Week 10: Spots, sick, sore, sleepless

As I laid in bed one evening feeling absolutely exhausted, I realised my grandmother has had five children. Not one, not two, not three, not four but FIVE! I was all tucked up in bed, at six o'clock in the evening, feeling miserable, weak, nauseous, fed up, and just so weary, I wondered what made women choose to go through this over and over again. For my grandmother, that would be five times in total.

I have never been unwell for such a long period of time. I have the occasional cold and cough, fever or diarrhoea, but never this feeling where I constantly feel sick, tired and rough for weeks on end. It's so debilitating and demoralising. I either feel sick or hungry, and seldom the usual contentment after a meal.

All this is supposed to spontaneously resolve after the first trimester, and I know I am lucky compared to many women who actually throw up everyday, but I have other equally frustrating problems.

I am tired every night but I sleep so poorly, it leaves me exhausted the next day. I feel so vacant or blank everyday instead of being usually sharp and focused. Some women say being pregnant makes you stupid, I now totally understand what that means.

I feel so grumpy and moody and have little patience or tolerance. My breasts are still sore and bloated, I am breaking out in spots and have I already mentioned how tired I feel? I told the midwife this but she told me to look on the bright side of things. At least these symptoms show that the pregnancy hormones are abundant and pumping throughout my body, which means Bean is growing.

This week I had my bloods taken at the hospital to screen:

• my haemoglobin level
  
• abnormalities of the red blood cells (sickle cell diseases or thalassaemia)
  
• my immunity to German measles (Rubella)
  
• if I have Syphilis or Hepatitis B
  
• if I have HIV/AIDS

The midwife did not take enough blood the first time and had to poke me another time in my left arm. But she could not find a vein, so she had to go back to the same vein in my right arm again to take two more vials of blood. All in all I was jabbed three times, and I now have a slightly bruised right arm.

She's also arranged for me to do my 11-week scan in the Ultrasound Department next Tuesday afternoon. Since R would be working anyway, he would be able to just pop downstairs for the scan.

We bought a little microphone and speaker which we place on my tummy every other night so that R can talk to Bean while I laugh along at his spontaneous nonsensical blabber. I have been playing him/her children songs on YouTube.

I had the opportunity one afternoon to take a short walk with my boss so I thought it was the perfect time to tell him I am pregnant. His response was, "I'm not surprised! We were going to bet on it!"

Well what it is is I have one colleague who's about to pop and another who recently become a first-time dad, so he noticed I had been showing quite a bit of interest in them. "But I've always been interested in babies!" I replied in defence. "Ah, we just knew anyway," he said. "Congratulations."