On the road to parenthood: the first trimester
October 13, 2014
Food was a problem.
PiC is the saint of making food happen, though. He offered me meal option after meal option, my revulsion scratching things off the menu faster than he could finish the words. I was so hungry I could have cried; it felt like I was going to starve every day because Little Bean only let me eat and keep down one meal a day. Couldn’t repeat meals either so leftovers were right out. Fun game.
My blood, the traitor, revealed my glucose to be a touch on the high side; diabetes is a worry because it’s in the family history too (I have a crap family medical history). You know what’s super fun? A 3 hour glucose test. That means: Drink 100 ml of artificially sweetened clear liquid in less than 5 minutes. Gag. Desperately try not to gag because next is retching and next is throwing up which means starting the test all the hell over.
Get jabbed in the arm, blood draw 1.
Wait an hour. Get jabbed in the arm, blood draw 2. Be stupid and choose to use the same arm which hasn’t fully healed yet so get alcohol swabbed on an open wound. FRAK.
Wait an hour. Try to work, give up three times because thinking, breathing and moving are all vomit-inducing. The front desk says don’t throw up, you’ll have to start over. Switch frakking arms, blood draw 3.
Wait an hour. Nap a while taking up a whole row of chairs not giving a damn who looks at me sideways. Try to walk off the nausea. Switch arms again, last blood draw! Get the hell out of there.
I’ve been told very sternly by about seven people NO SUSHI as if I had Sushi Fiend written across my forehead. (It is. I’ve been craving sushi with clawing madness for weeks. Being told “no” helps exactly zero.)
I’m also constantly being told not to gain more than 25 pounds, about one third of that per trimester, during the whole term. First, I barely eat for one, forget for two. Second, why do people who know me think I’d be trying to gain more than I have to? It’s a weird thing.
Theme: “If YOU want to survive, you have to let ME survive.” Turns out that eating, sleeping more than a couple hours, and breathing are all difficult. This is completely counterintuitive and inefficient!
I’d been warned years ago about fatigue. In some ways, the fibro fatigue prepared me for the feeling of utter uselessness when I can’t even lift a limb. Doesn’t make it easier, nor does it make leaning on PiC so heavily easier, but at least it wasn’t a shock.
Having wavered between having to watch my words with everyone and being pretty nervous that this would all come to tears, I find myself wishing to fast forward a few months so I’d know what happens and so that I could actually TELL someone.
I hope you passed you GD test! I fainted all over the reception desk during my second test a few weeks ago.
Also, check out the book Expecting Better – she details the whys behind the “no sushi” rule and other stuff, and a lot of it is actually OK for pregnant women. I would avoid tuna because of mercury but I will eat other sushi while pregnant, no problem. And I have had caffeine and soft cheese and lots of other no-nos. No alcohol this time around but that’s more because the thought turns my stomach.
Glad to hear it. I mean I’m pretty clueless about it all but I just feel that blanket rules are generally BS. I don’t think I could keep away from sushi or soft cheese for 9 months.
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NZ: Some can be BS. Just up to you which risks you are comfortable with taking (seriously, no judgment on my part); I know there are people who do just fine after eating from the no-no list, and I have accidentally as well but given how much I then worry over it, it’s just easier for me to not do it for a few months and eat my heart out later.
I passed the first one! They’re still making me do a second one later though 🙁 Grrr family history.
What made you pass out??
I would probably eat sushi if I really trusted they had reputable suppliers but I’ve seen too many restaurants with less than stellar food prep and storage practices so it’s not really worth it, I’ll give myself heartburn worrying if that one place had whatever-bacteria. I have the rest of my life to eat as much as I can … afford 🙂
I guess it was just the sugar crash – I have a history of fainting from low blood sugar and I was afraid it would happen. With my first test, I had the anatomy scan between drinking the drink and having my blood drawn, so I was laying down and excited to be learning the gender and seeing the baby. With the second, I just got to go out to the waiting area and think about how crappy I felt. 🙂
One of the things I really liked about Expecting Better was how she broke down the risks. Like, risk of salmonella/e.coli/listeria poisoning – is it actually worse during pregnancy than other times? Turns out Listeria poisoning really is (so no turkey sandwiches) but salmonella and e.coli don’t pose additional risks to the mother or baby, so sushi is actually okay. She also pointed out that the last several major listeria recalls have been for foods that were NOT on the banned list (cantalope, peanut butter, etc). And the soft cheese rule is for UNPASTEURIZED cheese – pasteurized soft cheese is fine. I guess pregnant women are too stupid to read labels or something. Basically, most of the precautions boil down to the fact that pregnant women have compromised immune systems, but not all of these bacteria actually pose more risk during pregnancy. I find that type of information more useful than a blanket “avoid this entire food group” rule, which seems paternalistic and unfair.
