Chapter 4: SICK.

Originally written on March 8, 2013

Call me naive, but I though maybe…just maybe, I was going to be one of the lucky ones who doesn’t get first-trimester-sick. Wrong. It’s 11:30 on a Friday morning and all I can do is barely stay awake as I lay in bed. I feel like the flu has hit me full-force. Nausea  it determining what I can and can’t stomach (which isn’t much) and, consequently, I feel pretty weak. Add that to the existing exhaustion and you have me here….still in bed at 11:30 in the morning, trying to shove in a cracker or two, drink some water, keep it down, not move too much, but yet not fall asleep (because the insomnia is still killing me). We’ll be 7 weeks this weekend. Amy told me this week that she didn’t really get sick until week 7…she, too, thought she would be one of the lucky ones.

I’ve been lamenting over texts to Amy this morning, searching for the encouragement of “this is normal” and “this too shall pass.” I think it would help if I could tell people why I’m totally worthless these days. Or, maybe not. 🙂 I think it would be mostly helpful if the next few weeks could fly by, or if I could magically feel myself again and still have a perfectly healthy bean. Sigh…it will be worth it. It will be worth it. It will be worth it.

We head to Kansas City next weekend. We’re going to tell Krissy & Alex, and Lauren & Tyler, since this will be our only chance to tell them in person for a very long time (and it will be on facebook before we see them again). So, they’re the lucky first ones. 🙂

From there, we head to Portsmouth, VA to do some house-hunting, stopping on the way in Indianapolis to see and spend the night with Cowboy’s grandma (we’d love to tell her, but probably won’t since we haven’t told his family yet!). We’ll spend four nights in Portsmouth and, since this is really our only chance to get away before residency starts, picked a nice hotel (but we got a room for $54/night!!!) and decided to call this both our “pre-residency/post-graduation getaway” and our “babymoon.” You do what you can!

We’ll get back the following weekend, then the weekend after that (Easter), we’ll head to Oklahoma to tell my mom, brother, Nana and Aunt (they all live on the same street)!!! WOOHOO!!! I’m DYING over not being able to talk to you, Mom!

The weekend after that, we’ll be in Wichita for the first time in four weekends, and we’ll go to our normal Sunday lunch with my family and dinner with his family…at which we’ll casually mention our little development. I’ll check back with you once I know how all of these tentative plans have gone! In the mean time, I’m starting to avoid people in effort to not have to answer questions (and make up lies in the process…those of you who know my SIL, Nicole, know that she would be very quick to pick up on even the smallest of details from me, and, without asking me a single question, could figure it out. But if she did ask me a point-blank question? I don’t think I could mask my expression or lie quick enough to fool her. She knows me pretty well at this point. 🙂 )

So here I am, praying for understanding from clients and customers when it takes me that extra day or two to get their order out. Or takes me twice as long to finish their furniture. I hate that. 🙁

Since you’re reading this once we’ve made our news public, I can only hope I’m feeling better “now.” Crossing my fingers. Knowing this too shall pass. Knowing it’s worth it for this little tiny human that already has arms and legs and heart has been beating for over a week!

And seriously? what an honor this is. A true honor. I’m already praying hard over you, little one!

(EDIT 4/29/13: Turns out, those flu-like symptoms were actually a beastly bacterial sinus infection! And, since you can’t take much of anything while you’re pregnant, I just kind of had to ride it out. I was sick over the entire trip to Portsmouth and back, which wasn’t the best timing in the world, but after about three weeks, I started to feel less sick. And THEN…the following week (around 10.5 weeks), I started to get something called ENERGY back. And it was glorious. So, so, so glorious. It’s really amazing to me how terrible you can feel and not realize it until you start feeling better!)