Pregnancy: What I Did the First Few Months (An Answer for My Beehives)

A few weeks ago, I was in charge of the Beehive activity on a Wednesday night. We were having a lesson on budgeting and then decorating and gluing and flowering and taping and bejeweling little budget folders. All sorts of fun, right? And then one of the girls commented on my being gone from church for so long. As in, several months long. I told them that I had been ill during the beginning of my pregnancy. And then one of them asked, "So what were you doing for all those months? Just lying around all the time?"

And I stopped to think about it. I raised my eyebrow. I smiled. I considered the happy state of the those women who do not fall desperately ill during their pregnancies, and may even be able to carry on with normal lives and activities. In answer to that young woman's question of what I did for the first few months of pregnancy, here. I made this myself. A documentation of what it's like to make another person within your own person.

First of all, I didn't eat much.

Why? Because I couldn't. I had no choice in the matter. "Morning" sickness is the biggest misnomer in the book. It's actually breathing sickness, because you're sick every time you breathe, not just in the morning.

Andrew did his best to help me to eat healthily. He offered me some of my favorites.

Nope. No vegetables of any kind.

Definitely not. The very thought of chicken or turkey was enough to trigger my gag reflexes. And that went for just about any kind of meat. Just seeing raw meat had the potential to slaughter me. So no meat protein.

I love fruit. I always have. But I couldn't. Nope. No. Don't. No fruits. Andrew was pretty worried about the fact that I wasn't getting good healthy food in my diet. His parents and common sense were encouraging him to help me to eat like a healthy minded person. It wasn't working out for him.

As if the smells of warming pans (and therefore any cooking) didn't make me ill enough, the smell of cooking eggs could have me running for the toilet or any other receptacle. So none of that protein either.

Ever since I was little, I've loved pickles. I eat whole pickles straight from the jar. I eat whole jars. But not now. I couldn't even manage a healthy cereal like Raisin Bran. It's not like I don't like eating healthy food. I like eating. I could never be anorexic because I like food too much.

Andrew was desperate by this point. I mean, I was practically perishing for want of food.

Well, I had an idea at that point. It turns out that my stomach could handle tomato soup (which I downed by the can), and Marshmallow Mateys. This had the tendency to distress Andrew, seeing as neither of these are full of the variety of nutrients required by a normal person, let alone a pregnant woman. It didn't help that I couldn't even take my prenatal vitamins because they made me even sicker. Sicker than a dog. Sicker than a dog who sneaks into my room and eats all of my miniature peanut butter cups AND the goodies in the package from my aunt (which is an entirely different story, one that very much still has the power to rankle my goat's beard and cause me to wobble my fist violently towards all evil dogs).

Andrew broke down eventually because he realized that I needed to eat. Some husbands have to encourage their wives to eat veggies because they don't like them. Any time Andrew came at me with veggies, it turned, churned, burned, and genuinely destroyed my stomach and any chance of happiness for the day. It's not his fault. He's wonderful. So no one blame him for not helping me to get all of the nutrition that a pregnant lady needs, or they'll be answering to ME!

May I just add a thought here? I will, because this is my blog, and I can say and add what I please. Whoever writes those books and such about pregnant women eating all that healthy produce, low-fat dairy, and good protein MUST be: A) entirely too optimistic, B) a man, C) a woman who's never had a child or a lousy pregnancy, or D) just plain nuts. ESPECIALLY the ones who tell you to ignore your cravings if they're unhealthy.

Moving on. So eating is what I didn't do. What did I do? This.

I am really happy for those people who have good pregnancies, and who enjoy being pregnant. I know that they exist. I've heard of them, and I'm even friends with one of them. But I'm even more grateful for my mother, who was so disgustingly ill with her first pregnancy she couldn't eat hardly anything, and then went on to have another nine children after that. My mother is a true hero. She is wonderful. I call her a lot when I don't think that I can handle this any more. It's not fun being sick and being far away from your family.

And there are really nice people in the ward. My visiting teachers not only kept my secret (we didn't tell anyone outside the family for several months), but they also brought over dinner twice a week so Andrew didn't starve. Wasn't that so wonderfully nice of them? Shannon and Joy are the two best visiting teachers in the world. I don't think we would have survived without them.

When I was about 18 or 19 weeks along, I stopped being deathly ill all the time. That was good. Functioning is good. Being able to walk about/eat/bathe/act like a human and not a zombie is good. And at that point, Andrew and I started travelling for the holidays, so no one saw us for another few weeks. I think at one point people probably thought we'd moved out of the ward or something. But we didn't.

And now we're back. I'm 29 weeks along as of yesterday, and I've moved on to an entirely different set of pregnancy joys. Sore legs, for example. But that's an entirely different story, and one that isn't as entertaining as what I did during my second trimester.

But you'll get that next Pictorial.