12-14 weeks

Heartburn, nausea & vomiting, food aversions, insomnia, fatigue, pelvic pain, sensitivity to smells, excess saliva, weak & tired probably from anemia. My fatigue has been out of control this entire pregnancy! I don't remember being this tired all the time with my other babies. I am literally sleeping more than my kids now. I go to bed when they go to bed, wake up when they wake up, and have to catch an hour or two of sleep in the afternoon. It's ridiculous!

I didn't ever get to weigh myself during the most severe morning sickness, but knowing my past history with losing weight following something like this, in the month that I was most sick and not consuming much food at all, I estimate that I lost about 15 lbs. When I finally was able to weigh myself at 12 weeks, I was still 3 lbs. under pre-pregnancy weight, even after eating normally for three weeks.

Food aversions are also more pronounced this time around. There's hardly anything I can stomach. I eat fruit, smoothies, popsicles, and salads during the day, and every now and then I'll have an intense, random craving for something. I'll eat it, it will be delicious, and then I will go back to not even being able to stomach looking at a picture of it. Last week it was egg drop soup and clam chowder. Last night it was a roast beef sandwich. Today the thought of eating any of those makes me want to gag. And many, many foods give me heartburn. Anything with ANY kind of spice at all burns going down and I can't eat it... sausage, mild salsa, mustard, pickles. It's frustrating because I can't just buy something at the grocery store and then plan on eating it, and I'm getting tired of fruit and salads. I'm not really sure what to do! Many days I don't eat much at all, because the thought of food in general sounds disgusting, but then I'm hungry which makes me more nauseous. Pregnancy problems. At least I'm having healthy cravings. The thought of things like cookies and brownies sounds disgusting... who would have thought! I am normally a sugar fiend!

Week 12: This week we had our first sonogram! Baby was so active; it was just amazing. It was moving his little head back and forth, doing flips, sticking its hands up near its head, moving little toes and fingers. I cried. It was so incredible to see the tiny life growing inside me. And I received what I considered very good news: I am actually a week further along than I thought. Going in to the ultrasound, I thought I was 11 weeks along, but I was actually 12 weeks. Hoorah! I got to skip an entire week of pregnancy. This week in terms of nausea was awful. I was so sick during this week. The Reglan was no longer working, so I stopped taking it. Back to vomiting 8x a day and surviving on juice, water, and Ensure. Better to vomit liquid than solids and damaging my esophagus, so there was no point in eating.

Week 13: My midwife prescribed me Zofran and it is a LIFE-SAVER. It worked so well, that I stopped throwing up in the mornings before taking the meds. I felt better this week than I had for the last month and a half. So good, in fact, that we had a scare. One morning I had a little spotting, and I've never had spotting during pregnancy before. Combined with the sudden decrease in symptoms, I freaked out and started thinking I might be miscarrying. It was so scary -- hard to even describe. I've always understood that a miscarriage is a very emotional loss to go through, but now I have an even deeper understanding of what it feels like. Thankfully, we were able to go into the birth center immediately and listen to the baby's heartbeat; I've never heard a sweeter sound! I was so grateful that everything was okay, but my heart breaks even more for the mamas who do have to go through this. Some of them, over and over. I will never understand and I'll never look at pregnancy loss the same way. I have a newfound empathy for my friends who have lost babies in the womb.

Week 14: Experienced my first Braxton Hicks! Oh, how I dislike them. This week was hard. Going into my system the Zofran worked great. Now that it's been a week, it's starting to wear off a little. Most days this week, I would just lie in my bed. I started throwing up in the mornings again, and almost threw up a couple times during the day (but I've gotten really good and fighting a vomiting spell -- unfortunately). The bad days and good days seem to come in waves. I'll have one good day, then three horrible days, then wake up feeling fine -- but I guess that's just the hormones and my body calming down and hopefully the sickness coming to a slow end. Now I know when I have a good day, it doesn't necessarily mean the morning sickness is gone for good, it just means I'm having a good day that could be followed by a day ten times worse. Oh, well. My only consolation is that this will be over soon.