I also keep in mind what happened with my first pregnancy – I was unaware of it until 20 weeks and committed a LOT of pregnancy faux pas. Pickle’s early birth was completely unrelated to any of that, so I know that the real risks of many of these things are overstated. Riding in a car while pregnant is more dangerous than eating a turkey sandwich with a side of california roll and raw cookie dough for dessert, and I do that multiple times a day without a thought – so I don’t make myself crazy over what I eat.
Now that I’m in the third trimester, I just wish I could eat anything without getting heartburn!
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I really really HATE the weight thing. I ate well, walked a lot, and still gained 55 lbs. WTF. Your body does what it will do. I was constantly cautioned about gaining too much, couldn’t help it.
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Yeah it really does do whatever the heck! I know they mean well but c’mon, we ARE doing the best we can.
And I think unless you clearly have a weight problem, have other health risks, etc, I really don’t understand why there is such a focus. If you have good blood pressure and are not having massive spikes in weight or anything, and good blood sugar…. WHY DO YOU FOCUS ON IT. So much of pregnancy is 100% out of our control, and then to be like “You really need to not gain anymore weight.” WELL SURE, if I could stop that I would, kthanks.
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Hope everything goes well! We are actually using IVF and after Monday’s egg/sperm collection we heard today that we have 4 embryos. Saturday will be implant day…
Thank you and best of luck to you both as well! My fingers are crossed for a smooth process for you.
Congratulations Revanche & I hope the second GD test is clear too. They really suck.
I was tempted to be very cavalier about cheese while pregnant, until Whitestone blue (one of my favourites) had a listeria contamination incident. That upped my caution significantly.
I ended up making my own chicken, prawn & vegetable sushi at home as I figured the risks for sushi only really related to food handling. So, if everything was freshly cooked and refrigerated, there shouldn’t be a problem. Yes, I missed sushi that much.
I also couldn’t resist enjoying a couple of raw Bluff Oysters – they’re only available in NZ on a limited season and I had no idea when I’ll get another chance to eat them now we’re back in Australia. So, despite the fact I’d worry – I ate & enjoyed them.
And Lauren – I completely agree on the weight thing. I retained A LOT of fluid in my weight gain and it took about 6 weeks after I gave birth for it all to clear. Completely out of my control. (Actually, In my experience pretty much everything about pregnancy health ends up being out of your control – perhaps it’s preparation for parenting?)
In my experience pretty much everything about pregnancy health ends up being out of your control – perhaps it’s preparation for parenting?
This is very much what I was thinking! We can only control our actions and choices but there’s no real guarantee of outcome!
I’ve had some shrimp and eel since those are fine with regard to mercury and they’re cooked; I’m not taking a risk hoping that the suppliers were good and that the food handling was safe, etc., because I think we’re less aware now than ever about how long our food supply chains are. If I know it was locally sourced AND didn’t go through several sets of hands, then I wouldn’t be nearly as worried. One of the things that concerned me was potential contamination far back in the food supply that we’re not aware of as consumers.
Good Luck with the diabetes testing. Many years ago , when dinasaurs roamed the earth, my DW became “gestational diabetic” and required insulin injections. She freaked out at first and I had to give her the insulin injections. BUT it all worked out….so don’t freak out if you turn out diabetic. DW’s blood sugar returned to normal after the birth of our healthy baby. Best Wishes…
Thank you, jestjack! My hope is that if GD must happen, it’s only gestational and doesn’t stick around. I can give injections but I’m not totally sure I can self administer, I may have to rely on PiC for that should the event come to pass. 🙂
Best wishes for continued passing of the glucose tests.
