So, I clearly need to stop claiming what is going to happen in “our next post” because I am not interested in sticking to that either in title or spirit. I clearly thought I would segue from the ‘Holy shit I’m pregnant’ post to ‘Wow, I really thought I’d have gotten used to it by now, but nope’ post, but I don’t feel like writing that one. So, enough with the false promises.
Instead today I shall catalog/discuss/disgust you with my list of pregnancy symptoms from which I have suffered so far. At least first trimester ones because I’m just now second trimester and as much as I would like to, I cannot see into the future.
For the first few days I wouldn’t have known I was pregnant, except that the test said I was pregnant. I marched around entirely proud of myself that I was so good at it, feeling very virtuous, and thinking, ‘Well, if I keep going like this, then maybe I should consider being a surrogate to any gay friends who want kids.’ Then a week or so later symptoms set in and I realized I was an idiot. They were as follows:
1. Gas/bloating. Okay, I’ve heard people discuss pregnancy farting and somehow I thought this was all bullshit. It isn’t exactly bullshit. I think from the limited reading I did (I find all the pregnancy books both full of scare tactics and crap, so I’m mostly avoiding them and the internet for that stuff and assuming if nothing weird falls out of me then all is well), that it’s a result of some of the hormones. I can’t remember why - see previous sentence - but something to do with the hormones activates the bad gaseous side of your GI system and the next thing you know you are super bloated and it’s all you can do not to fart yourself across the room. To my credit, I never succumbed to the urge to do it in front of anyone, even husband, with the ‘I’m pregnant, you must forgive me’ excuse. But a couple of times it was close. And I will say, when I was lying around on my own, I was like, DEAR JESUS CHRIST HIDE THE ANIMALS. Luckily that went away after a couple of weeks.

2. Cramps. Apparently there is a common thing where you get period-like cramps because your uterus is expanding. I initially ignored it because I thought it was part of the aforementioned minor GI discomforts. I say minor because I am someone who frequently has GI issues so I’m used to just popping a pepto and ignoring them and going on with life. The second I realized they were pregnancy symptoms though, I got PISSED and obsessed with them, especially since there’s the ‘What medicine can I take? Will everyone die if I take this? Do I have to call my doctor every time I want to take something new?’ crap factor - worsened by the fact that manufacturers cover their asses always saying ‘ASK YOUR DOCTOR’ and once again the internet is full of ‘AND THEN YOU ALL DIE’ information about everything. So. You basically have to call your doctor every five minutes and look like an asshole.
Theoretically you are only supposed to take Tylenol, which anyone who gets serious period cramps knows is about as useful as treating the pain by eating a Popsicle. So I called my Dr - AGAIN - and laughed at her when she suggested Tylenol and was like, ‘No seriously, how much Advil can I take,’ and she basically told me ‘just not too much,’ which is a really nonspecific amount, but good enough for me. I basically kept it to two advil/day, which I decided was enough to take the edge off for a least a couple of hours without causing baby to jump ship. Cramping went away after a couple of weeks.
3. Boob Attack. I am now officially a DD, which is ridiculous because I am not going to nurse, so this whole show my boobs are putting on is for naught. In their defense, I was pretty much on the borderline between D and DD before, but at this point I am hoping they will contain themselves for the rest of the pregnancy and resist the urge to undergo any future growth spurts because if they do, they are going to graduate me out of the normal bra stores and put me into the specialty tatas category. And I am not interested in that crap. #VictoriasSecret4Life!
4. ‘Morning’ (and afternoon and evening) Sickness. On the upside, I only had this from roughly weeks 5-7 and it was fairly mild/moderate and I never barfed. On the downside, it lasted every waking minute and the only thing for it was massive amounts of food. And not like, ‘crackers and ginger tea,’ but rather ‘giant philly cheesesteak sub’ and then two hours later I would need more. You will not be surprised to know that I put on a very fast 5 lbs during this period because of the insane eating that evil baby demanded I do.
I don’t know how people do it who have it worse/longer. I am so relieved that it was so quick/mild I don’t even know what to say. Maybe I should stop calling the baby an asshole for starters.

