two and a half years ago, i started this blog to wrap my mind around dating again in my mid 30s after a ten year hiatus. six months in, it evolved into a falling in love blog and, another six months after that, a wedding blog. just shy of a year from our first wedding anniversary, fraser and i found out that i am pregnant (yey!) turning my focus to motherhood.
but first things first. pregnancy.
real talk. getting pregnant was not easy, especially in a society that tells women in their early 30s to start thinking about it before it's too late. women who are lucky enough to get pregnant after 35 are automatically considered high risk regardless of their health. that would be me. we found out about my pregnancy a month before my 38th bday. we'd been trying for over a year.
the truth is, i didn't think it would take us so long. in spite of close friends and acquaintances who've had difficulty getting pregnant, i blindly believed i would be an exception rather than the rule. i have a sister who had multiple miscarriages before having her children and one who naturally had twins without complications. still, i naively thought it would be relatively easy. after all, i'd taken good care of myself and am totally in love with my husband. of course, it would happen.
just months before i took my very first pregnancy test, fraser and i realized we'd been trying for almost a year and getting my period began to take its toll. my initial excitement, which had turned to nonchalance (in an attempt to cover how hard it was hitting me emotionally) became impatience. frustration. anger. there were times i actually cried when i got my period. it didn't make sense and i gradually became sadder and sadder about it. at some point, i asked my closest friends not to bring it up unless i initiated the conversation because it hurt to talk about it.
the fact that i am pregnant is an incredible gift. fraser and i know many other couples who deserve the same and haven't been yet. to say that i'm grateful for the life growing inside of me is an understatement. i have to admit, however, that i had no idea what i was in for as i hoped, prayed and dreamed about being pregnant.
pregnancy is no joke.
i am in awe of every woman who's survived pregnancy. every single one. to be fair, i recently worked in an environment where pregnant women took indoor cycling and/or yoga classes like it was the most natural thing to do. a few of the instructors taught these same classes throughout their pregnancy, inspiring roomfuls of people to sweat it out and/or keep their zen. i admired these women for keeping up with their normal workout routines as i took their classes or worked out alongside them. today, i would give them all gold medals.
i have to be very careful here because i don't, in any way, mean to complain. that said, fifteen weeks into my pregnancy, i'm finally beginning to feel like myself again. working out exhausts me. i take pilates twice a week and have to nap after. i need more sleep than i've ever needed before. there were days when i'd sleep for ten or twelve hours a night and take a two hour nap in the afternoon. luckily, my schedule allowed for such luxuries; i cannot imagine holding a full time job and going through the first trimester.
with all that sleep, you'd think i'd feel refreshed and ready to take on the day. not so. i was nauseous for about six weeks straight. i never actually threw up but always felt like i was on the verge. having nausea 24/7 was numbing. everything smelled really bad. eating became i chore, which is disappointing because eating is one of my favorite things in the world. i assumed i'd have cravings for weird food combinations and enjoy consuming them. sadly, the opposite happened. i craved nothing. in fact, i lost my appetite but was constantly having to eat in an attempt to avoid full-blown nausea… the nausea eventually subsided and i only got nauseous when i waited too long to eat (thus the non-stop eating).
headaches are my new thing. for awhile, avoiding salty foods later in the day and drinking water helped. unfortunately, that's no longer true. i wake up with a headache every morning these days no matter how much water i drink. even though i'm not sick, i also have a runny nose and occasionally get nosebleeds. my appetite is still not the same but at least i can eat meat again. the only thing i've really craved is sushi, which i can't have. (yes. i know i can have california and tempura rolls, but i want the real thing. raw salmon. raw albacore. raw yellowtail.) oh. and i feel like i'm gonna throw up whenever i bend down now. all normal symptoms and not all in my head. i have a friend who is due three months ahead of me and sis-in-law is a month behind me, who both assure me that all of it is normal... and that more is coming.
i had conversations about pregnancy with each of my sisters recently. bells, who hated being pregnant, teasingly asked me how it was going, knowing full well how blindsided i was physically. she laughed knowingly as i told her how much i didn't enjoy it in spite my excitement about being pregnant. ate, on the other hand, dismissed my inquiry when i asked her why she didn't tell me how hard pregnancy was, simply saying that she kept her focus on the end result: a baby.
my baby.
our baby.
peanut.
when i think about peanut, i am overcome with love. gratitude. even a bit of grace… i'm not gonna lie, i worry every day that i'm not eating enough of a variety, am drinking too much coffee (i'm allowed 12oz a day) and not enough water, am not sleeping enough or pushing too hard in a pilates class. i talk to peanut and imagine what she looks like (fraser commented the other day that we're going to need to pull a major switch if peanut is, in fact, a boy because i've been calling her a girl for weeks now. for the record, he wants a mini version of me and i want a mini version of him, but i have a strong feeling peanut is a mini me).
bells told me that the love she has for her twins is beyond anything she'd ever known. knowing how much of my heart belongs to my nieces and nephews, she assured me that my heart will expand and love in new, inexplicable ways. i can't imagine loving anyone more than i love my family, my friends and fraser, but i look forward to giving peanut everything that i've got.
it's been a long time since i've posted one of these. the past several weeks, i've simply been too tired. the months before that, however, i felt too defeated by the whole trying to get pregnant thing. now that i am, i will power through the symptoms and keep my eye on the prize: peanut.
our very own little peanut.