I agree with Lauren and zenmoo!
I do not know if your doctor is one of those telling you not to gain over 25#, and I guess I think friends should be supportive of your pregnancy regardless, after all, it is you that will deal with your weight gain. I may feel strongly about this because I gained 50# with both my children and had no problems and a great OB who just made jokes about exams in the parking lot cause I wouldn’t fit thru the doors. I liked him and we joked a lot! He kept track of my vitals and made sure I knew that as long as tests came back fine I would be the only one to suffer from a higher than preferred weight gain. I did lose the weight fairly quickly, so I was lucky. And I guess I was lucky in that my children were born before most of the nay-saying and I had an OB who said that many things were done by our parents and we all turned out healthy.
I never craved sushi or anything healthy – my fondness was for candy bars and ice cream LOL.
I picture you, for some reason as [physically] similar to my ex-daughter in law, 90# soaking wet and 4’8″ and so weight gain might interfere more with your internal workings as the baby gains in size and hopefully allows you to re-enter the land of the eating.
Pregnancy, in my opinion and observation, is unique to each woman. I wish you a reasonably healthy pregnancy [as I have known others who couldn’t eat in first tri] and a short labor and a healthy baby.
So glad that PiC is a helpful hubby!
Pregnancy, in my opinion and observation, is unique to each woman.
Wiser words were never spoken.
Yes it is mostly my doctors/nurses who keep reminding me not to gain over the 35 lb mark; the friends mostly laugh and say “I gained [40/50/60] pounds! I’ll admit to craving EVERYthing. So it’s a good thing I have long made it a habit of not eating the whole package of cookies and only having 1 serving size 🙂
I am not terribly far off from what you imagine, so it is true that each pound has been a rather startling change. That’s just MORE motivation to do my best to eat healthily and not gain more, if that had any effect on it (sort of doubt it, though… given other people’s experiences).
Not just to each woman– to each pregnancy! I totally had that GD test experience with DC1, but not with DC2. (And ended up being borderline GD with DC1 but not with DC2…) But then there was the wheat allergy with DC2…
Re: sushi– go ahead and keep eating the sushi that you know you can eat and experiment with other combinations of the low mercury/veggie/cooked options.
I’ve found the best way to deal with food limitations (of which pregnancy gave ms so many) is to add new things to what you *can* eat. So GD means brown rice sushi. And with pregnancy, for example, switching out raw spicy tuna in specialty rolls with something cooked (they’re usually happy to make these kinds of switches, and sometimes they end up tasting even better). Sandwich places will also usually be perfectly happy to heat your favorite sandwich up to steaming. And if you really want blue cheese or brie, you just have to bake it to steaming (IIRC).
I am looking forward to never having to deal with m/s again!
That’s weird they’re so focused on weight. So long as you eat healthily and listen to your body and switch to a GD diet if you need to (and, of course, don’t get pregnancy complications), you will gain the right amount of weight. My doctors were always pretty blase about it.
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Not just to each woman– to each pregnancy!
TRUE. That’s what I was thinking. No idea why the focus on weight.
Hope everything goes well; PiC is doing a fabulous job. As a dad now all I could do when my wife was pregnant was help any way I could – even if it was getting ice cream. Knowing you have support is pretty important.
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Thank you, Matt, PiC really is doing a great job where he can. It really makes an enormous difference.
I had a similar experience in the first trimester, not being able to eat much (at least what I was able to eat I kept down!), food aversions, no reheated food, and relied on crackers to fill in the gaps. Not eating much plus walking/aquafit and I actually lost weight, this has the doctor a little worried but my appetite has picked back up for the most part and the food aversions have waned. I’m still more active now trying prenatal yoga as well, so who knows, as long as we’re both healthy, I’m not going to stress about the weight. I’m also not looking forward to the glucose test but mine won’t be until 30 weeks. Hopefully you’ll feel better soon 🙂
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Thanks! It’s finally passed but boy was I annoyed for a while there. I wouldn’t stress about the weight either, as many have attested, you do your best and it does whatever the heck it wants. I don’t know why it was such a repeat topic with my own med professionals but they’re otherwise good so, whatever 🙂
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