Pages

Thursday, September 18, 2008

No complaining

When I got pregnant with Zari, I vowed not to complain about being pregnant. We had tried for years to have children, even going through IVF once, unsuccessfully. I had a very easy pregnancy, so it wasn't hard to keep my resolve to stay positive.

This time around has been a bit more difficult. I feel dizzy and woozy all the time, as if I've been fasting for a long time. I have a constant feeling of hunger & low blood sugar, but at the same time the thought of food makes me feel icky. Food doesn't taste good when I eat it. And no matter when or how much I eat, I always feel faint and weak. And I get tired fairly easily. Yay for being pregnant! I don't remember having these sensations last time around. Thing is, it's still fairly mild. I haven't ever thrown up. I'm not debilitated. Just a little bit under the weather.

I have found that I feel better on days that I exercise, especially if it's right away in the morning. I go to the gym at least 3x/week and do 30 minutes of elliptical and 10 minutes of rowing. I've tried going every day during the week, but I am just too tired at this point to go every day.

Besides the "morning sickness" (I guess that's what you'd call it?), it hasn't really sunk in that I'm pregnant. When people ask me how I'm doing, I have to stop for a few seconds and figure out what they mean. Oh yeah, I'm pregnant. Kind of forgot.

20 comments:

  1. !!! Congratulations!

    Could the wooziness be low iron? Maybe Floradix could help? (although I couldn't stomach supplements early in my pregnancy.)

    I'm so excited to read about your second pregnancy and birth. We have been thinking about baby #2 but have our hands plenty full with baby #1.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry to hear that you are feeling poorly. Maybe taking the suppliments in the night instead of the morning would help. I found that showering made me sick. So I started showering at night.

    I hope you are feeling better soon.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I had the same symptoms from 5 weeks on, and it turned into hyperemesis after 6 weeks. At my first ER trip, 7 weeks, my sodium and potassium were both low from not eating much. The only thing that helped me was Vistaril, and Rainbow Light Prenatal vitamins. Actually I didn't start taking the vitamins until 20 weeks because I was afraid I would get sick from them, but it really did decrease the nausea and vomiting.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I use Rainbow Light vitamins and I haven't noticed that they make me feel bad at all. I also take fish oil capsules when I take my vitamins. I know I'm not eating enough, but I really am trying to eat whatever and whenever I can.

    Don't know about my iron. I've never had problems with low iron in the past, but it would be something to rule out. I wish there were a way to check it without having to go through the rigamarole of finding a family doctor and then having a visit and then going to the hospital for a blood draw. I just need to find someone with one of those portable hemoglobinometers! Like a home birth midwife! LOL

    ReplyDelete
  5. are you in the US? any health department will do an iron check. call ahead to your county health department and ask them for a time slot to get you iron checked. it's easy! i did it a few days after rome was born. it was free.

    tabitha not karl

    ReplyDelete
  6. That all sounds familiar with my first.

    and with both babies immediately after getting the positive pregnancy test, i would get incredibly sick with vomiting and diahhrea for about 3 days. then i'd be fine. no clue why.
    with roan i had no nausea the rest of the pregnancy, just "wooziness" and that faint feeling for the first trimester. i know i wasn't eating enough, and not drinking enough water. i also have premature atrial contractions, (funny heartbeat) so every now and then my bpm would shoot up to 140 for about 5 minutes, then go back down.

    crazy.
    with willem i was eating so much because of breastfeeding that i never had a time that i got nauseated!


    how does it feel to get pregnant, after trying so hard the first time? was this a "not trying, not preventing" kind of thing? or are you completely surprised? =)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Rixa, I wouldn't worry at this point about not eating enough, except for the part about feeling yucky if you do, yucky if you don't. I swear I hardly ate anything for 6 or 7 weeks with Rachel, and then made up for lost time once the nausea went away. I felt horrible all the time, but even worse after I ate, so I'd put it off for as long as possible. Ugh! I hope you start feeling better soon.