5. Fatigue. V mild and perhaps better qualified as apathy. I wasn’t tired so much as I just was like, ‘fuck it, I’ll sit on the sofa and watch TV,’ which is extremely unlike me. I’m usually the one running around doing 200 things at once, so a bout of lack of motivation is a clear anomaly and very frustrating to me. Luckily, this coincided with those two weeks of perma-grossness, and really was only a couple of days therein. I did get so annoyed about it that I went to the acupuncturist, and then woke up that night with a giant surge of energy. Was this all my energy returning after one shot of needles to the face? Maybe. I don’t know, but I’m just happy it’s gone.
6. Peeing. Oh God, the peeing. I knew peeing comes later when baby is big and pressing on bladder, but apparently it also comes in first trimester, again due to hormone things I think from baby book skims. My urethra or whatever just seemed hypersensitive, so I would do a lot of peeing when there wasn’t a lot of pee to be peed. I started combating this with cranberry juice, which probably just has a placebo affect in my brain, but who cares? That is often enough for me. And I totally would wake up to pee oceans in the middle of the night. Insane. Now it is gone and I have slept through the night the past few nights, like normal again. I think babycenter or someone said that was a common second trimester thing for that to go away. Nice.
7. Thirst. I know your blood volume doubles or something because of pregnancy, and apparently my body wanted to hydrate for that all at once. My husband even bought me a special metal drink canister so I didn’t use a plastic one filled with whatever horrible chemicals he thinks are terrible. Then after a couple of weeks, I reached some new stasis and it’s better. I still bring my security blanket squeeze bottle with me everywhere, but I rarely need it anymore. Or at least not as much. Obviously this could contribute to the aforementioned peeing.
8. Insomnia. There were a couple of nights where I woke up at like 3 AM and was up for an hour or so for no known reason. This is 100% unlike me and has almost never happened before. Was this from anxiety or was this from hormones? Who knows? I just put on my headlamp and read my kindle and went back to bed, so it wasn’t too terrible.
9. Sweating. I am prone to night sweats, specifically cold ones - so mostly in the winter and coincides with my period. Charming. So no shocker that now that I’m pregnant, I’ve been having my nighttime hormone bath party even though it’s been summer and hot. I finally figured out the hack a couple of weeks ago - I go to bed in almost nothing, with just a sheet on. Then around 3 or 4 when it cools off the most, I wake up to pee an ocean, then put on clothes to warm up. That seemed to stop the cold sweats/ get them under some semblance of control. Also, I figured out that if I put a barricade in the bed between my husband and me, I could regulate my temperature better, because he’s about 700 degrees warmer than the room when he sleeps. Poor sad snuggle-deprived husband, but it’s either that or I sleep in another bed. Luckily this issue seems to be abating a bit along with the second trimester time.
10. Heat. I am generally one of those people who are always cold. Get me pregnant and suddenly I’m a furnace. This is most notable in my car, where instead of having my a/c set to the usual 75 that I have had it at every day ever, I now have needed it blaring as cold as it goes. Again, this issue has waned in the past week or so. Not a big deal, and I’m not sweating balls elsewise, but I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to everyone who has frozen their nads off in my car the past few months.
11. Cravings/the Ravening. After the nausea subsided, the ravenous death hunger really set in. This mostly took the form of me not being able to get enough food basically no matter what I did. My husband would bring me food in bed at 7 AM, but by 9AM I would be ready to murder someone/perish if I didn’t eat again. And then again at 11, lather, rinse, repeat. At some point I figured out that cheese was the best weapon to feed the beast - I think all the fat/protein was the best for tiding me over. It was also the best for making me gain more weight.
I attempted to combat this by going to the farmer’s market every weekend and loading up on more fruit and veg than I have ever eaten in my entire life. And eating them as snacks between cheese infusions, but although baby likes fruit with his cheese, it would tide me over for significantly less time.
It got kinda tiring/stressful to be like, ‘okay in two hours I am going to panic and need more food,’, but things could obviously have been way worse. And yet again, zzz, the fruit/cheese needs have really dropped in the past week.
I guess I really am entering the magical second tri. Hopefully I can slow down the weight gain, because all the eating I had to do first to feed the nausea and then to feed the giant black hole of starvation has put a total of around 10 lbs on me, which is pretty ridiculous. I hope to hell that the fat stores of cheese will now be rerouted to nourishment for baby and instead of gaining weight I’ll just reallocate those lbs into proper baby things because otherwise I’m in for a long ride. In my defense, I did try to fight the good fight. But you try not eating a box of cheeze-its when you’re that hungry. I dare you.

12. Back pain. I’m going to deduce this is from the 10 lbs of cheese I gained and the giant tats. Still, quite early to have back pain and I’m already pissed about it and have started seeing a trainer at the gym because I will not go gentle into that good night. Speaking of which, I should go do some exercises now.
With the exception of the nausea/apathy of weeks ~5-7 and the cramps (mostly annoying because you can’t do as much for them as you’d like), none of these are very bad at all and are totally dealable. I haven’t been very pissed about them and haven’t been complaining about them much. In fact, I’m pretty sure my husband would be surprised to know about half of them, because they just don’t bug me enough to be worth mentioning.
I will also say that thus far I haven’t felt very hormonal in that emotionally labile/crying at toilet paper commercials sort of way. I mostly have just felt like me, which I’m sure is great for everyone involved. There’ve been a couple of incidents where I might have taken something slightly harder than usual, but it’s been really isolated and NBD.
And now, I know enough to leave without making any promises as to what will be in the next blog. But I will say that I’m definitely going to go do some sit ups for my goddamn back.