the process moves on, or does it?

I’m still struggling to reconcile the knowledge that I’m pregnant and the fact that I’m able to go about my daily activities with relative normalcy. Yes, I have some symptoms. My breasts are larger, I need more sleep, my appetite is reduced and I sometimes feel a slight nausea. At times I feel every cell in my body is drained of energy and I can do nothing but lie on the sofa or in bed. But fortuitously, this usually doesn’t happen until the late afternoon or evening.

Perhaps I have something attached to my uterus, which is causing the symptoms, but it has stopped growing. Or perhaps I’m just lucky this time around.

I guess I’ll find out at the sonogram on Tuesday. In the meantime, life progresses, this new life hopefully develops, and it’s really no big deal. It’s possible to almost forget I’m pregnant. I haven’t gained any weight and fit easily into all my clothes. It’s hard to imagine popping, though I did purchase a few maternity items for work so I’ll be ready when it happens.

Instead of obsessing about pregnancy, I’m instead planning for a potential trip to central Africa. Seriously? Yes, I’m still trying to process that myself. I’m admittedly a bit nervous about the tradeoffs between taking malaria medications in early pregnancy (none of the options look great) or taking the risk of trying to prevent it without medications, but knowing that getting the disease would be terrible. At the same time, it’s a good professional opportunity and I’m always excited by a foreign adventure. I know there will be a break in my world travels during the latter parts of pregnancy and breastfeeding, so I may as well travel while I can. River visited four countries as an embryo/fetus, so I guess it’s only fair to give this one an equivalent chance at free travel.

I’m pretty sure my recent trip to Africa killed my chances of being able to donate cord blood. If not, this trip will do it. That’s a disappointment.

The symptoms are here

OK, so now the symptoms are more clearly here. And yes, I’m very grateful for the time I didn’t have them.

For the past few days my appetite has been low. I can function moderately well during the day. But I crash around 3, when I need a nap. After lying in bed and sleeping a bit, I might get up for a little TV or to have a bit of dinner. Then I go back to the supine position for a few more hours until it’s time for bed.

It feels as though my mind is awake and alert, but that’s about it. Every other cell has been drained of energy. My hands don’t have enough energy to want to deal with the computer or to hold a book. The best I can do is watch a bit of TV, but I usually run out of recorded shows quickly. This weekend I stared out the window and took joy in watching the trees shiver in the wind.

Luckily, Mark has been great about letting me lie around from 3 p.m. until bedtime over the weekend. I’m trying to make peace with my lack of productivity. Part of me enjoyed watching the effects of the wind and the niceness of Mark caring for River, cooking me dinner and making me hot chocolate. Another part thinks that lying there motionless, without even reading a book, is a supremely useless waste of time.

I’m trying to accept that this is just the reality, remember that it won’t last forever, and that this thing (it’s still a thing) growing instead me is currently taking up all my cellular energy. But another part of me is counting ahead. Is this going to put a damper on our upcoming trip to Spain and the four-day bike ride we have planned there? Will it be done by the end of June?

The positive side is that the increased symptoms, plus the normal hormonal blood work, make me think that perhaps things are progressing normally. In nine days I’ll find out if there is a heartbeat and then will have a more definitive answer.

Coming to grips

As far as I can tell, I’m still pregnant. But I’m no longer feeling the lovely dovey you are my baby thoughts that I experienced momentarily upon thinking I might be pregnant. I have to admit I’m afraid of miscarriage. Part of it is my prepare-for-the-worst nature. But another part is a disbelief that I could function this normally and be pregnant. An acquaintance had an easy 8 weeks, then miscarried. Now she is pregnant again and vomiting.

So I’m viewing the end of the eighth week as a certain marker. When I had a little brown spotting and was really freaking out, I composed a letter to the embryo in my head. I told it I hoped it was developing well and would join our family late this year. But that if it was having difficulty, it was be best for both of us if it left earlier rather than later. I gave it my blessing and understanding to let go.

Hearing a heartbeat will also be a marker that things are OK, which might be possible at my sonogram appointment in the next week or two.

Until then, I’m happy to hold on to a little secret. To know that I’m somehow different, even though I appear to be the same to people. I kind of plan based upon the impacts of pregnancy and a birth, but keep in mind that perhaps it won’t happen after all.

In the meantime, I view it as a seed, a rice kernel, a conglomeration of cells. It hasn’t taken on a human form to me yet. But it has already begun the process of impacting me and changing me.

Moving towards thoughts of positive

I’ve had several symptoms today. Some are hard to distinguish from the allergies, which have become suddenly horrible in the past two days. But the main symptoms are fatigue (I took a two hour nap and spent the rest of the late afternoon/evening in a daze) and sciatica in my legs, which I haven’t had since third trimester with River. I’m also having some cramping, which makes me thinks my period is coming, but some googling says it can be the uterus preparing space for a baby. So no clear answers yet, but I’m moving back towards thinking a positive is possible.