Week 7

Oh nausea... there you are...

Well, it's a bit early, but not statistically outlying early, just on the early side of the normal range. Nausea. Lots of it. Lasting all day, and into the night.

But no vomiting. So that's sort of a plus...

Sort of.

It's all relative, and some women have it wayyyyy worse that I do. I know that.

But that doesn't make feeling nauseous and exhausted all day feel any better. Head gets it, head feels very badly for those women who have it worse than we do. Body says, "Fuck off head. You can take your logic and shove it somewhere uncomfortable. We're too busy feeling like a giant pile of three week old cow shit to care about your logic. Pass me the ginger ale and saltines before I throw up on your face."

Body wins (in a completely shitty, non-victorious fashion) for the foreseeable future.

And the bump is still non-existent despite all the nausea and gas... so much freaking gas...

Week 6

Holy exhaustion batman! What the hell happened to my energy? I just got up, ate breakfast, and took a fucking nap, because I had no choice. What is wrong with me?

Oh right, I'm creating another human from scratch. Guess that takes a lot out of a person...

So, yeah. This part is hard. Luckily I'm not feeling nauseous yet, but damn this fatigue is all consuming I don't feel like I can do much. Writing is a struggle. Thinking is a struggle. Doing much beyond reading, eating, and sleeping is a struggle.

And my boobs are still sore.

And I still feel crampy!! WTF body? I thought the benefit of not getting one's period for nine months was not getting cramps. I want my money back.

Week 6 bump pic. Pretty much the same as last week but maybe slightly more gassy. Oy vey!

Week 5

HOLY SHIT THAT LINE IS DARK!

That's right, I waited so long to test that my test line was darker than my control line. 

Many women these days test so early that their pregnancy lines are just faint traces and they post them on pregnancy forums to get a second opinion as to whether or not there's a line there at all. I've seen many of these posts, so I was pretty surprised by how dark this line was. This line was not messing around. That was a blazing YOU'RE PREGNANT! I'd waited until 17 dpo just to be sure and the result was that there was no questioning that positive. Crazy town. We'd gotten it on our first try...

Now what?

Ha! Excellent question. Luckily with the internet these days, there's lots of information to go around. Just to be sure though, I scheduled an appointment with my family doctor. The folks at her office were awesome and scheduled me right away. I took the test on the Monday and was seen on the Friday of that same week. My doc gave me requisitions for a bunch of blood work and we were off.

None of this feels real at all yet. So I peed on a stick and it claimed I was pregnant? So what? Anything could still go wrong. One in five pregnancies end in early miscarriage. There's a 20% chance it could all go away. And it's not like you can tell anyone yet... 

Actually YOU can tell anyone you want to. And you should. I really feel like we should be more matter of fact about miscarriage and how frequently it happens. But in those first weeks I felt like I was making it all up and I didn't want to tell anyone yet. It felt... fake. I told one person aside from my husband. 

But I did take my first bump photo, even though I didn't have a bump. It was a point of reference. And I knew that if this pregnancy worked out I would want to document how my body was changing. So, I unabashedly share it with you here:

5 weeks pregnant in this picture which means it's the end of week 5 start of week 6. I basically look exactly the same as I usually do, but with a bit of bloating from gas. Oh yeah, I admitted that on the internet. What of it?

Week 4

The hardest week of waiting. More of the insecurity of last week but biding my time until I can take a pregnancy test reliably. Many women spend this entire week peeing on multiple sticks per day. I decided I only wanted to pee on one stick and be done with it so I waited until a few days after when my period should have come. That means I didn't test until week 5. I've been told that I am some kind of super human for being able to resist the allure of urinating on small strips of chemical laden cotton wrapped in plastic, but I think this might be where not particularly wanting kids come in handy. I was damned curious, but if it didn't work I wasn't going to be crushed. I was ok with giving mother nature time to tell me herself via bleeding and cramps (ie the old fashioned way). I waited. And waited. And waited.

I had sore boobs, and was very tired (probably noticeably more tired than normal PMS) but I was convinced my body was playing tricks on me and that I wasn't pregnant. ESPECIALLY because I was feeling crampy and in my mind that meant I was getting my period. Silly Virginia...

I'll tell you all about it in week 5 'cause that's when it happened.

In the meantime I distracted myself with long walks by the river and dragon slippers.

Week 3

Holy crap! I'm pregnant! But I don't know that yet... shhh... It's a bit strange writing these after the fact.

That's ok though, this was a strange week. Basically, I knew I might be pregnant (because charting had showed that I had ovulated when I thought I was going to and we had made use of fertile cervical fluid--if you don't know what that is read TCOYF) so if all had gone well, I was pregnant. But it was way too early for most symptoms, and the symptoms that might be present were.... wait for it... IDENTICAL to PMS symptoms!!

That's right. This week and next week are the weeks of insanity. My boobs feel a bit sore, is that pregnancy or PMS? I'm feeling a bit crampy. Is that implantation or PMS? I'm super tired this week. Pregnancy or PMS?

Well, this time it was pregnancy, but I'll be damned if it felt noticably different from PMS.

The cramps, especially, threw me. I felt implantation cramps at six DPO (days past ovulation for the newbies) and I was sure I was about to get my period. HA!

Artemis is staying in close range for snuggles... can she tell that I'm pregnant or is she just happy that we're back from holiday travels?