Counting Down and Looking Back

Now that I’ve hit the home stretch (aka, the third trimester) and only have 10 weeks to go until Future Baby’s due date, I wanted to take some time and reflect on this whole pregnancy thus far. (Side note – I can’t believe I’m in my THIRD trimester already!!)

Let me start at the VERY beginning: hubby and I were not actively trying to get pregnant. By “actively trying”, I mean we weren’t calculating stuff, figuring out when I was ovulating, timing things just right, etc. On the other hand, we weren’t not trying either; meaning we weren’t using any form of BC anymore. And as I’ve said in my Mommy Story, I have a crapload of health issues so the hubs and I knew getting preggo early on was a good thing. Keep in mind, we didn’t want to rush into anything, either. We’ve been together forever, we waited until we were married 8 months before going off BC and we bought a house (hubs and I agreed we didn’t want to raise a baby in an apartment if we could help it). And we made a deal with each other: we wouldn’t actively try to get pregnant for one year; if it happened, it happened. If, after one year, nothing happened, we would talk to the docs about what we could do to make something happen.

So that’s the background. As for the beginning of the actual pregnancy…I feel like I was robbed of something. I didn’t have the whole anticipation bit where I waited to see if my period was late, then rushing out to get a bunch of home pregnancy tests, then holding my breath as I waited for the stick to change color, show me a line or show me a plus sign. I had none of that. Nada, zip, zilch, the big goose egg. Instead, my OBGYN casually asked me if she should run a pregnancy test while I was in there for my annual checkup. I shrugged, said “sure” and all they did was stick an extra piece of paper in my urine sample. I honestly thought nothing of it. Once my checkup was finished, I got dressed and headed out of the room. My doc stopped me as soon as I walked out and said my pregnancy test was a “faint positive”.

“Faint positive”? What does that even mean?! I couldn’t even get excited because I had no clue what was going on. (FYI – “faint positive” means that the test is showing a positive result, but it’s a very faint line instead of the normal, dark and noticeable line.)

*sigh* So instead of being excited, I listened as the doc explained how I must be extremely early in the pregnancy (I later figured out I was only about 3 weeks along) so she didn’t want to get my hopes up; after all, I hadn’t even missed my period yet. Her solution? Lots of blood work. Seriously. I went to the lab every week for the next month. Just to verify my body was producing the pregnancy hormone at the right pace to keep the baby around. Then at 6 weeks, hubby and I went to our first ultrasound. We saw Future Baby. Sure, FB looked like a dot, but the dot was BLINKING; FB’s little heart was beating.

THEN I got excited. But still. I had to wait 6 weeks for that. I had only told hubby, my Mom and one of my sisters. And all of them shared the same cautious optimism; can’t get too excited when the doctors aren’t even sure the pregnancy was going to pan out. But secretly, I was excited.

Then I got sick, and suddenly I wasn’t so excited anymore. I’ll spare you the details. Let’s just say I lived on saltines and ginger ale, I spent the majority of my time in the bathroom and I ended up losing a bunch of weight. Now, if I only had to deal with the horrible morning sickness (side note – why do they call it “morning sickness” when you’re sick ALL THE TIME?) I think I would have been fine. But there was the pain. Oh my goodness, the pain. I was not prepared. First, it was my sciatica getting worse. Then I developed round ligament pain. Then the horrible cramping. I was in constant pain and in constant fear that I would lose the baby.

It was draining. I was stressed, sick and hurting. And swollen. I was only in my first trimester, but I looked like I was already well into my third trimester. My doctors ordered me off my feet as much as possible and I wasn’t permitted to do any sort of work around the house. I was moody and the stress was taking its toll. Instead of being excited and loving each other more, hubs and I were bickering all the time. He felt resentful for having to do everything for me. I was hurt he wasn’t being supportive enough (not to mention, I was uber-hormonal). And we were both scared. We had talked about babies and starting a family, but now it was real and that was terrifying.

I had heard all this talk about getting your second wind during the second trimester. All of this talk was lies, at least for me. I just got worse and worse. The moodiness, the pain, the swelling, the sickness…all much, much worse. I did have one huge thing to be thankful for, though. Future Baby was healthy. I may have felt like the walking dead every day, but FB was growing and was strong inside me.

And now I’m suddenly in my third trimester. I don’t know where the time has gone. I feel FB kicking and squirming around in there, but it’s hard to imagine she’ll be here soon (did I mention FB is a girl?). While I feel a huge rush of love for her every time I think of her, and the hubs and I have gotten over our squabbling and are feeling more lovey than ever, I still feel like I didn’t have the “right” pregnancy. I know it’s silly and everyone’s pregnancy is different, but whenever I hear someone say “Oh I absolutely LOVED being pregnant” or “My pregnancy was PERFECT”, I feel like I’ve already failed as a mother and my baby hasn’t even been born yet! I love my baby already, I know I’m doing that right; but I just don’t like being pregnant. I hate that I feel ill and tired all the time, I hate that I don’t feel like doing anything and I absolutely hate that I’m not enjoying my pregnancy.

I just keep reminding myself it will be worth it in the end. One look from FB will be worth the whole 9 months of pain and illness. Just 10 more weeks and it will all be worth it.