Sad, mad, bad (and pregnant)

For many women, being pregnant is a honeymoon. But for some of us, it sucks.

I’m now at the end of my 17th week and for the first time, I feel more like my usual indomitable self. But the last 4 months have been miserable. And it didn’t help to think that I was perhaps the only pregnant woman in this fecund city to feel this way. Today’s post is dedicated to all those women who, like me, hate being pregnant. You think you’re whiny? Wait till you hear what I’ve got to say!

When I first found out I was pregnant (at approximately 6 weeks), I was shocked. Then thrilled. Oh my God, we were actually going to do this. I’m going to be a Mummy. Crazy! That week, business continued as usual. I’d been training for a half marathon and I decided (in the face of some serious opposition from my family) that I would continue to run as long as it felt good. I had done my research and I didn’t have any of the complications or risk factors that contraindicate running. Plus, it was our time together– just the baby and me. It was wonderful.

Week six was also filled with meetings. With maternity leave looming, I was forced to reassess my business goals and start thinking about finding a replacement, budgets and training. It was exciting. This was also the phase when the pregnancy was secret from everyone but really close family and friends. It boggled my mind that no one could guess my secret. I felt like I slipped up in a million little ways (always running off to pee, looking a little paunchy, calling birthing centres on my lunch break, etc).

Half way through week 7, everything changed. It was as if I hit a wall. At 100 kmph! I slept for 18 hours each day of that weekend. I developed a sudden, raging aversion to most foods. All I was able to get down were some Honey Dijon Kettle chips (and I seldom ate chips before I was pregnant!). Even fruit made me nauseous! I went from being able to do 10k long runs to needing a nap after walking the dog 5 blocks! And I was queasy ALL THE TIME. This whole morning sickness thing is a crock. It’s 24/7. In fact, the only time I felt remotely normal was the first 15 minutes when I woke up, after which it went downhill no matter what I ate or didn’t eat.

The nausea

I didn’t throw up much, thankfully, so I counted myself lucky at first. But the nausea was awful. I had to walk around at a shuffle, holding my still mostly flat belly in an effort to keep everything from sloshing about. I’ve never been seasick, but I imagine that’s what it feels like. It was as if the world had suddenly turned into a ship in gale force winds and it was all I could do to hold on to the rails.

The smells

It’s a bit like being a dog. Except without a dog’s appreciation of odour. I suddenly wanted to vomit when the neighbours held barbecues in the evening. I struggled not to push the dog away because I couldn’t stand how strong she smelled (and she doesn’t actually smell bad at all). I could tell you which cat had hopped into bed with my eyes closed simply from the smell of their anal glands. Oh yes, pregnancy (for me, at least) was one long case of olfactory TMI.

I forbade Pat to wear perfume. I stopped liking the smell of lavender (which I usually ADORE!). I went off my Earl Grey (and eventually grew to dislike the smell of all teas, herbal or otherwise). I tossed several bars of soap and poured shampoo down the toilet because I couldn’t bear the thought of having that smell on me (and I had to shower twice a day because I didn’t like the smell of my own body on the prenatal vitamins I was taking).

The cough

At about this time, I developed a deep, hacking chronic cough. It sounded like I was a 3-pack a day smoker and I was about to pay for my habit by hacking up a lung. You can just imagine how fun this was when combined with the nausea.

The coughing was exhausting. It consumed me (now I know why they called TB “consumption”). If you’re suffering from a similar dry, but deep, honking cough, I’m going to tell you something your doctor probably doesn’t know. It’s most likely not your lungs (it wasn’t mine). You’ve probably got one of two things (possibly both): A postnasal drip: This is apparently common in pregnancy and caused by your body producing extra mucous. This mucous drip-drip-drips down the back of your throat (even though you don’t feel it) and causes an irritation that makes you cough. Then the coughing fuels the irritation until it becomes chronic.

