Month Two of Pregnancy – The Month I Felt Like Death Walking

“I do not remember feeling like this last time I was pregnant.” “I don’t remember wishing I were dead when I was pregnant with Moanna.” “I now understand why some woman hate being pregnant.”

That about sums up my second month of pregnancy… and part of the third…

When I was pregnant with Moanna, I loved nearly every second of it. I had my moments of feeling like I was going to hurl, and waking up every five minutes to pee got old, but other than that I felt great. All of the aches and pains I that frequented my body disappeared. After the first trimester narcolepsy wore off, I had more energy then I knew what to do with. It wasn’t until the day before my water broke that I came home from work, looked at Steve and said “I’m over this. She needs to be evicted!” before I threw myself on the bed in a pregnancy fit. Steve responded with something lie, “Finally. I was worried you’d never want he to come out because you like being pregnant so much.”

This pregnancy, I’m not so in love with pregnancy – at least not yet. No, this time, I spend a lot of time praying for the pregnancy to breeze on by so that I can stop cursing my husband’s super sperm for getting me pregnant on round one. I know that one of the beautiful things about pregnancy and childbirth is that magical hormones block our memory of the bad things pregnancy can bring to our bodies and the pain of labor (It’s all lies, but it sounds good), but I swear to  you I did not go through these kinds of symptoms with Moanna. I pinky toe promise!

With Moanna I had spent a good amount of time during my first trimester gagging. I spent a lot of time gagging especially when people were playing with raw meat in culinary class or at work. However, I rarely felt nauseous; I just had an over active gag reflex. If I got too hungry, things got a little iffy, but I never threw up. This pregnancy, not only do I gag a lot, but I also feel like I’m going to puke all the time. If I’m hungry I feel gross; if I eat I feel gross; if I walk into my kitchen I feel gross. I lived off of pretzels for a few weeks. I even threw up a couple of weeks ago. I was trying to swallow a couple of Tylenol for the unbelievable headache (we’ll get to that in just  sec) that wouldn’t give up, I started to gag and couldn’t keep it together and my entire lunch came up with the Tylenol.

Let’s talk about the headaches. Oh my sweet potatoes, the headaches. Before I officially knew that I was pregnant I woke up with a  migraine that made me wish someone would put me out of my misery. Light, movement, sound, all misery. With Moanna, I never had a single headache, so I didn’t put two and two together. However, after I knew I was pregnant the headaches and migraines kept coming. I would wake up in the morning feeling like someone was stabbing me in the forehead. After a few hours, the headache would ware off only to return in the late afternoon with renewed determination to make me wish the knife in my skull were real. Tylenol wasn’t very effective, so I would take a nap in hopes of sleeping off the headache. How-flipping-ever the headache would be 539 times worse when I woke up. I started to realize that laying down created headaches, so when I had no choice but to give into sleep, I’d have to sleep sitting up. This went on for weeks and weeks and weeks, and sometimes I still get a killer headache. Just when I think Deuce has outgrown the, “giving Mommy headaches” phase, I get knocked on the ground with another headache.

Here’s a pregnancy symptom you don’t come across often (if ever) especially in the early months. Lower leg, foot and toe pain. Toe pain. Really!? Toe pain!? Excruciating, unbearable, out of this world, an elephant stepping on my foot would hurt less pain. I’m not joking. I have no idea where the pain came from or why it’s choice, and I’m hoping it has moved on to torture some other expecting mother to be. Although, I really hope you don’t have to suffer this way ever.

There was a preiod of a week or two where the pregnancy symptoms (minus the toe pain) went away. Instead of jumping for joy, I started to stress that something may be wrong with Deuce and that’s why the symptoms had left town. I should have been grateful. I should have taken the opportunity put my house back together. I should have stocked my freezer with a lot of frozen casseroles. I should have done a lot of things. Instead, my aching toes and I worried that we were in trouble. Talking to the midwife, and seeing Deuce and hearing the heart beat brought great relief to my stress level. However, the very next day the knife in my skull returned, my desire to puke returned and the toes kept on a hurtin’. That’s what I get for saying to  the midwife, “All of my first trimester symptoms are gone.”

Someone out there who has never had a rough first trimester is going, “This woman doesn’t deserve to be pregnant with an attitude like that.” That someone probably has never been pregnant, and probably doesn’t’ want kids because she’s afraid of what pregnancy will do to her body. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the beautiful prepgnacy pains. I’d rather have them than not have Deuce growing inside me and putting me through sweet misery. Gratitude aside, I’m so over the first trimester and so ready to love being pregnant the way I loved it before.

PS. Steve is convinced that this kind of misery can only be brought on by a Boy Deuce… I’m not convinced he’s right. I haven’t gotten any strong boy or girl vibes yet.

PPS. or is it PSS? I can’t remember. Anyhow… I’m aware that I JUST used the picture for this post a week ago, but I didn’t have a picture to go with the post. Not about to post a picture of me looking like death, not this early in the game. Instead, I thought we could all “ohh and ahh” over a cute ultrasound again. Plus, it was taken at the beginning of month
two.

Month 1
We’re Having a Baby!

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