so what am I supposed to do?? Even yogurt has done this to me! Water has done this to me! Carbs help that feeling but they make you balloon up and – ugh. I want to explode. Woe is me.
I love sweet foods too, but they leave such a terrible aftertaste. I’ve had to brush my teeth after having a KitKat bar because of the aftertaste. Or after sipping some pop. This doesn’t work for me. My inner foodie is miserable. I just want to live, ok?
If I lie down, the heartburn is so pronounced, I can throw up just because of it. And if I lie down to my side or sit up, I can literally feel the acid sliding back down into the safe havens of my belly. It’s disgusting. The baby can’t actually be large enough to be pushing food up like that, can it? Apparently not only can it pull that off, but its weight on your diaphragm can make it seriously hard to breathe. And circulate blood.
Sometime last month I woke up with such severe pain in my left leg that I had to go and see my doctor – who wrote me a requisition for an emergency ultrasound where they checked for a blood clot. Apparently pregnancy can even do that to you. I mean, in the end it wasn’t a clot, but the baby can block your blood flow enough to make it cramp like one! It felt like a pinched nerve, it lasted for hours, and walking or stretching did not help at all. (It eased up on its own later in the day.)
Lying on your left side is supposed to be the best. I’ll fall asleep that way, and although my beloved pregnancy pillow keeps me in a safe position for most of the night, my natural proclivities cannot be ignored. I keep finding myself waking up lying on my back, ready to throw up stomach acid, and completely out of breath. You’d think someone is literally suffocating me and I guess it’s true, because when the baby rolls over, I’m back to feeling fine.
And don’t even get me started on the back pain. Working a desk job with no lunch break does such a number on my back that coupled with the train rides to and from work, I’m just done by the time I get home. I cannot even sit up at the dining table. I want to lie down and I want to stay lying down until I have to get up again the next day.
What used to be a 10 minute walk from the train station to my work has turned into a 20 minute waddle, and I still feel like I’ve run a marathon by the end of it. I feel gross all around. I don’t know what I was expecting. People around me kept reassuring me that the second trimester makes you feel like you’re bursting with energy. I never had that phase, I just slept and slept and slept. And the third trimester isn’t looking much better: I’m fat, nauseous, tired and breathless all the time. I don’t even recognize my new pictures and I have these dreadful thoughts that maybe I’ll stay this way and never get back to normal.
Props to everyone that’s been able to keep up their workout routines and their healthy diets. I don’t know how you did it.
I’m sure I’ll love motherhood. And that I’ll probably change my mind once I meet the baby too, but honestly sometimes when I’m having a bad day, I don’t even understand — how are there so many women who make the conscious decision to have another child after already going through this once?
I cannot wait until this is over.
Halal Mommy 