Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Symptoms

Time to deal with the ramifications of my actions...

One lovely drunken and very irresponsible night left me with 41 weeks of sickness, hopelessness, and pain!
When you are pregnant and someone asks, "how are you feeling?" they do not REALLY want to know how you are feeling. They want you to smile and pat your belly and say "I feel great!" or "Do you want to touch it? You can feel him moving!" No one wants the honest truth. That's too bad though, because as a barista you interact with customers at work all day long, not to mention the fact that you woke up at the butt crack of dawn to serve them coffee while your ankles swell and your belly grows fatter by every minute while your hormones rage. I was far too honest with my friends and customers. I could probably write a book on morning sickness and leg cramps while pregnant.

SIDE EFFECTS INCLUDE but are not limited to :

NAUSEA AND VOMITING:

The first time I had morning sickness I went in to open the café, as soon as I started pulling shots I started throwing up! I had to run into my office in the back and vomit into my trash bin. I ended up calling two other people to come in and help since the mere smell of coffee sent my stomach churning. This lasted about 3 months. I couldn't eat meat, that was very sad. I had to change my schedule at work to make sure that I never worked alone in case I got sick and had to run to the back. This was not easy to explain to my employees when they asked if I would take and opening shift or trade with them and I had to say no. I had to stop a meeting with my boss to run to a trash can and throw up, she said she was familiar with the "puke and rally" from being a pregnant barista herself in the past.

SLEEP DEPRIVATION AND GRUMPINESS:

The second worst symptom I got from my actions was being tired ALL THE TIME! I had absolutely NO energy to do anything. This lead to crankiness, anger, frustration, and only made the "pregnancy brain" way worse. I could hardly say what I was thinking let alone deal with customers and smile like I was happy or something. This was completely impossible to explain to anyone who has not been pregnant. One of the hardest parts of being pregnant is not having any friends who have babies that can understand or sympathize. I have never felt more alone in my life than when I was pregnant, which of course made me even more grumpy. At the end of a work day I could hardly bare to stand on my feet let alone make a meal for my new husband! Poor Guy!
Pregnancy insomnia is a very real thing. On top of being scared out of your mind about having a baby (that we did not really plan for) being newly married, work, relationships, and the sheer physical pain that I endured daily I had the hardest time sleeping!!! Nothing was worse though than the leg cramps and Restless Leg Syndrome, which yes, you can get while you are pregnant even if you did not have it before. It literally felt like a million little bugs were under my skin and I couldn't shake my legs hard enough to make them go away! The cramping would happen if I tried to stretch in my sleep and would wake me up in searing pain! I even had my husband draw me a bath one time in the middle of the night because I could not move my legs they hurt so bad!


SUPER SMELL POWERS:

Another thing.... the smelling, super pregnant smell power is a very real thing! Things that smell good smell amazing, and things that smell bad made me cry because they smelled so bad. Nausea was impossible to avoid. This included eating, cause you smell what you eat. Some food was so good I would moan uncontrollably while I ate it! How embarrassing! But other things like someone passing gas, or household chemicals used for cleaning and such would always make my head spin!

WEIGHT GAIN AND SWELLING:

I don't care if there is a small human inside of me, weight gain was a hard reality to deal with. I had always been skinny my whole life without having to work for it. Gaining weight was difficult especially when buying maternity clothing, which by the way is RIDICULOUSLY overpriced! How do they expect poor pregnant women to afford a ton of baby crap and pay $50 for a pair of pants on top of that! Also, I had the very unfortunate gift of being pregnant through summer, that means I sweat the entire time I was pregnant (and afterwards too, but we will get to that later). The worst part is that I couldn't just wear a tank top and shorts, the company had very strict rules about covering your armpits, and toes during a bar shift. Which made my feet swell even more since they were hot while I stood on them for 5-6 hours at a time. Also note that the air conditioning broke in my café in the dead of August when it was the hottest. . . I wanted to hurt someone! The suffering was almost unbearable. At least I had big boobs.

Saving the best for last...

HEARTBURN:

There are no words to describe what happens to your insides when they are being infiltrated by a small human child. Everything gets squished, and sometimes there isn't enough room for things to work properly. Heartburn was my worst enemy. Heartburn ruined my days, I couldn't drink coffee, eat anything, God forbid that I try to lay down flat! Something about my upbringing had me against medications and since I was pregnant I tried very hard to be careful what I put in my body. This was stupid. I finally asked my doc for some meds to settle the acid reflux and it worked like a Christmas miracle! Get the drugs! Don't suffer like I did. I only had them for about the last month of my pregnancy and I really learned my lesson, if I ever get knocked up again I will get them immediately!

CONSTIPATION:

Do I need to explain this?

FREQUENT URINATION:

I peed, all the time. I peed so much!









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