Pregnancy is Weird

Warning, TMI ahead!

I did a lot of research on getting pregnant, really a lot. I am now an expert on my cycle and ovulation. I didn’t want to read too much about pregnancy before hand, mostly because there’s a lot about pregnancy I still don’t want to know, but I’ve still researched a bit and knew basics on nutrition, exercise, doctor visits, etc. Once I found out I was pregnant, I immediately began reading everything I could on the first trimester. Here are the list of things I’ve learned through my experiences so far that surprised me the most:

You are two weeks along before you’re even pregnant. Because they start counting weeks from the date of your last period and you normally ovulate about 2 weeks after your period, by the time sperm meets egg, your baby is already 2 weeks. <– This is really stupid for two reasons. 1: Your period does not dictate your ovulation date. The cycle before my last one, I ovulated on day 23. The cycle we conceived it was day 16. If I had ovulated on day 23 of this cycle, going by this stupid method, everything would have been off by a week. 2: The baby doesn’t exist before conception, it just doesn’t.

Aversions. We all know about food cravings and aversions, I just didn’t realize how strong the aversions would be and how early on. I really love food, like it’s my favorite. All the food. Eating, starting around week 6 has been very difficult. I bought these brown rice crackers because I thought they would be great for morning sickness. They were really yummy in week 5, couldn’t even look at them in week 6. I love dried cranberries – can’t even think about dried cranberries without feeling sick. I keep forcing myself to eat salads. Most surprising – I don’t want sweets! What??? They make me sick. Even sweet potato stuffed pasta :( I am loving carrots, milk, veggie sushi, ginger salad dressing, fruit, oatmeal, and basically anything Bryan cooks. Eating out has been a challenge as most restaurant food is heavy and doesn’t agree with me.

Diarrhea – ’nuff said.

Cramps. I was expecting nausea and heartburn, but not the scary cramps! My doctor as well as Doctor Google says cramps are completely normal. They’re not very painful, but they do feel like your period’s coming which is terrifying when you’re scared to death of seeing blood when you go to the bathroom.

Miscarriages are so common! And there’s nothing you can do to prevent them really because the majority are due to chromosomal defects. As high as 75% chance of a miscarriage before a pregnancy is detected/missed period. Chemical pregnancies, a miscarriage before week 6 happens in about 25-30% of pregnancies. Once you hear the baby’s heartbeat (6-8 weeks), the chance of miscarriage greatly decreases to about 3%. Miscarriages after 12 weeks is much less common which is why folks usually wait until the second trimester to announce their pregnancies. Yes, I read a lot about miscarriages, but mostly because I found the statistics comforting – at any point after the 4 weeks, it was more likely to stick than not and the odds increased every day.

Oh the anxiety. I’m a control freak, so having no control over what’s going on in my body has been driving me mad. I haven’t had many mood swings, unusual for me actually, but I’ve been ten times more anxious than normal and I’m normally a pretty anxious person. Driving is so much scarier. So is Toastmasters. I haven’t been good about going to Toastmasters.

You can’t eat smoked salmon – had no idea.

Peeing a lot starts early. This was actually my first sign I was pregnant. I went off the pill last April and it took six months for me to get my period back and even then, I had a short luteal phase, not good for baby making because the egg needs time to implant. My period had been showing up on day 10-11 of my cycle and when my period didn’t come by day 13, I figured my luteal phase was just getting back to normal after the pill. Then I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and, by golly, I peed a lot. I thought, yeah, I’m totally pregnant. My positive test in the morning confirmed it.