Two lines

The first time I got pregnant, we were in Europe. Rome of all places, right by the Trevi Fountain. We got to celebrate with an Italian lunch of delicious pasta and even a few sips of wine. We went and bought Spencer a linen suit. When in Rome…. Then we got on a plane and met up with The Johnsons to wrap up the 2008 World Tour in the states. Now that I’m pregnant again, I find it so hard to believe that I was living on a tour bus for the first 8 weeks of pregnancy!! I have such beautiful memories of that time though, and I’m so grateful that I was surrounded by all the women on that tour. Because of them, I learned the words “midwife”,  “doula”,  and “natural childbirth.” I didn’t know that a homebirth was possible. I’ll always be grateful for hearing Kim and Jessica’s stories of their experiences, as well as other women I met on the road. That shaped my experience and helped make it so real and natural and me.

Here I am pregnant again. About 10 weeks along.  It’s been such a different experience this time! I am now fighting the nausea with changing poopy diapers, fixing eggs for my 2 year old and chasing a little munchkin around. Pregnant, what? Time to think and journal about the next baby, what?

I started feeling a little “not so great” the day my parents left. They had been visiting us for a few weeks and the afternoon they left everything hit me and I was washed over with nausea and emotion. I was around 7 1/2 weeks at that point. It’s been 3 weeks since then and I’ve learned what works and what doesn’t.

What has worked? Pancakes. WHITE flour pancakes with lots of butter and syrup. Don’t go sneakin any flax seeds or whole wheat flour in there. Definitely B Vitamins. Staying hydrated. Resting. And finding out a correlation between the time of day that I was sick and emotionally what was going on in my day to day life at that time. And fixing it!

For me, Gavin waking me up at 6 AM hasn’t been a problem, just not a joyous occasion. I have been waking up between 4 and 5 AM every day. Wide eyed and bushy tailed and ready to face the day. But at 6 when it was time to jump into mom mode and start taking care of others and the morning routine, that’s when I started feeling a little uneasy. I think with a toddler, the morning time can sometime be a little daunting: moving around more quickly than you’d like, taking care of a list of needs before your own and getting everyone ready for the day. I say this because I totally noticed a connection between feeling “not-so-good” that first hour between 6-7 and emotionally what was going on at that hour. What did I do? I started getting up out of bed between 4-5 AM since I was already laying there awake, and taking care of myself! This included meditating, light stretching, drinking lots of water, and eating something. Then at 6 when Gavin awoke and needed to cuddle; eat, eat and eat again; play; and be cranky on the occasi0nal morning, I was ready and feeling better.

The other time of day that I felt more nauseous was in the late afternoon and early evening. I think any mother will agree that sometimes that can be called the “witching hour.” Everyone is tired. Everyone is hungry. No one wants to cook:)  For me specifically, I was having a really hard time keeping up on Gavin’s healthy diet of steamed vegetables. The smell of steamed broccoli isn’t by any means pleasant, pregnant or not pregnant. But when you’re pregnant, I think most women can agree that it might be one of the worst smells. For me, it put me over the edge. A lot of dinner time foods were putting me on the edge. For a few weeks I simply had to wait for Spencer to get home (between 6-6:30) and he would make something for him and Gavin and I would literally leave the house and go drive to find something that worked for me. One night that was getting a pizza (NO VEGETABLES PLEASE) and lemonade to go, sitting in our car on a dark road and chowing down. I waited well over an hour to return home to make sure that the smell of vegetables was gone. After every restaurant in Nosara had been hit up at dinner time for about 2 weeks straight, trying to find something that actually tasted good, I finally realized that I was going to have to figure something out on my own. Nothing at any restaurant tasted good to me.

I figured out that it helped if my babysitter cleaned and chopped vegetables in the morning while she was here. And then she could steam or cook them in the morning while I was gone. Then, around 6 PM when gavin started getting hungry, at least I had something nutritious for him to munch on, and I didn’t have to smell anything. This didn’t happen every day/ night. Some nights I just made some plain ol’ pasta for the little guy and Spencer had to fend for himself when he got home. I just couldn’t be in the kitchen. Emotionally it stressed me out that I couldn’t help out more and take care of my family’s food needs. But Spencer assured me that it was fine, as long as it only lasted a couple more weeks:).

For myself, I just stuck to very plain things like cheerios, pancakes, bagels, pasta with butter, sweet potatoes and potatoes. That was about all I could handle though. Even pizza wasn’t an option because of the tomato sauce and spices.

Because I was a little more stressed at night and felt like there was more responsibility, it was causing my nausea to be worse. But once I got to the root of the problem,  it definitely helped. Spencer was incredible for picking up the extra slack and Gavin was such a good little guy for watching hours of hours of Dora the Explorer while I just lay there unable to get off the couch.

I’m now 13/14 weeks pregnant. On the 12th week, to the DAY, my nausea and food aversions got so much better. It was pretty incredible. BUT,another interesting thing is that it was also the same day Spencer’s parents arrived. They brought things from the states that I had been craving. They were here for me at dinner time. They helped around the house at the hours that were hardest for me. So, emotionally and mentally I think that me feeling better had a lot to do with that, too.

It’s 5:43 AM! I better go eat!