Now before I start (or you start reading) I am NOT a midwife (luckily for you ladies) and these are my symptoms from experience. Any facts I add are from NHS Start4Life or the book "what to expect when you're expecting" (which is fab). Lots of people experience no symptoms, way worse or way different but this is just a funny (well I hope parts are), honest opinion about what happened to me and - ginger was not my friend.
1st trimester symptoms:
Hey guys, feels weird to be back – I feel like I’ve been so lazy with my blog, I mean I haven’t even finished my cancer blog & fast forward and I’m 31 weeks pregnant.. I wanted to write this to help people in remission and people with cancer know a little bit what would happen in terms of oncology check ups vs midwife/obstetric appointments and then I thought, do you know what? I want to write this for ALL pregnant women as some symptoms I had, oh my god (don’t worry I’ll be nice and graphic for you & honest so you get all the details – if you can’t handle that, stop reading now! – pre warning, especially if you can't stomach sick stories) – are kept behind closed doors and not really discussed - even between pregnant women - yet alone publicly broadcasted (that’s where I come in). I wanted to add a bit of normality and that unfortunately, some (unless you’re SO LUCKY) will happen to you. Of course I haven’t had ALL the symptoms you can get with pregnancy (and I also have no idea about this pregnancy business as its my first time around) so this is only a sneak preview of what I had and to make any pregnancy symptoms a little bit more NORMAL – like vomiting down yourself which yep, I did – and not only that, when I was coming onto a motorway (nope I didn’t crash and I lived to tell the tale).
So (yes she is still starting sentences like this – brilliant English) I will take you through trimester by trimester, to be honest my 2nd trimester was pretty good but this 1st one. Nope, didn’t like it one bit, didn’t like being pregnant during this time (and yep I will admit it).
Weeks 5-8:
Two massive things to sum up these 3 weeks – cheese and coleslaw sandwiches and TIREDNESS.
1: Cravings I haven’t really had many cravings but at the start, I was eating 3 cheese and coleslaw sandwiches a day. Right now, I’m really not that bothered about cheese and coleslaw but honestly, week 5 & 8 I could have easily taken a block of cheese, dunked it in a tub of coleslaw (a bit like a huge dairylee dunker) and eaten it that way (and probably finished the whole block of cheese off). Of course I was at work so had to be sophisticated and make it into a sandwich. I mean guys, I leave work at 6:15am. I had ALREADY eaten ONE sandwich for breakfast – I loved them so much it was what got me out of bed in the morning and I had a genuine excitement for it (cheese is just amazing anyway but no idea why my body was crying out for it). I also pre-made one ready for lunch @ work but did I make it to lunch time? No, of course not – come 1st break around 10:30am and the sandwich was coming out. Having said that, no one at work clocked or thought it was weird I was munching on a sandwich that early but I mean, some of us have biscuits and chocolate during our handover @ 07:15am so I guess its not that weird to us (nurses/health care professionals are a weird bunch).
I guess what I am saying is cravings, although EVERY ONE mentions them and knows about them – are very REAL and very normal and I didn’t realise just how strong they would be. I mean it took over my tomato craving during my steroids and that was a tough one to beat (still loving the tomatoes’ now – baby goes wild). There’s varying reasons for cravings and I am not a midwife or qualified in that area (everything I write which is a fact is either off the NHS “start4life” website which is brill or out of the book “What to expect when you’re expecting – so it isn’t just things I’ve made up) but the main reason is essentially your hormones changing your sense of smell and taste (brilliant when covid-19 also does that too isn’t it? Do I have Rona, no.. just a baby).
I want to just add while we are on the cravings subject the important thing and that is - If you find yourself craving things that aren't food, like toothpaste, coal or even soil, speak to your midwife or doctor, as this may be a sign of a vitamin deficiency. Cheese is fine though.
