Nine weeks pregnant

I thought once the word was out that I was pregnant, that I’d have all sorts of things to share. But honestly I still feel very quiet. I think I’ll feel more confident about this whole pregnancy thing after I get through the 12 week ultrasound and genetic testing thing. Basically, so far, so good, I haven’t been sick or anything, just very mild, occasional nausea, I’m very tired and I have unbelievably bad gas. I swear some days I’m afraid I’m going to blow up the house. Keep me away from open flames.

I had my first serious pregnancy meltdown yesterday. I work from home and it’s depressing to be in the same place, all by myself, day in and day out. I don’t get out enough. Yesterday I was on a conference call and I heard my coworkers laughing and joking in the background. The ground opened up from below me and swallowed me whole. I was so depressing. I cried and cried. I felt so unbelievably lonely. I looked for art related jobs in Portland hoping for a quick fix. But I know I just have to hang in there for now. Being pregnant makes for awkward job interviews. My job is fine, I’m just lonely right now and things were so busy during the holidays that I felt like I was working in some sort of torture chamber. I can’t tell you how depressing it was to hear about company holiday parties that I wasn’t invited to.

Then Tom came home and I wanted to play music but I suck and my software is broken and we spent all this time trying to fix it when all I wanted to do was bang cans together and then Tom stayed up late trying to fix my computer when all I wanted was a hug, so i cried and cried some more in bed by myself until I realized I had to just go downstairs and tell him to come hug me. My eyes were all puffed out today but I sucked it up and came down to Tom’s office to work. It’s nice being out of the house. Screw the needy dog. I have needs too. She’s so spoiled. So I think I’m going to come down here at least once a week from now on. She can get cranky at the daycare all she wants. She’ll figure it out eventually.

That’s about it though. Pretty easy so far. Sometimes I wish I was puking my guts out because it would make me feel more confident about my pregnancy. It feels like if it’s too easy, something must be wrong. But then I get so tired I feel like I could keel over and I take that as a good sign. Plus my waste is disappearing and my pants are falling down. I suppose this is a positive thing. And my nipples are really weird looking and very painful.

I swore that once the news was out, I’d share some thoughts on the conception thing. We waited til I was graduated and since I graduated when I was 38, we are starting off this whole adventure pretty late I guess. I didn’t feel that old until I started seeing message boards for TTC over 35. And I had a doctor scare me by telling me I was old and needed to get started right away. Anyway, screw them, 39 is a great time to have your first kid. Here are a few words that I have to say about the whole TTC thing (trying to conceive for the greenhorns). I learned a great deal over the last year. And I just thought I’d share some insight.

1. Health care!!! Make sure you have maternity coverage. Many plans don’t have maternity coverage, especially if you are like I was and have individual health care coverage, which by the way SUCKS. If you are moving, make sure you will still be covered. We discovered that if we moved to Oregon while I was on individual coverage, I wouldn’t be able to get maternity coverage until I was on an Oregon health care plan for 12 months before even conceiving. 12 MONTHS! So just make sure you look into it. Many insurers consider pregnancy a preexisting condition. I hear a normal, healthy birth could run you $6,000 – $20,000. A friend who luckily had medicare coverage, had minor complications during her birth which required a five day stay in the hospital and her bill was $200,000. If she hadn’t qualified for medicare, she would have been screwed. Don’t take chances.

2. Don’t assume you’re going to get pregnant right off the bat. I probably was pregnant the first month we tried, but the little bean didn’t stick the first time around. I thought I had gone crazy or something. I thought I had imagined I was pregnant when I wasn’t. Turns out it was just the beginning of a long, heartbreaking journey into the world of TTC and fertility issues. If I had assumed it was going to take a while, maybe things would have been easier emotionally. Assume it’ll take a while and you’ll be pleasantly surprised if it happens quickly.

3. Don’t linger on the TTC message boards. There is a great deal of knowledge to be gleaned from the message boards, but don’t get yourself in too deep, it just becomes depressing. You’ll be depressed when other people get pregnant and you don’t, you’ll get depressed when other people don’t get pregnant. You’ll obsess over tests and signs and symptoms that may or may not be there. Do me a favor, turn off your computer and go for a walk in the woods. Waiting is hard, so just try to keep your head.

4. Sign up with Fertility Friend and learn about your cycle. Track your cycle. Do the basal body temperature thing, or do the OPK tests (Ovulation Predictor kit), but get to know your cycle. If you end up needing to see a doctor because you think you are having trouble conceiving, they are going to want to see several months of charts.

5. Somehow try to avoid turning your sex life into an over-calculated science experiment. It will get harder to do this with each month that you are not pregnant. Plan some romantic weekend getaways that DON’T fall around the time you are supposed to ovulate. Get drunk, act like a teenager.

6. Try your best to not feel sorry for yourself. There are good, wonderful people who have been trying to get pregnant for years. So stop your whining and enjoy your time before you become a mother.

7. Get your blood tested. Test for hormones and thyroid. For me, i think the under-active thyroid was making it difficult for me to have a successful pregnancy. The hormone tests usually take place on something like day 3 (estrogen) and day 21 (progesterone) of your cycle. If you have spotting before your period, you could have low progesterone and that might make it harder for your bean to successfully implant.

8. If you want/need more support, physically or emotionally, I suggest seeing an acupuncturist who has experience with fertility issues. If yo have terrible PMS like I did, I really recommend you see an acupuncturist. It can do a world of good. It’s also just really comforting having someone you see regularly that can teach you and help guide you. It made me feel much more optimistic that I would someday get pregnant.

9. Exercise. Get to the gym. It will help calm your nerves. It will get you in better shape for your pregnancy. Some studies say that even a slight decrease in body fat can help you conceive. I wish I had started working out right as we started trying. But I guess a lot has happened this year.

10. Don’t “do it” alone. Share the things you are learning about all this crazy baby making stuff, share the heartache, share the vodka.

Ok, hope that helped.


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