“
Hello! I’m 9 weeks pregnant and this is my first pregnancy
blog. I’m not sure where to start, so perhaps I should introduce myself a bit
first….
So; I am 30, I’ve been with my husband, Tim, for 9 years,
and we’ve been married for 2 of those. It is fair to say that I have really
really wanted to have children since I was about 23 and Tim has also been up
for it for at least the last 5 years or so. So what has stopped us then? Well,
in truth, my career aspirations. I am an academic and I’m not sure if it is
just my subject, or common to all, but it’s a competitive world out there! And
unfortunately having babies puts you at a distinct disadvantage in that competitive
world.
Anyway, we reached a point last year where Tim’s dad was
pretty ill and I think that made us re-evaluate things a bit. Career-wise, I
know that if I just work at it for a few more years I’ll have lots more job
security and then it might be the perfect time to start a family, but at the
same time Tim and I have both reached a stage where we want to have kids so
much we could possibly burst! So last autumn we threw caution to the wind and
started trying.
It took us a few months of trying, and in the late autumn I
had a very early (5 weeks) miscarriage which, though it was so early, was no
less upsetting. However we put that behind us as much as possible and tried
again, and a month later we were successful! Hooray! Because of the miscarriage
though we both felt very nervous initially and didn’t do a test until I had
reached about 6 weeks. But so far all’s well (touch wood!), we’ve made it to 9
weeks and I am booked in for my ultra-sound scan on the 24th Feb,
when I will be almost 12 weeks exactly.
Because of the miscarriage, and my family history too (my
Mum lost two babies at 8 wks) I am finding this a really nerve wracking time.
Early last year, when a close friend was at about the same time in her
pregnancy as I am now, I remember her voicing her nerves and I remember
flippantly thinking she was being a bit OTT with her worrying. Now I can’t believe
I was so unsympathetic! I understand the nerves completely!
Two things have made me particularly nervous so far …
1. Although I felt generally sick and dizzy and weird at the start, from
about 7 weeks I largely stopped having any sickness. Of course this is the time
that all the books say you will probably be feeling wretched, and most paint a
picture of the pregnant lady clinging to the toilet bowl at every opportunity,
and heaving at every possible smell they might encounter! As a result, although
I still felt inordinately exhausted, and emotional, and my boobs were really
sore, I felt pretty nervous that this key symptom wasn’t affecting me. So, like
anyone wanting some reassurance, I Googled it. And like anyone seeking
reassurance from a Google search, I was sorely un-assured! All I seemed to get
was extensive discussion boards with women worrying as much as me and other
women telling them very upsetting stories littered with the “m” word. Fortunately
at 8 weeks I had my booking in appointment and was able to discuss this with
the midwife. I also had to see my GP and was able to discuss it with her too.
Both gave me the reassurance I had really wanted. Both stressed that morning
sickness really does only affect 70-80% of all pregnancies, and it can really
differ in the way it affects people. Some women are likely to fit the
toilet-bowl-clinging-stereotype down to a tee, others may feel sick on and off,
and others may not be affected at all. This is partly what made me want to get blogging
– just so I could repeat this positive information for any other nervous women
out there Googling “lack of morning sickness”! Of course, I now realise I was
worrying for nothing and should have enjoyed my sickness free weeks while I had
them – because after two blissful weeks of feeling fine (if not knackered),
this week has been a really humdinger for feeling sick! Oh well!
2. The second thing that had me worrying is something that again all the
various books and websites out there aren’t much help on. Since the start of my
pregnancy I’ve had a continuous almost crampy feeling in my abdomen, which gets
worse if I need the loo. It isn’t bad, it’s just always there! At first I
thought it meant my period was about to start, but at 9 weeks and counting it
really hasn’t gone away. All the books and websites note that in the first
trimester you are likely to get some crampy feelings as your ligaments stretch
to accommodate your growing uterus, but most emphasise that this should go away
if you sit down/lie down/rest. However I’ve not found this to be the case.
Anyway, in the last week I’ve had some nice reassurance on this that I thought
it would be good to share. In short, despite the lack of detail in the books, it
seems this is something that people do commonly experience in the kind
of continuous way I have – several people have since told me they too
experience/experienced this feeling and my GP was also quite familiar with it.
She described it as a “dragging” feeling and I thought that was a really good
description!
So there we go – I guess the point of all this waffle is to
share the two things that have been making me feel nervous and to share all the
reasons I didn’t need to feel nervous after all! I hope this has been of some
help.
Anyway that’s all for now – I’ll undoubtedly be back with
more waffle and worries soon, but I promise future blogs won’t be as long as
this one!
”