The first trimester was mostly a time of fear for me. After my miscarriage in November 05, I was so scared that it would happen again, and half expected it to. In a way I felt that my miscarriage had been punishment for my termination when I was 18 - and wondered if maybe I would never ever be blessed with a child, that all my pregnancy's would end in miscarriage.
My first milestone I wanted to pass was 5w4d, which was how far along I'd been when I miscarried. The morning of my 5w4d milestone, I had some faint spotting, of course I thought that was it, and I was on my way to another miscarriage - however there was no more spotting after the one episode first thing in the morning.
The next milestone I wanted to pass was 6w, because I know that a majority of miscarriages happen before 6w. 6 weeks passed easily... much to my surprise. Everyday was spent fearing going to the toilet, fearing seeing the first sign of spotting. But to my surprise I never had any further spotting.
Right from day one, I had very strong symptoms.....
- I first had morning/all day sickness when I was 3w4d pregnant - after dinner I suddenly felt nauseous and ended up vomitting. It was that, and the extreme tiredness I'd been feeling for the past 4 days, that seriously made me consider the fact I could be pregnant. My sickness ended up happening 2-5 x a day, until I was exactly 13w0d. I would have to vomit first thing in the morning - and god that hurt, nothing worse than vomitting when you have an empty stomach. I would then need to vomit immediately after dinner, which was a little better as I would generally have something in my stomach. Up until about 8 weeks I was vomitting 5x a day, but it slowed down after that.
- Fatigue - I had never really experienced fatigue before I got pregnant, but gosh, I sure learnt the meaning of it in the first trimester! On the days I wasn't working, I would be asleep on the couch by 11am, and then again by 4pm. For the first time in a few years, I was in bed well before 10.30 most nights, and would be asleep within 10 minutes. Prior to my pregnancy, I would be in bed around midnight, and awake until 1am, 2am - sometimes 3am reading, so it was quite the shock to my system!
- I was also introduced to heartburn, before I even got the positive pregnancy test, in that first trimester, Quick-Eze were my best friend, and I shudder to think how many packets I went through!
- I also had the usual pregnancy symptoms of sore breasts & frequent urination - I think it'd be a good idea to get shares in a toilet paper company, if you add together all the pregnant women in the world in any year, think of how many rolls of toilet paper they'd each go through - that's a lot of toilet paper, and a commodity that people are always going to need!
- For the first time in my life - I had no appetite! Pretty much from 4w0d, I had absolutely no appetite, I could barely stomach 1/4 of what I would usually eat - and nothing at all appealed to me. That made cooking dinner a hard task as well, if nothing appeals to you, the thought of cooking is even less appealing.
- Related to the lack of appetite, would be the sensitive sense of smell. The smell of meat made me hurl - I never realised meat HAD an odour until I got pregnant! The smell of mince was the worst, and still now, I feel a bit queasy when using mince. Mushrooms were another thing i couldn't stand the smell of - and usually they were one of my favourite foods!
- I had the odd craving in the 1st trimester as well - notably 4 punnets/containers of Strawberries in the space of about 36 hours.... Numerous glasses of ginger beer/ale each day... and Peanut Butter on toast - it was all I wanted from 4w0d-10w0d!
Even with my strong symptoms, I was still convinced I would miscarry. Everyday of my pregnancy that passed, I got a little more excited - but also a little more scared. With each day that passed, I could feel myself bonding a little more with the little life inside of me, and each day the thought of losing that little life scared me more and more. I knew it would break my heart if I lost my precious baby.
My next mini-milestone I set for myself, was to make it past 10w4d. 10w4d was the gestation at which I had my termination in 2001. I had a horrible feeling that karma would make me lose my baby on this day, a final kick in the guts. I woke up on the morning I was 10w4d & apprehensively went to the toilet, sure I would be met by spotting. But no! The rest of the day was spent with the same apprehension. But nothing happened. It was just another boring, tired, vomitty, heartburny, pee-ing, appetite-less day!
I had a midwife appointment at some stage during my 10th week of pregnancy, and my midwife gave me the necessary form, to be able to get an ultrasound. I rang up as soon as she's left, and booked in for April 4th at 11am. I would be 11w5d by then, and I knew I would be able to see my baby properly, see him/her moving around, see the heartbeat - and get some relief. That was if my baby was still alive. As soon as I had booked in for my scan, my anxiety level sky-rocketed, pretty much every minute of everyday after that, was spent over-analysing my pregnancy symptoms. I was so sure that I had lost my baby - that my scan would show a lifless little embryo.
The morning of April 4th, I drank the required litre of water, my sister & I drove to the ultrasound place, and after about 15 minutes, I was taken in. A sense of doom came over me, when I was taken into the same room that I was in on November 21st 2005 - when they confirmed I had miscarried. Up on the bed I lay with my fists clenched, not breathing - while the sonographer moved the wand around my belly to get the proper view of the uterus. The first thing I saw was a big empty space... my heart sunk. I'd miscarried... "That's your bladder! Very full indeed" the sonographer exlcaimed. Bladder? Phew! The next thing I saw, is something that makes me cry to this very day. I am crying as I write this...
I saw my precious, precious baby for the very first time. I got my first glimpse at the life that was inside of me. It was beautiful. My precious, beautiful, amazing baby was wiggling around like a little worm - waving arms and legs in the 'air', moving their whole body in jerky movements. My baby was very much alive. Such a beautiful, overwhelming, joyous thing to know. The baby's heartbeat was beating at 164bpm - very strong! Looking at my gorgeous baby, I couldn't help but wonder "are you a boy or a girl?" "do you look like me or your Daddy?". These thoughts were of course happening while I was silently bawling my eyes out, with relief. After about 10 minutes the scan was over, and I was glowing after seeing my precious for the first time. I went into the toilet to finally empty my bladder - and feeling extremely overwhelmed, I burst into tears. Huge, body shaking tears. I had not realised just how scared I had been about the scan. And the irony didn't fail to escape me - just 4 1/2 months earlier, I had been in that same toilet, crying huge, body shaking tears - of grief, at the loss of my 2nd baby.
The scan showed everything was normal, the only unexpected result was that I was a week further than I thought I was. I went into the scan 11w5d, and came out of it 12w5d! It excited me to realise that I was past that infamous 12w mark - and that my risk of miscarriage had dropped significantly!
The following day I went and got the disc of ultrasound photos, and cried all over again when I looked at them. It was such a beautiful experience, being able to look at my baby again - and being able to show my family & friend pictures of MY baby....
Suddenly the pregnancy was a lot more real!
No comments:
Post a Comment