    ReplyDelete
  8. 2 words- cheese toast
    2 more- french fries

    ReplyDelete
  9. I found that during my 2nd pregnancy I was more prone to that weak/tired feeling than anything else. It does get a bit better for while, though, lol but I guess you know that doesn't really last.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Oh congratulations!!! I hadn't seen that you are expecting again. How exciting!!!

    I won't bombard you with suggestions, just one. ;) Chlorophyll can help a bit with the wooziness and fatigue.

    Congrats again, and I hope you start feeling back to normal again! :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. Congratulations, Rixa (& Eric)! I o find hadn't checked your blog for so long and something made me go there today? I'm so happy I did and so happy for your family!! As for the sickness, good luck! I never seemed to find anything that helped : ( I had it with the first and third for the entire first 6 months (both boys BTW)!!! My middle (the girl) was kinder and I had barely any sickness.

    Again, congrats and send our (Amie & Phillip, former Eurekans)best to Eric.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Each of my pregancies got worse with the nausea.
    Could you have low blood pressure?
    I highly recommend TOronto's "MotherRIsk" at Sick Kids (they do phone consults). They gave me MANY suggestions for how to get food down when I didn't want to eat, and other ideas, like increasing B6, potassium, and zinc. Even the suggestion of having my water icy slushy cold was helpful.
    Before you know it, you'll be on to the next stage :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. That sounds a lot like how I felt during the first 10 weeks or so of my pregnancy (this is my first). And the fatigue was intense. I hardly exercised because it was all I could do to make it thru work and then home to crash.

    I finally started to get some energy back in the last couple of weeks and then I caught a cold. *sigh* I hope to be back at the gym next week.

    Hope you feel better soon.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Thanks everyone for your suggestions! Like I said, it's really not that bad overall. I *can* eat, it just is icky to do so. It's more the never ending feeling of constant (mild) nausea/queasiness that's hard to deal with. Bleh.

    We were really hoping to be pregnant again, once my cycles returned at 17 months postpartum. This last cycle was the first time that we really tried (you with children know how...ahem...little action goes on at times! LOL).

    ReplyDelete
  15. What exciting news! I love coming to your blog and today even more because I get to see that you are having #2! Congrats to you, E and Z! So happy for you that this one came so quickly. I'm sorry you are feeling crummy though, this is how I felt with #2 and ended up stopping BFing my toddler because I felt so motion sink every time I nursed (she seemed to be fine with weening though). Just a suggestion-early morning walks helped me...fresh and misty and very early before I had a chance to start feeling sick...just a thought. Also, having protein first thing in the morning after my walk...like cottage cheese or dry toast with cheve or a nut butter...then later I worked up to having a egg with toast at 5months. Different things work for different women though, the thought of cheese in the morn. could be hard to handle =) I had a hard time with cooking for my 2 year old-even opening the fridge would be too much somedays...so she had oatmeal for many meals during early preg. I'm she you're figuring things that work for you. I'm happy you are blessed with growing another little child. All good thoughts your way...

    ReplyDelete
  16. Yay, congrats! Great minds think alike. =)

    ReplyDelete
  17. fwiw, if it did get worse, or if you wanted to give it a shot, i found the unisom + b6 trick to be a godsend when i was pregnant. i took 1/4 or 1/2 a tablet of unisom and it made the nausea go away. i still didn't feel like eating (lost 5 lbs in first tri) but wasn't suck. hopefully you won't need that! i'm so glad you were able to get pregnant easily this time around!

    This is Lauren, not Brian (my husband).

    ReplyDelete
  18. Congratulations Rixa and Eric! Though not on the queasy awful feeling (i'm not a fan, and I must say I didn't do a great job of not complaining, especially with my last one). I hope it passes quickly. Two things that helped me were fresh air (though I often did not want ot drag myself off the couch) and the smell of a fresh-cut meon was always one I liked even when i found the smell of pasta nauseating.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Sorry, that was a fresh cut lemon.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Exercising-walking or jogging-was the only thing that helped my nausea, which came on every day at 4pm precisely (is that "morning" sickness?). It was very counter-intuitive because all I felt like doing was lying down. Exercise helped improve my appetite and my sleeping, too.

    ReplyDelete