2: Fatigue/exhaustion/I NEED SLEEP
Probably the main symptom early on I got was being so fxcking tired. I get tired when I am on my period but this was a whole other level. I mean guys, I’ve had major surgery and been pumped full of anesthetic and that, THAT made me knackered but my god – a baby, that’s next level and almost on par with anesthetic (to me anyway – probably sound a bit extreme but I’m pretty laid back and usually dampen down symptoms so..). I can’t sleep in public (if you can, how? I can if my face is covered) but you could’ve lifted me up and plonked me in the middle of London’s Covent Gardens and I would’ve happily fallen asleep up against a wall (cheese coleslaw sandwich in one hand, mouth wide open – I can just picture it now). I hate being tired (state the obvious – who doesn’t?). I’m very much a get up and go, keep busy and active type of person so this pissed me off a bit but, I just gave in and napped. Even after sleeping 10 hours at night (ah what lovely past times – wait until 3rd trimester and insomnia, if you get it), I could still nap 2 hours in the day – and you know what guys? Just do it. Don’t feel lazy, you’re really not. Exercise did help pick up my energy levels but sometimes that wouldn’t cut it and I’d just need a nap. More often than not I’d sleep for 2 hours, then be a big ball of energy and then go for a run/workout and that would keep me awake the rest of the day. Again, hormones (yep – those little bastards really are center of attention for these 9 months) are to blame for this.
Weeks 9-11
SICKNESS
I’m going to say it, sorry son, but this baby made me more sick than chemotherapy did (when you total all the times up). I have never felt as ill as I did at 9 weeks pregnant. Now come the good stories – nice honest stories for you, all about sick. What more could you want? Fun fact: Morning sickness doesn’t just mean in the morning, it is just the name. It certainly didn’t for me, it meant every fucking 2 hours some days.
I started off just feeling sick and feeling dizzy. I got up in the middle of the night one night thinking I was going to throw up, made it to the toilet and practically passed out (I mean I am a professional fainter so knew what was happening and got myself on the floor while shouting for Chuks). Chuks comes along and while I am laying with my head on the floor right near the toilet bin and wedged between the actual toilet itself and the bath tub (brilliant) white as anything and so COLD (you go cold when you faint) he goes “oh my god babe, come on I’ll help you stand up and get back to bed”). There’s me giving him instructions to keep me laying on the floor to which he went “Urm, okay – shall I put you in the recovery positon?”. So I’m half passed out, half teaching Chuks about what to do (or what not to do) when someone faints but, the sicky feeling has gone so – half winning. After that nice half fainting episode the real deal started. The actual sickness. Any time of the day it happened but I must admit it was mainly in the morning. It got so bad that I would have a drink (well a pathetic sip) of water and vomit 10 times that amount up. By the way - Ginger, people act like ginger is an absolute god send AND please try it because I think it probably actually does work for 90% of people but for me? No, didn’t help at all. It would just make my vomit smell a bit gingery or, trigger me being sick in the first place. I tried ginger tea (thanks mum), actual bits of ginger, proper ginger stem cookies, ginger nuts – nothing. My biggest advice? Drink as much as you can so you don’t dehydrate but KEEP A BOWL BY YOUR BEDSIDE because if you’ve ever experienced projectile vomiting and/or norovirus then that’s what happened to me – sometimes at 3am. Oh and also – keep a bowl IN YOUR CAR (story to follow).
Now, this is the graphic bit – because I could no longer stomach ANYTHING, nope – not even my precious cheese and coleslaw sandwiches, my sick wasn’t normal sick, it was basically bile or clear water but, if you experience bad morning sickness, you will be surprised how much is actually in your body and think where the fxck is this all coming from!? One cycle of chemotherapy made me vomit up so much that I literally had nothing left to vomit up and it is A LOT (so the chances are that won’t happen and if it does, keep an eye on how much fluid you’re able to take and if you’re weeing or not. If you can’t stomach anything and aren’t weeing – go to your doctors). Sickness is the thing that will get you questioning pregnancy (and that’s allowed) and wondering how there’s women out there who genuinely enjoy being pregnant (good on them – I wish I felt like that at this point) because it does make you feel shit and, even though this one is an absolute blessing and miracle – he made me feel like shite so I don’t feel mean saying I hated pregnancy at this point, it doesn’t mean you love them any less.
There were mornings that I was so tired, so dizzy and SO SICK. I would try and keep hydrating but as soon as that water touched my lips, nah – that was it. Vomited it straight back up but like I said above, honestly about 10x more than I attempted to get down. I was pale as anything and my mouth felt SO DRY (so ice cubes are your friend people, oh and a good lip balm). I had told work at this point and had the day off but it wasn’t getting better so yep – I went to the GP who immediately signed me off for a week (what a relief as the next week was pretty much a similar story to the above). Now amongst this sickness I would want the most random foods, I told Chuks to go and get me kale.. which I obviously only wanted right there and then as it sat in our fridge uneaten after that (so prepare for that as well). I also loved those mini cheese blocks you get for kids and basically ate those, plain bagels (bagels are life) and potatoes (potatoes are also life and were also a savior during chemo/steroid cravings).
