Done Worse

Many of you have responded to our announcement by asking me how I’m feeling. I’m feeling really well actually. Mike on the other hand, seems to be more tired than usual, but they say pregnancy effects everyone differently.

I would be lying if I said this has all been easy, or that I haven’t had periods where I felt like absolute crap, but overall, I’d give it a thumbs up.

I realize, however, that will not be enough detail for many of you- hey I myself like the data- so I’ll step back and give you more info:

First off, we started suspect that something was in the works while in Bali since I was supposed to get my period and I didn’t. Now mind you, Bali is a looooooooong way away, and we had a rather active vacation, including a ropes course (Amanda, never again will I listen when you tell me ‘oh it’s just zip lines’. Uh-huh, right), hiking through rice patties, biking down a mountain, swimming in the beautiful pool at the hotel and walking around in general. So when I was late, I thought, okay either the fertility Gods are smiling upon us, or my body is rebelling from time zones and more upper body exertion than I was created to do 30 feet in the air. Did I mention I’m afraid of heights? Checking for which scenario was correct in Bali wasn’t really an option I was ready to explore, so we waited until we got home.

On Dec 24th we went to the local pharmacy and got 2 pregnancy tests from 2 different manufactures- hey if you want good data you need independent tests, right? right- and I got to start the first in a continuing process of me trying to aim while peeing on/in things. Let’s just say it’s not an innate skill. We carefully read the instructions in our jetlagged state and saw that it could take up to 5 minutes. Well when 2 plus signs came up within about 15 seconds I felt confident this had nothing to do with me getting over my fear of heights by crawling over ropes 30 feet in the air or zipping down a mountain on a cheap Chinese bike. This was the real deal.

After returning from the X-mas holidays we started calling all the relevant docs. I don’t want to go into any specific health things here since this is a public site, but trust me, everything and all things that need to be tested have been tested. I’ve done lots of blood work- the phlebotomist looked at me the first time I went in and asked me if my doc hated me. I said ‘no, why?’ and then he proceeded to take out about 20 different rainbow colored vials to fill with my blood. He then asked if I needed to do the testing in 2 sittings- I agree it looked dramatic, but it’s not like they were a liter each. I’m happy to say I did it all in one – they’ve tested my urine- damn you stupid little specimin cups of despair!- they’ve tested blood pressure, they’ve weighed me, they’ve questioned me extensively on my family genetics, Mike’s family genetics, what we eat and drink and any meds we take. So no one needs to worry that anything may be going uncovered. It’s not. And the good news is that all of those tests indicate that everything looks good. So no worries there either.

Does that mean every moment has been blissful? No, I would definitely NOT say that. I had some nausea and generally felt like crap in the beginning. I puked a total of 4 times- 3 times occurred after I’d eaten sweet potatoes. I am no longer considering the sweet potato in the ‘friend’ category, but I’m hoping we can make up when this whole thing is over. I’ve also been more tired than usual, my hair is turning curly again, I have to eat about every hour, I always have to pee, and I have had moments where I’m getting the dreaded hormone rages- something neither Mike nor I really enjoy. Pretty much standard stuff.