The Misnomer of Morning Sickness: Weeks 6-9

Whew! This pregnancy was a breeze beyond the extreme fatigue and the awful bloating that made me look full term when I ate.

Sometime in my 6th week I was driving home from work and this wave of nausea smacked me in the face. I was on the interstate thinking, "What the hell? I can't pull off the interstate to throw up." I was about five minutes from my house telling myself, "You can make it. You can make it." WRONG! There is something in the process of throwing up that my mom and I refer to as the "juicy mouth." This is when you salivate so much right before you throw up you can't contain all of the liquid in your mouth. HAHA. Anyway, that was going on, so I grabbed an empty cup I had sitting in my car and went to town. Heaving and driving at 70mph is not for the faint at heart. My goal was to keep absolutely everything contained...and I did! At the time I thought it was a fluke. It was only just the beginning.

From that day forward I suffered from all day nausea with intermittent vomiting spells. Looking back, I still can't decide which is better; being nauseous all day without throwing up or throwing up a couple times and getting on with my day. To make it very clear, with "morning sickness" I was only actually sick in the morning ONCE. I am here by changing morning sickness to "pregnancy's early unfortunate events." I teach an afternoon Zumba class at a local high school for the teachers. I have definitely re-tasted all of the water I drank during class a couple of times. I know it's gross but this is a real account of what I go through.

Facts: I have vomited more in my car (I'm a pro at it now) than I have at home, I am grateful the classroom I teach Zumba in has its own bathroom, I have had more days of all day nausea than times I have actually vomited, I felt like shit for a minimum of 3 full weeks.

During this time, my olfactory skillz (<--- I spelled it that way on purpose) kicked it up a notch. The smell of vegetables and meat cooking turned my stomach. It was already difficult for me to eat because I thought I would get sick but I couldn't and didn't eat meat or vegetables for about three weeks. What did I eat? CARBS! I lived on cereal, oatmeal, bagels (until I threw one up),naan, toast and crackers. I did however try to keep my cereals high in fiber and low in sugar. Raisin bran... thanks for being there when I needed you the most.

My first appointment at the birth center was scheduled for when I would be 9 weeks and 2 days and Chef and I were really looking forward to that and the tour of the birth center. The anticipation was what was holding me together between sleeping and nausea.