The Second Trimester Begins...

With some confusion! Is the beginning of the 13th week or the 14th week equivalent to the beginning of the second trimester? (because all months are not February). Hahaha! :D
Also, the nausea still remained, along with occasional vomiting and feeling low-low. When will I have energy....whennnnn?
Poor Mayuresh still had to cook and clean, although I did help him a bit with other chores now, especially those outside the kitchen.
I had also eaten out a few times now: Noodles and Company, Montri Thai, Subway, Chipotle, and of course, Samosas and Chaat. Thankfully it all went down well.

Slowly, as the 4th month began to end, the nausea almost disappeared. I still felt a little queasy on an empty stomach, and was super-sensitive to smells. But the ability to be inside the kitchen and to tolerate the smell of hot oil was quite a relief.
Of course as one problem ends, another starts. (How pessimistic and cynical am I! hehe) I started feeling pressure and a little pain while sitting down, standing up, and while moving from side-to-side while lying down. The doctor said it was normal, but I guess she meant it like "Pain during pregnancy? of course it is normal!" :D

The 4th month also marked the end of my ability to wear regular jeans and tops. Bless maternity clothes and bless my dear friend Pradnya who sent me an awesome gift card of a specialty maternity store! Who knew maternity shops were so evolved? Not only do they have awesome, stylish, and practical maternity clothes ( no more loose clothing that makes you look like a scarecrow!), but they also have these cute little prosthetic baby bumps in their changing rooms so that you can check how the clothes will fit you in your later months of pregnancy. It's so funny, when we are not pregnant, we hardly give any thought to these things! :D


The 4th month also marked the beginning of the diabetes saga. You can read more about that in the next post.

The first trimester (Half of it, actually)

So, by the time my blood tests for pregnancy came positive, I was already pregnant for a month and a half. But goodness knows, the rest month and a half was a drag! Pure misery. Sometimes, I was so miserable that I got angry when people congratulated me with utmost happiness in their voices. :) I was like... tera kya jata hai khush hone me..yahan jaan meri jaa rahi hai :P

Yeah, I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, was nauseous with the mildest fragrance ( I banned roses from the house, including the celebration bouquet Mayuresh bought when the pregnancy was confirmed! Ditto for all rose perfumes and room fresheners! Hehehe ), and gagged and vomited if I even cleaned my tongue.

My first OB/GYN appointment was rather good, with the Ultrasound technician confirming that I was 8 weeks pregnant, and the nurse/midwife going through a lot of elaborate exams and discussions with me. (yes, exams - vaginal and pap smear. They hurt! )

A lot of restrictions were placed on my diet, and they were so contradictory to the standard Indian practises. For instance, in US they ask you to stop eating uncooked sprouts, while they encourage it in India. Also, eating ginger is a complete no-no in India, while the docs in US asked me to stock up on ginger ale and ginger cookies, to help fight my nausea. My mom was shocked, to say the least. hehehe!

The 12th week checkup at the OB/GYN was not so comfortable, though physically, there was nothing intrusive involved. But the doctor started with 2 extremely irritating topics - my probability of getting gestational diabetes and getting genetic testing done.

I have a little history of diabetes in my family. That doesn't mean I WILL get diabetes, right? Wrong... as per the doctor, there wasn't any shred of doubt that I would. Hence she asked me to, in her own words, DIET, DIET, and DIET! Sigh... never mind the fact that I was already 5 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight. Also they asked me to do an oral glucose test in the 16th week. Well, let's see what happens.

The second and more stressful issue was that of genetic testing. The doctor said it was optional but was pretty insistent that we do it. My point was, the test they asked us to do was not 100% fool-proof. There was a good chance of false positives and negatives. In case of a positive, false or correct, we would have to get amniocentesis done to verify the results. Amniocentesis is invasive, and also risky. Moreover, the whole process would take 6-8 weeks, which would mean too much stress on my already stressed mind.
Also, if the amniocentesis came positive and the baby did have Down's Syndrome, what would we do about it? It would have been a major conundrum.
So, after a lot of inquiries and research and discussions and deliberations, we decided to defy the doctor's orders and not do the test. The doctor wasn't happy about it, but that couldn't be helped, could it?

The thing to look forward to by the end of the trimester was the ending of nausea. (Everybody had told me that the nausea disappears by the end of the third trimester.) But alas! Why? Let's see in the next post.

Pregnancy diaries - prologue

Nausea and fatigue! Yes, my prologue can only start with those 2 words. It can continue with restlessness, drowsiness, moodiness, indigestion, bloating, and so on. Oh yeah, surprise and happiness, too! :D

So we had just been back from our trip to Colorado, where I had humiliated myself by being so tired and breathless that I could hardly walk; while my husband and his friend coolly jumped up and down the rocks. Even after we came back, I started feeling low on energy, I couldn't eat properly, and of course, was super-nauseated. As my paranoid-self resurfaced, I thought I was either anemic, or diabetic, or, you know, had cancer. A slightly more optimistic fragment of my mind gave some weightage to food poisoning, while on another weirdly and illogically pessimistically plane, I thought I was prematurely menopausal! Hahaha beat that! 

I decided to go see a doctor, when it got out of control. He listened to me rambling about my symptoms and then casually asked me to take a urine pregnancy test. I knew I had taken one at home, but thought, “fine, whatever!”. The doctor returned in 5 minutes... and guess what; he said I am most definitely pregnant. My mouth was left open and hanging. I had spent a month worrying about what was wrong with me. The doctor also did a thorough blood test by the way, just to be sure, as my home pregnancy test had come negative. The blood test confirmed that I was 6 weeks pregnant! 6! Already!

After recovering from the initial surprise, there was no more "recovery". It was almost as if the knowledge that I am pregnant made me psychologically more symptomatic. I started having higher gag reflexes, severe nausea, motion sickness, etc. etc... Worst of all, I couldn't eat anything. There were several days when I would survive on just 3-4 pieces of wheat toast a day. Oh but more about that, in the next post!