Bethanyology

Now we know a possible reason for my weight plateau.  Yes, I am pregnant!  I found out and we announced it to the family on Saturday.  I’m only six weeks along, and it’s “traditional” to wait to tell everyone until you hit 12 weeks or so, but I’m not good at keeping secrets about myself.  Besides, the flu-like symptoms that convinced me to take the pregnancy test in the first place are likely to get much worse in the near future if my history is any indicator, and moving while exhausted and sick and trying to hide it from everyone just takes too much energy.  I’m not much of a trooper when it comes to all-day morning sickness and I’m going to need lots of help!  So, we decided to just get the announcement over with.

Am I excited?  Yes and no.  I love my babies, and they are definitely worth the process, and it will be great to have a third. Challenging, but great.  I don’t think I really get baby hungry like some women do, but my children bring me a huge amount of joy.  I’m excited to see if it’s a boy or a girl (maybe we’ll make it a surprise this time!)–Colin and I think it’s a boy.  I’m excited to get out those sweet little baby clothes and toys.  I’m excited to see another little personality develop and grow. I’m excited that we’ll be geographically closer to family with this one.

But I HATE being pregnant.  Maybe this pregnancy will be different and I won’t have as much trouble, but during my last two I got really, really sick.  Besides being so tired that I can hardly get off the couch most of the time, I was so nauseous and threw up so much that I couldn’t eat much of the time.  With Degen I lost 25 pounds in the first trimester and with Maggie I lost 10 pounds.  When you’re not pregnant, that sounds like a great thing, but losing weight during a pregnancy when you’re supposed to be gaining is pretty scary.  Maggie’s wasn’t as bad because I knew what medicine I could take that would help, and I got it earlier in the pregnancy.  At the time the medicine cost about $5/pill (with insurance!), and I had to take 1-2 pills every day.  I’m excited to learn that it has a generic now, so the cost should be manageable this time around. But  the next six weeks (I don’t start taking the meds until the first trimester is done) of throwing up while packing, moving, road tripping cross-country, unpacking, and living in someone else’s house is going to be a challenge to say the least.

Besides the morning sickness, last time around I had gestational diabetes, which means I’ll probably have it again (especially since I didn’t manage to get down to a “healthy weight” before beginning this pregnancy).  Gestational diabetes, like any other diabetes, is a pain in the neck.  Last time I opted for insulin injections because the pills just made me more sick, and that part wasn’t too bad.  And I’ve been on my gestational diabetes diet for a couple of months now, so I’m pretty much used to it, though trying to stick with it while battling morning sickness may not work.  Maybe, maybe it won’t be so hard to deal with this time around. At least I’ll have good health insurance!

I’m a little nervous about finding a new doctor when we move.  I didn’t love the OB/GYN I found here that much, but now I get to start the process all over in California.  I LOVE my Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM), Kathryn Hardy, in Utah.  She was so respectful, understanding, and good at explaining things to me.  During labor itself (in the hospital, with backup doctors steps away in case of emergency C-section stuff), she was perfectly encouraging, positive, attentive, and had magical pain-relieving techniques.  How will I find another doctor as good as she is?  I’m hopeful that the wide selection and general hippie-ness of California will yield someone who does my style of pregnancy care.

There’s my exciting news, and my anticipatory panic at what may be coming with my pregnancy.  At the moment I’m “just” really tired, and mildly-to-moderately nauseous about 70% of the time, no vomitting.  So, this may be as bad as it gets.  Writing about it seems to make it not such a big deal in my head, so thanks for letting me vent.

Tags: morning sickness, pregnancy