Being a first time mom, there are lots of things I don't know about being pregnant. I have wonderful friends who give me advice and talk me through the milestones of pregnancy, but it's always different when you go through the experience for yourself.
The first trimester wasn't as rough for me as I knew others have experienced. I've had relatives who were bedridden and unable to keep anything down for the longest times when they were pregnant. Thankfully, that was not something I dealt with on a daily basis. I had about a two week period of intense nausea at the beginning. I'd wake up and first thing be hit by a wave of "oh no this is not going to be good" and run to the bathroom or grab a nearby receptacle. I learned if I could get through the morning, usually by nibbling on crackers or fruit throughout the morning, I was usually fine by noon or so.
Then one morning it wasn't so bad. Then no nausea. Just gone. And I thought, oh this is good. But I was wrong. From that point on I'd get sick at nothing. G loves to tell about how I simply walked down the hall going from one room to the next and then I was in the bathroom. One second perfectly fine, the next sick. It amazed him how quickly and out-of-nowhere it came on. Eventually those feelings faded, too. But the lingering fear that I'd be caught out unexpected did leave me with my guard up for a while.
The one thing I've learned is that there is no clear line between trimesters. