Baby bliss

I am pregnant/preggers/prego. I have a bun in the oven. I am in the family way. I am with child. I am on stork watch. I am going to have a baby. Yes, the hubs and I are expecting. Today I am 11 weeks pregnant and my due date is December 27.

One pregnancy symptom that I was not ready for was the vivid dreams. Last night I dreamt that I was unable to regain all the weight that I have lost in this first trimester (I am down 6 pounds right now). I was 40 weeks pregnant, went in to give birth and they told me that I had only regained 4 of the 6 pounds. Because of this, my 40 week gestation resulted in a 24 week fetus and they told me that I had to keep the baby in for another 16 weeks. I kept on saying "But the placenta!" (For those of you who don't know, the placenta starts to degrade at about 42 weeks - this is why they go ahead and deliver the baby by c-section or induction if you haven't given birth by that point. Scientific facts tend to invade my dreams.)

Another dream that I had recently has to do with my old job. I was a research assistant and I performed postmortem dissections on mice to harvest parts for experiments. I dreamt that I had dissected about 25 mice, and then I realized that I had done all of the dissections on fully conscious, live mice. I woke up from that dream in a cold sweat.

These dreams at least had to do with things pertinent to my life. I had worked in a mouse lab, and I am a little bit worried about my weight loss in pregnancy from morning sickness. I have been having other dreams that make absolutely no sense. Two nights ago I dreamt that I was being held hostage by a group that was making me work but was trying to make me think I was there of my own free will. At one point, John MacClane tried to save me (if you don't know who this is, go watch Die Hard...any version will do but my favorite is the original) in a daring car chase, but to no avail. Finally, I worked with the entire cast of Grey's Anatomy to solve puzzles to win my freedom, eventually discovering that all I had to do was leave through the emergency exit door. My dream then transitioned into getting ready for elementary school gym class. I got in trouble for taking too long to change into my gym clothes, but the reason I took so long was because I needed to eat two pieces of flat bread (I have been having bread cravings, both while awake and apparently while asleep).

The other symptoms I was ready for. I know that pregnant women get nausea, but I never realized that it would incapacitate me. Thankfully, from what I've been told over and over again by reassuring friends and family, my morning sickness should go away in another 2 weeks. At this rate, I should lose no more than 2 more pounds and, from what I've been told again and again, I will have no problem regaining the weight and then some. I think what has horrified me most about the whole nausea thing is that I am a dietetics student. I know how to eat healthy. I strive to eat healthy. You will never find a refined grain in my home...at least until I was 5 weeks pregnant. At that point, any healthy food began looking disgusting to me. I couldn't eat fruits. I couldn't eat vegetables. I couldn't eat whole grains. I could, however, eat pop tarts, wonder bread and kraft macaroni and cheese. In fact, these were things that I could pretty reliably eat every day. The next hit to my health conscious diet came when I realized that I was producing excessive saliva (yes, that does happen to some people during pregnancy - it's called Ptyalism). This wouldn't normally trouble me, but excessive saliva production on top of excessive nausea and excessive heart burn caused my stomach to turn every time I thought about drinking water. I tried and I tried, but no matter what I did I couldn't get down more than about 4 cups of water a day (with the goal during pregnancy of being 8-10). Finally, I found a solution: Fruit Punch Gatorade. I would show up to class surrounded by my med diet classmates who were none the wiser to my pregnancy and would pull out my fruit punch gatorade and my brown sugar and cinnamon pop tarts. Did I look like the nutrition poster child, or what? Thankfully, this bizarre diet is turning around somewhat. I am still having trouble with fresh fruits and vegetables, but I am once again able to drink water and to attempt foods other than pop tarts. The doctor did give me a prescription for an anti-nausea medication to get me through the tough times as well. They warned me when I started it that a major side effect was constipation and that I should take a stool softener. I thought, "I don't think that will be a problem. I think I'll just wait to see if I need one." To avoid going into too much detail, I think I will listen to my doctor from now on during pregnancy.

My other biggest bother is that I can smell EVERYTHING. This can be kind of nice when someone is baking fresh bread, but it is more or less a nuisance in every other situation. Example 1: Simba, the poodle. I love Simba. He is a fabulous little dog and I am thankful every day that we have him. That is, unless he sits on my lap. Then I have the overwhelming smell of ear wax filling my nares. Thankfully, Simba is a tolerant little dog and the hubs is good with a Q-tip. Simba has also been receiving weekly baths in order to remain tolerable. Example 2: The pantry. I am not sure what it is, but I cannot stand opening our pantry right now. I don't really have aversions to foods based on smell - I can smell most any food and be fine - my aversions are based on simply thinking about eating a food and either producing excessive saliva or wanting to toss my cookies. This is why I don't understand the pantry problem. I have asked the hubs several times to smell the pantry and he cannot detect whatever minute signal I am picking up. I was tempted one day last week to go through the entire pantry to find the offending item. Unfortunately this would mean that I would have to spend time in the pantry which is something that I am unwilling to do at this time. Example 3: The house. Our house smells bad. This is something that I never noticed before. We keep it really clean in here, but if the windows are kept closed for greater than 24 hours I find the smell unbearable. I tried burning candles, but I don't like the smell of candles right now. I finally dug out an old bottle of febreeze. It made the house smell much better, but this bottle must have been pretty old because there was a ring around the inside of the bottle where the liquid had been sitting at the same level for quite sometime and there were some things floating in it. I felt that for the sake of our health I probably shouldn't spray febreeze in the house when it has things floating in it. Example 4: Dryer sheets. These are the worst smelling item in the world. I don't know who came up with the description "fresh breeze" but this is inaccurate. The hubs was trying to be nice and washed several of our living room blankets, wanting to make them clean and fresh smelling for me. Unfortunately, after one whiff I discarded all clean blankets and receded to the refuge of my one dirty, unblemished blanket. Finally, yesterday, I decided, mournfully, that my dirty blanket needed to be made clean again. I reluctantly gave over my blanket to be washed with a "scent free" dryer sheet. In the mean time, however, I became cold. I tried to put on the blankets that the hubs washed so valiantly one month ago but realized that there was still a lingering scent of "fresh breeze." Thankfully, my allergies are set off so I was unable to smell the blankets well and was soon able to transition back to the "scent free" blanket.

While this pregnancy has been anything but smooth sailing, the hubs has been extra great. I have been essentially useless (actually, more like a liability than useless - useless implies that you simply are not making things better...I am making things worse many days by saying thing like, "I think I may be hungry, will you make me food?" and when he says, "Sure, what do you want?" I say, "I don't know" and make him list off all of the food that we have in the house. Then he makes an item for me after revisiting the entire list three times, then I leave dirty dishes for him to clean. Then I say that I have a tummy ache and I ask him to just sit with me until it goes away and to scratch my head to make me feel better). He has taken over the majority of the housework and has been willing to provide for all of my needs and most of my wants on days during which I have been unable to meet my basic needs on my own. I don't know how I would do any of this without him and I love him very much. I especially appreciate all of the grocery runs that the hubs has been willing to make when I can't imagine eating anything but a cheese pizza hot pocket.