Tag Archives: fatigue

10 Weeks Pregnant: Sharing the Joy (And Splitting My Pants)

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August 24 – August 31: 10 Weeks 0 Days – 10 Weeks 6 Days.

Forget waiting until twelve weeks. I finally announced on Facebook that I’m pregnant (I hated keeping the secret). Before I was pregnant, I foresaw myself being that pregnant lady who gets a photo in same position and clothing every single day and strings them together into a time lapse YouTube video after the baby is born. Turns out modeling in front of a camera is the last thing I feel like doing while nauseous, so I have very few photos of my first trimester. However, Wednesday morning I had a lull in my nausea, and I mustered up the wherewithal to snap a photo in our backyard to share on Facebook:

Pregnancy Announcement

It was so nice to share the news with friends and get some much-needed support and encouragement around the nausea and fatigue! Turns out I let the baby out of the bag just in time, because I couple days later I had quite an embarrassing event, and I don’t know how I would have coped if I hadn’t been able to share my chagrin on Facebook and laugh at myself with friends.

Saturday was a productive day: All morning I toured the most promising garage sales within a 45-minute drive, and came back with a carful of small furniture items we need for our new house. That afternoon I talked Richard into stopping off at some thrift stores to go desk shopping on our way to Lowe’s (we’ve been chipping away at a long list of home improvement projects we hope to complete before the baby is born). I was wearing a pair of green cargo capris, which were themselves bought from a thrift store years ago. The button at the top of the fly had been replaced by a safety pin, and many of the snaps that close the pockets had become detached; but, they rode low and weren’t skintight, so they were one of the few pairs of pants I still enjoyed wearing.

As I got back in the car after visiting our last thrift store I thought I heard something rip. I shifted from side-to-side and my pants felt intact, so I rationalized that I’d just imagined it. Our next stop was a decorative hardware store, which we were disappointed to find was closed for the long weekend. As passersby strolled behind us on the sidewalk, Richard and I alternately stood on tiptoes or bent over to peer through the windows at the various options they had for faucets and sinks. This time when I got back into the car, I definitely heard something rip. I felt around to my butt and shrieked. There was an enormous split in my pants that ran from my waistband to my mid thigh, completely exposing my lacy lavender panties. When I divulged what had happened to Richard, he howled with laughter and couldn’t stop.

I haven’t gained that much weight during pregnancy—maybe three or four pounds. However, I haven’t been exercising nearly as much, so, because muscle is heavier than fat, I could have easily lost a chunk of muscle and packed on a greater volume of fat to my butt and thighs without gaining an ounce of weight. I’ve had good control over my weight for the last thirteen years, so this kind of temporary shift wouldn’t normally bother me. I gained ten pounds on my ten-day honeymoon in Hawaii; instead of freaking out and enacting a rigorous diet and exercise program when I got home, I simply went back to my normal habits and calmly lost the weight as quickly as I’d gained it. However, something about my butt busting through a hearty fabric like khaki was too much for a pregnant lady to handle.

I saw the humor in what had happened and I was laughing along with Richard, but it was the type of laughter that was a dam restraining a deluge of tears. When he suggested I tie a sweater around my waist so we could still go to Lowe’s, I think he could tell that dam was a about to burst. He didn’t argue when I insisted we go buy me a new pair of pants immediately, and that he come with me for emotional support instead of just dropping me off at the mall. I picked out a pair of loose, low-riding, boyfriend-cut pajama pants, which got me through the rest of our errands.

A day or two later, we went shopping for my first pair of proper maternity pants.

Maternity Pants

My first pair of maternity pants.

8 Weeks Pregnant: Surrendering Control (Or Not)

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August 10 – August 16: 8 Weeks 0 Days – 8 Weeks 6 Days.

Big Cousin

We announced my pregnancy to my family with this big cousin shirt for my niece, Rosie.

Richard and I spent three days last week driving from San Francisco to Vancouver. I knew my mom would have dinner on the table as soon as we got to Vancouver, and I wanted to share the news of our pregnancy first thing so that any nausea-induced rudeness (like pushing the brussels sprouts as far away from myself as possible) would be interpreted in context. We sat down for dinner with my parents, my sister and her husband, and my two-year-old niece, Rosie. Before we could even say grace, I produced a green tissue-paper-wrapped gift and said, “We got something for Rosie. Let her open it right away!” Rosie unwrapped the package and held up a pink shirt. My sister read aloud the words printed below two amicable elephants: “Big Cousin” (A reformulating of my initial plan to tell Richard I was pregnant the week I found out). Everyone was pleasantly surprised and congratulated us. My mom got up to give Richard and me a hug and cried happy tears.

Normally I would be the one to play with Rosie while Richard helped out with cleaning up from dinner, but this trip I spent a lot of time laying on the couch and “Auntie Riri” (what Rosie calls Richard—she hasn’t quite figured out the difference between aunts and uncles yet) got to interact with Rosie a little more. Nothing is as reassuring to a pregnant woman as watching her partner successfully care for a child. He said that having his own baby on the way gave him a new confidence with children—or at least motivation to start practicing.

I saw several friends while I was in Vancouver, some of whom guessed I was pregnant before I could break the news! Normally with my friends and family I go on a hike, or kayaking, or skiing. I was grateful that my loved ones were willing to go on gentle walks or do other activities that I could bring a folding chair to. I’ve heard that—contact sports aside—expecting mothers can continue doing most of the activities they did before pregnancy. It must be true for some women, because I’ve seen pregnant ladies running and women in my vinyasa yoga classes up until their last month of pregnancy. That’s not the case for me. While gentle physical activity makes me feel better than sitting around resting all day, my body seems resolutely against anything strenuous. Activities that push my cardio, strength, or endurance make me feel nauseated. Even deep stretching doesn’t feel good. My pregnant body is a Buddhist, urging me to embrace moderation—the middle way.