You probably also have undiagnosed acid reflux: I know what you’re thinking, “But I don’t have heartburn!” I know. I don’t either. Despite all the fatty, spicy food I craved, I had no heartburn at all. But the specialist at the Montreal Chest Institute assured me that 40% of reflux sufferers never get heartburn. In fact, it’s surprisingly common for pregnant women to develop a chronic cough because relaxin and estrogen loosen the esophagal sphincter and cause hydrochloric acid from the stomach to rise up the throat. If you happen to breathe in at the time, you can aspirate some of that acid into your windpipe and lungs and boy, nothing will cause a deep wracking cough like that will!

How to tell if you, like me, suffer from reflux-induced coughing?

• It’s usually worse when you lie down.
• It flares up when you drink liquids or eat fruit or after a heavy meal.
• Chest X-rays are clear and your cough doesn’t produce much mucous.
• You have no fever or other signs of an infection.
• You don’t normally have respiratory allergies.

Talk to your doctor. Maybe ask for a referral to a specialist. I say this because neither my GP nor my obstetrician correctly diagnosed my cough, and if I hadn’t insisted on a referral to the Chest Institute, I might still be crying, wondering if I’d suddenly developed an allergy to my animals.

Dreading meal times

How ironic that the one time in your life you’re supposed to gain weight, you want nothing to do with food. I used to dread mealtimes. I actually stopped working, because I would spend my entire day (the bits when I wasn’t napping) obsessing about what to eat next. But not in a, “oh, I really want cheesecake” way. More like a, “do I want soup? YUCK! no. Cake? Oh eww. Salad. NO! I want to barf” etc etc. I’ve always enjoyed food and for the first time in my life, I found myself wishing I could take a pill to make me full.

Lower income, higher expenses

As someone who’s self employed and whose income depends on being an enthusiastic, high-energy, power networker, pregnancy was terrifying. I felt so awful and low-energy, the idea of going to an event made me cry. Literally. I bailed on presentations (I had to; until the cough was correctly diagnosed and I was using antacids, I could barely string two sentences together before collapsing in a fit of hacking). I turned away lucrative radio hosting gigs at the CBC. I cancelled client meetings and stopped accepting new clients and writing gigs. My income plummeted. My husband had to sit me down and point out that I rock at my job and that this was just a temporary setback. Obviously this prompted more crying. But it was nice to have someone believe in me.

At the same time, my restaurant bill skyrocketed because I had neither the energy nor the imagination to cook. Plus, my aversions were so strong  and so fickle that sometimes I’d have a glimmer that maybe I wanted to eat… say a piece of garlic bread, and by the time I got to the grocery store 15 minutes later, the idea of garlic bread would make me want to heave. So I ate out at whatever place caught my olfactory fancy when I was hungry. It was the only way I could bring myself to eat anything at all.

Please don’t ask me if I’m excited!

Perhaps the most challenging part was the public face of the pregnancy. I decided pretty early on to let the cat out of the bag. Mostly because I’d become a social recluse (so not like me!) and was turning away work and canceling gigs. People’s faces would light up, “Oh, you must be so excited!”

Yeah. Super. Have waited for exhaustion, a reflux-induced cough and 24/7 nausea my whole life. La vida loca. Hurray.

It made me feel like a shitty person. And I had moments of HUGE, gut wrenching despair. On more than a few occasions, I seriously considered getting an abortion. I wanted out. Now. I was also ashamed of all the times I’d secretly judged women who’d had complicated pregnancies, assuming it was something they had done (or not done). “It could never happen to me because I’m so healthy and take such good care of myself.” Yeah, SO not true. It’s a total fucking crapshoot. I know women who are unfit, overweight, and smokers who have gorgeous, glowing pregnancies that reaffirm their faith in life and love.

And then there’s women like me.

Because you’re out there, aren’t you? I’m not all alone, panicking about my ability after all this discomfort to attach to this child? It’s not just me who’s terrified that I can’t trust my body (the way I always did) to deliver this child without complications? To nurse and love this baby? Am I the only person who has had her faith in everything she’d assumed about herself as a mother wrenched from her grip and shattered on the floor?

If this is you, know that there’s at least one other pregnant lady who is having her world rewritten right now. And that there’s plenty of help and hope out there. 

I’ve outlined some of the things that helped me in my next post.