awake sickness and a dose of honesty

It’s been 9 weeks of feeling pretty darn yucky. Morning sickness is a cruel term. If my eyes are open then I am feeling nauseous. I’m no stranger to nausea. I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease in the 8th grade and I had another serious flare my senior year of high school. Those two years of my life I spent feeling pretty sick and I figured “morning” sickness would be like that. I felt prepared. HA! This is not that. At all. It’s been downright debilitating. It seems crazy to say it’s made me bedridden. I felt insane for feeling that way. So I looked for validation on the Internet. Were other women feeling as though they could not get out of bed, unless of course it was a run for the bathroom? The answer…a resounding YES! Forum after forum confirmed that I am not alone and that many other women were feeling exactly as I did physically and emotionally. Not only was I nauseated all of the time, but my house, you know, the one I moved into 3 weeks before the awake sickness set in, was a complete disaster. I had been beating myself up for not being able to keep it all together.

And what about the joy of being pregnant for the first time? Shouldn’t that be enough for me to never ever complain or wish it were different for me? A little more guilt set in for that too. I was {am} complaining! I was {am} over it! No one tells you just how hard it can be to be pregnant in the first few months. I thought the hard part would come much later when I was as big as a house and uncomfortable. I just want to go through a day and not feel so bad! It’s a long time {9 weeks} to feel so sick! And I want to get back to living life. I have felt so bad and spent so much time wallowing in it that I haven’t felt like me. I’m ready to move on from this part of the pregnancy.

Now, even though I have felt so bad, I am so happy and thankful to be carrying this little baby. During the first trimester, once I began feeling sick, the thought of waking up the next morning feeling fine scared me to death. They say once the morning sickness sets in so deep a sure tell sign of something going wrong is when it disappears without tapering off. For as much as I hated feeling so sick, I was terrified not to until the 12th week had passed. If 9 weeks {and maybe more} of hugging that toilet bowl is part of becoming a mommy then I’ll take it. This is a great first lesson in the trials and perseverance necessary in parenthood, right? I’d like to think so because it’s been hard, SO HARD, but so incredibly worth it and I am glad that I can say I am 15 weeks pregnant to anyone who will listen! Because I love this little baby regardless of how often he or she sends me running for the bathroom!