Cliche but true, I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. It’s the cost I must pay to be the mama boss, but it doesn’t make me any less (yawn) tired. Almost 14 weeks in, & I can barely keep my eyelids from shutting for a 12-hour stint. I’m lucky to be staying at-home now because I couldn’t do it otherwise.
In fact, this overwhelming sense of tired was one of my first clues that I was pregnant. My partner was having sympathy narcolepsy, too. I knew exactly why he kept crashing in the middle of the day, but it was hard to deliver the news. I didn’t want to excite him for no reason; I wanted to wait until results were firm.
I have also suffered from nausea so awful that I lost ten pounds during the first several weeks. My saving grace was that I had bouts of ravenous hunger, usually from Thursday through Sunday. By Monday, I couldn’t look at food again without a bathroom visit.
Finally, in week 12, I swapped nausea for heartburn. Although the condition is no fun, it is the lesser of the evils, & it keeps me from stuffing myself into a tizzy, which is a bonus for my waistline.
The rule for me this time is: I will not be 175+ pounds with this baby. I just cannot afford to “eat for two.” I am not in my twenties anymore, & I worked very hard to get the toned body I had pre-pregnancy; my body is a lot more stubborn now that I’m over 35. Although I love to hike, I have only seen a mountain three times since week 4. I have been too tired and too sick. Since the nausea/vomiting subsided though, I’ve been able to push myself. It also helped that my uterus moved upward, so I don’t feel like I’m lugging a bowling ball. That feeling will return around week 30, if the past is any teacher. I also wanted to be certain that my son (wishful thinking only as of today) was firmly planted and going nowhere before I started trudging up the Santa Monica Mountains again.
Of the most important lessons I’m learning is: eat! When I don’t have breakfast or at least a snack, I turn into a witch. It took me a second to understand the effect of not eating because I was used to skipping breakfast before pregnancy. Now, I can literally feel the evil coming on if I don’t eat for more than three hours after I awake. Tempt® Hemp Milk helped my nausea tremendously, & it has been helping with morning nutrition during times when I don’t quite feel like consuming a meal yet. It’s not usually for want of a meal but for want of a specific meal. If I let my fantasies fester for too long, nausea kicks back in; then heartburn shows up for the party. And having both at the same time is harrowing, at best. Alright, it’s 10am now, & I’ve slept long enough (but is there really such a thing?), so the time is ripe for spinach, cheese, & Tabasco® sauce, my morning cravings.
Soul Mothers 