Five-ish Weeks Pregnant

Now that my cramps and lower backache have mostly subsided a couple of days after getting the positive pregnancy test, I almost feel like I couldn’t possibly be pregnant! Forget my previous frequent certainty about being pregnant. Forget the positive tests even. Forget that we’ve told my parents and sister, my husband’s parents and siblings, and one good friend. It’s this real sense of feeling normal that makes my brain almost believe that I’m not pregnant.

But of course, I know that I am.

Besides my own two positive tests, I took a test at the doctor’s office that same day (during my son’s appointment) and it came out positive. I’m supposed to go back in a couple of weeks for him to get the second flu shot and my doctor told me to make an appointment for myself for some reason too, though I don’t remember exactly what that reason was. My first pregnancy appointment last time around consisted of little more than a confirmatory pregnancy test, a weight check, and a warm congratulations.

Of course, I do know deep down that I am pregnant.

I have a sense of calm because of it. As much as I “enjoyed” charting my bbt, I am relieved not to have to do it anymore. My husband shoots me warm glowing smiles and I know what he is thinking about. And I am happy too when thinking about the future. I feel so unsure about our work-related future, so it is nice that this is one thing that we have already set in motion and that is something really wonderful to look forward to.

And of course, being generally symptomless right now is really, really nice.

But I am not one to just sit back and enjoy my sense of peace.

For example, I am dreading the likely onset of fatigue. Last time around it didn’t hit right away, but came on slowly over the first few weeks. I was still running last time, and I was able to go out for at least a month before overwhelming exhaustion knocked me out. And then I dragged. It took me 25 minutes to walk to work instead of the usual 15 and I arrived feeling like I wanted to take my arms off because they were just so heavy and were weighing me down. At home in the evenings I cried and went to bed early. When we traveled to Brazil in the second half of my first trimester, I managed alright when I was busy with work-related things, but whenever I had a break I collapsed in tears on the bed in desperate need of a nap. I did that once on the beach at Rio too. (I am sure it looked to those around us like we were breaking up.) But maybe I won’t be so exhausted this time. I hope not considering I really need to be productive at work right now and I also have a 19-month old to chase around.

One other negative (meaning unpleasant, not as in “negative test”!) “symptom” I’ve been having is bad dreams of spotting or bleeding. This is really strange to me because I didn’t have any spotting at all last time and I honestly don’t think I’m worrying about it this time. I actually suspect that I’m having these dreams as a sort of follow up to a period dream I had two months ago. That one was the night before my period arrived and I was feeling a lot of pressure in my abdomen (like my period was about to start) and I guess that feeling made me dream about my period actually coming. So now I am also feeling pressure in my abdomen in the early mornings, though it’s simply because I have to get up and pee, and I think my brain makes sense of that feeling by imagining that it’s really my period coming (since that is what has normally been the case, month after month, ever since I was thirteen or so). Two nights ago I had a dream of spotting and so my dream self worried about a miscarriage. Last night I had a dream of real bleeding, and my dream self was sure that was a miscarriage or at least the start of one. I guess it’s a chain of events wherein my brain leads itself further and further astray – first my brain interprets abdomen pressure as my period coming and then it interprets its own interpretation as a sign of a miscarriage. Stupid brain. I guess it’s not surprising that when I worry about things while I’m awake I also have a tendency to think in circuitous and unrealistic turns. Anyway, it’s very annoying to be having these dreams because I really don’t want to worry about a possible miscarriage. I hereby order my brain to stop this right now.

But aside from the dreams, perhaps I’m generally doing so well this week because I’ve been sleeping so much at night! My husband was out of town this weekend and won’t be back until Wednesday evening, so when I’ve been putting my son to bed, I’ve just gone to sleep with him. He goes to bed very late (10 pm!), but this is early for me. And because I have late work hours, I’ve been able to sleep until 8 or 9 am every morning. I guess it would be hard to feel fatigued after all that sleep!

(Hm, maybe sleeping so long is why I have to pee so badly when I wake up and why my brain is working extra hard to interpret this new feeling? That is, besides however much extra I might have to pee anyway now that I’m pregnant.)

So here I sit in my quiet apartment, after a long night’s sleep, and with no one to disturb me. My husband is still out of town. My child is still sleeping. And I am still in my pajamas. Even better, my babysitter will be arriving in a little over an hour and I plan to work from home. (Normally I stay home with my son today, but because I would otherwise be missing out on some work time because of my husband being out of town, we agreed I could hire a babysitter for today. I didn’t tell anyone at work though because I thought I could be much more productive working at home without any work distractions! So it’s a “secret” work day, and I can work in the bedroom while hearing my son play with the babysitter. I actually can’t wait!)