Morning Sickness

Aside from the overwhelming fatigue and frequent bathroom breaks, the first few weeks of my pregnancy weren't bad at all. As I approached the end of week 7, I figured that if I did not have any morning sickness by week 8, that I probably wouldn't have any at all during this pregnancy. For a short while I had a glimmer of hope that I was one of those lucky women who didn't get morning sickness.

The night of week 7 day 5 was like any other night. I went about my usual activities but eventually went to bed a bit earlier than usual due to the fatigue. I woke up in the middle of the night, around 3am, and had to go to the bathroom. This was par for the course, so I thought nothing of it. I basically stumbled out of bed in a haze, went to the bathroom, and then stumbled back into bed in the dark. Only this time, I had trouble falling back asleep.

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I layed there for some time, and then I started to feel a bit uneasy. Initially, it didn't even occur to me that this could be morning sickness... until the feeling became so overwhelming that I realized that I was about to throw up. Fortunately, I made it to the bathroom on time; unfortunately, I did not make it to the toilet in time! Ick! I did make it to the sink at least, but cleaning up chunky vomit from the sink isn't nearly as pleasant as simply flushing the toilet :(

From this night on, I found myself with a general sense of nausea all the time. It wasn't just in the morning, but was an all day kind of feeling - "morning" sickness really is such a misnomer. Often, it was worse at night, actually. I found that keeping my stomach full with frequent small snacks helped, as did eating sour candy. So much so that I went and bought some sour candy in bulk. I've heard some women feel better when they eat/drink ginger, but I did not try that. Thankfully, I had no further episodes of vomiting after that first one. Relatively speaking, I think I had a pretty mild case of morning sickness. I am not sure how some women manage who vomit multiple times a day - I guess there really isn't anything you can do but live with it, but still... just the constant nausea was enough to make me question whether I wanted to go through another pregnancy :/

The one thing about the morning sickness that made me feel better was that it was an indication that all was well with the baby and that the pregnancy was progressing as it should. It gave me a little more peace of mind as we waited for our 9 week ultrasound (which could not come soon enough!).

While the wait was unbearably long, it was all worth it when we saw our little peanut on the ultrasound! I was amazed at how much detail we could see on the ultrasound so early on... we could see little arms and legs!

We were also able to hear and see the heartbeat for the first time! It was so exciting and yet so surreal. It was hard to believe that I had this little being growing inside me... I had begun to develop the smallest little baby bump by 9 weeks. No one could tell, but I could tell by how tight my pants were starting to become. Other than that, the constant mild nausea was the only proof I had that I really had a baby growing inside me...