That was my worst week but I had 2 more lovely sickness occasions. 1) Another sick day at work. Why? Because I threw up over myself while driving to work Yes – that’s all you really need to know as it sums it right up but basically, I’d left for work in the morning feeling a bit shitty but loads of people in early pregnancy feel shit in the morning and then it gets better (same for me right? – wrong). So I set off for work, I’d eaten breakfast (really plain breakfast) and kept getting that sicky saliva feeling you get pre-vomiting (well I get it anyway – its lush but a good warning sign either way). I hadn’t taken a bowl with me (TAKE A BOWL IN YOUR CAR PEOPLE) and was driving up the slip road onto the motorway and thought oh fuck, here it comes.. so I was driving along basically trying to keep sick down. I did a good job until my body said NOPE just as I was on the slip road joining the motorway – so as I was merging onto the motorway (thank god it was early morning so was quiet!) I was also grabbing a crisp packet (there’s perks to not having had a sparkling clean car at that time) to be sick into (I did manage to get some into it) but mainly projectile vomiting ALL down myself - all down my new coat, all down my uniform (where it sort of pooled in my lap) and all over the steering wheel, floor and car seat. I had 15 minutes before the start of my shift, pulled over and had to ring in sick that day and explain how I’d projectile vomited down myself (without saying I was pregnant) – it was horrible. I HATE calling in sick and tried to talk myself out of it saying “Ooh I feel fine now” and then realizing, what was I going to do? Walk through the hospital with sick down myself like “don’t mind me..” until I got to my ward.. no way. Good job I did call in sick that day as no surprise, I was sick again that day with the classic ginger stem biscuits staring at me (bastards – help me). 2) Sick on the way to the midwife Yes – this was the worst. I mean I had learnt from the above incident to always carry a bowl with me so off I went to go see my midwife (my first community midwife appointment to make it worse) with my asda mixing bowl strapped into the passanger seat in all its glory. I felt a little bit sick that morning and thought I felt well enough to try and have a ginger tea and ginger stem biscuit (I felt optimistic that my sickness was now at a “normal” level that ginger might become my friend and help me). About 7 minutes into the journey I thought oh god, here we go lads – sickness is coming. So I pulled into a farmers field off a main road which kind of went down a hill slightly into the field (luckily there was a concenrete track into the field) and vomited for a good 5 minutes into the bowl, then proceeded to have to chuck it out the window (told you I’d be honest). Now I may have remembered a bowl but what had I forgotten? MINTS/MOUTHWASH. Urgh – I was horrified. I was already going to be late for the appointment so couldn’t turn around and go back home (looking back I should have) so I just carried on, meaning I turned up to my midwife appointment obviously smelling of sick – it was awful. Now the type of person I am means I can’t just sit quiet and have the midwife thinking in her head “why does she smell of sick?” so I proceeded to tell her the whole story of what happened – brilliant, I bet she loved that. The weird thing? She made me sit SO CLOSE (no really – weirdly close) to her for the appointment. So that’s basically my main symptoms – cravings, tiredness and sickness. It did go away by the 2nd trimester which I will be discussing later but all I can say is
· Eat what you want during these times – your baby will take what it needs, don’t worry – they won’t allow themselves not to get everything. You will also have a store if you like of vitamins and minerals from months ago to keep you going.
· Don’t worry if you can’t stomach the pregnancy vitamins. I vomited LOADS of them up, tried just folic acid and vomited all of that up as well. Baby is fine and you can start again when you’re not vomiting everything up every 5 minutes
· Sleep. Sleep when you want and don’t feel lazy. I would say don’t sleep for the sake of sleeping though, listen to your body and when you need to, sleep.
· Cravings are weird and real but remember, if they’re strange things like soil/coal/bark etc then tell the GP as it could be something like a lack of vitamins
· NHS Start4Life and the book “what to expect when you’re expecting” are all brilliant. Apps wise, there are LOADS out there – personal feel about bounty is yep, get it for your free stuff (she says, I still haven’t collected mine) but it has some weird facts in there which I’m not sure why they need to include.