We got home from Vancouver and immediately started packing our whole life into boxes. We’d owned our new home for a month, and it was finally time to move in! We’d originally planned to rent a Uhaul and do the heavy lifting ourselves (with the help or a friend or two). After lugging a few preliminary boxes up to the house in our Honda Civic—just to get the process started—I abashedly convinced Richard to hire movers. I realized that I would not be able to contribute much to helping with the move, and I didn’t want Richard to hurt his back trying to compensate for me. Obviously I had a good excuse and there was nothing to feel guilty about, but the raw truth is that I hate having limitations. A common theme in yoga and meditation is learning to be with discomfort without needing to change anything about it. I teach this all the time, and I thought I was fairly good at it. I knew that pregnancy would be uncomfortable and rife with change, but I thought I would be able to ride its waves with equanimity and acceptance. Sometimes I do. But sometimes when Richard gives me the sage advice, “Go lay down on the couch and let me handle this,” I snap back, “I don’t want to go lay down!”

At least because of the meditation I can take a step back from my outbursts to laugh at my gracelessness and accept that I am a human on a journey.

~ * ~

Perspective: As I publish this at during my twenty-second week of pregnancy, I can’t help but laugh reading back over this journal entry. One evening this week, I asked Richard if he could cut up a mango for me and get me a glass of water. As he obliged, he said “I think you’re finally getting the hang of to letting me do things for you.” I felt equally proud and chagrined. I think he could sense my cognitive dissonance, because he added, “That’s a good thing!” Hopefully by the time my baby’s birthday arrives I’ll have enough practice to be able to completely and shamelessly surrender my need for control. After all, as Richard often tells me when I’m combatively independent, “You know, eventually you’ll have to leave our children alone with me for a few hours, and just trust me to take care of them.” I would never want my type-A personality, control-freak mentality, lone wolf tendencies to cost him trust, respect, and precious one-on-one time with his children. As I wrote fourteen weeks ago, I am still a human on a journey.

7 Weeks Pregnant: Nausea

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August 3 – August 9: 7 Weeks 0 Days – 7 Weeks 6 Days.

I love teaching yoga, but I had been so relentlessly nauseated that by week eight that I was just counting down the classes until Richard and I left on Wednesday for our road trip to Vancouver, Canada to visit my family. The teaching itself wasn’t so bad—the light movement and warmth actually relieved many of my symptoms—but having to put on real clothes and leave my apartment where I could nap and snack whenever I wanted to was arduous when I was feeling so uncomfortable.

Foxy and I used to go on long adventures every day. Now, my walks around Bernal Heights Park consist mostly of me resting on park benches. It drives me nuts when people say, "Isn't it a little early in pregnancy for you to be feeling so tired?" No. Evidently it's not.

Foxy and I used to go on long adventures every day. Now, my walks around Bernal Heights Park consist mostly of me resting on park benches. It drives me nuts when people say, “Isn’t it a little early in pregnancy for you to be feeling so tired?” No. Evidently it’s not.

I think nausea is my body’s way of preparing me psychologically for a baby. Just as a baby communicates it’s diverse needs in one way—crying—my body now speaks primarily in nausea. Hunger—nausea. Overly full—nausea. Exerted too hard—nausea. Too sedentary—nausea. Thirsty—nausea. Too hot—nausea. Too cold—nausea. Sleepy—nausea. Before I was pregnant, I could get up, take my dog Foxy on a 45-minute walk on Bernal Hill, and teach a yoga class—all before breakfast. During the walk and the yoga class my body may have whispered to me that I should have eaten sooner, and maybe by the time I finally grabbed a protein pack from Starbucks my body’s tone would have risen from whispering to sternly chastising. The nausea augments my body’s whispering to yelling. If I take Foxy out on even her 5-minute pee-walk before eating my morning apple or boiled egg, my body revolts. I wish I could say that I use my refined yoga skills to listen and respond to the subtle cues from my body, but the cues are so blatant and intrusive that it really doesn’t take honed senses or self-discipline to modify my lifestyle. It’s a necessity.

Informed by the booklet my doctor gave me and my friend, Jacqueline’s, blog I found that eating frequently helped attenuate my queasiness. For the first time in my life I started getting up for midnight snacks when my body woke me up with nausea. You’re not supposed to gain too much weight in the first trimester (yet another thing for pregnant women to stress about), so I broke up my meals into smaller sub meals (like a hobbit, I’ve got second breakfast and elevensies), ate more slowly, and got an arsenal of naturally low-calorie snacks. On our road trip to Vancouver, I munched on a steady stream of popcorn, grapes, and carrots. Luckily, I don’t get motion sickness, so the car ride didn’t bother me.

In Oregon, Richard and I went on a twenty or thirty minute hike to check out the sand dunes. I’ve been a fitness fanatic since I was fifteen, and normally I’m the one with stamina and Richard is the one telling me to stop trying to have a conversation with him while we’re hiking up a hill. This time I was the one huffing and puffing along, complaining that my shoes were full of sand, and stopping for frequent water breaks. I had the fleeting (and pretentious) thought, This must be how normal people all the time. The effort of the hike was totally worth the play time we had on the dunes though.

I insisted we continue to drive up the scenic route along the coast, even though it would add a couple hours to our trip. Then with Richard behind the wheel, the pregnant-lady fatigue set in and I fell asleep for most of it.