Growing a Baby in My Sleep

It’s almost funny that when you count back the weeks of my pregnancy to the weeks I’m actually married, I’m more pregnant than I am married. It’s because the counting begins on the first day of your last period, which, for me, was a week before our wedding.

I started getting alarmed when I had these short cramps in my lower abdomen after the week of my ovulation period (according to my period tracker). I wanted to wait until my actual missed period because that’s what they said was the best time to check. 3 days after my missed period, we checked, and it was positive. We got 3 different tests to be sure.

My first order of business was to consult with my doctors in the Philippines regarding my current prescriptions. Most of my medications were temporarily stopped, but my therapist was most careful about stopping my mental health medications (antidepressants and mood stabilizers). He said that we might need to do intense psychotherapy since I’m off my meds in the first trimester.

Of course, coming from a medical background, I already knew what was ahead of me (sort of) in this pregnancy in terms of symptoms, but no one prepared me for the version I was going to undergo.

1. Morning sickness in the afternoon

I have heard of nausea or “morning sickness” before. I just was not prepared for it to happen at any given time of the day.

For me, my morning sickness was in the afternoon. Which, I guess, makes sense, since I’m Filipino, my body clock in this pregnancy is in Filipino (morning) time. I would have it at around 5 or 6 PM, which was 8 or 9 AM in the Philippines. Still in the morning, right? Just not at the right timezone.

2. Cravings

I would like to say that I didn’t have any cravings but my family would say otherwise. My husband noticed I’ve grown fond of KFC chicken. My in-laws would say I have been eating a concerning amount of peanuts.

What I thought qualified as a craving is the 2AM-couldn’t-sleep-must-have-it-or-else-you-will-face-the-consequences-of-my-wrath kind. Fortunately, I haven’t had one of those. My cravings were during meal times or snack times, and it was never a death sentence to whoever doesn’t bow to my command.

3. Alarming Discharge

I was never prepared for this. I (still) think this is the most inconvenient part of pregnancy. Discharge can be alarming, especially when it’s colored and has a pungent smell to it. Pregnancy discharge is clear or white, and doesn’t smell bad. But, it is the bane of my existence. I hate the surprise of looking down and seeing, yet again, another generous amount of fluid/goo/slime. Ugh.

4. Cramping

I’ve read about threatened abortions and it has happened to one of my mom’s pregnancies before. I had this perpetual fear of my baby just falling out and me bleeding to my (almost) death. So I was very aware of cramping, thinking bleeding would follow soon after.

No one told me cramping was normal. It’s not the sudden sharp cramps, it’s just like period cramps. It’s alarming but I’ve learned to calm myself when this happens.

5. Tiredness

This one was not on my pregnancy bingo card. I thought, oh, pregnancy, so I’ll have morning sickness, eme eme eme what have you.

I am not exaggerating when I tell you my husband finds me in the same position I was when he left for work. I’m always sleeping! It’s so inconvenient! I am so mad because I feel I lost so much time just sleeping. As a defined-by-my-productivity kind of girl, it made me feel useless. I felt like I was just growing a baby in my sleep.

It’s good though, sleep is important, because as I develop all these new organs for my baby, I spend a lot of energy.

Bonus: I keep losing weight even as I’m getting farther along in this pregnancy. I’ll share more about this later.

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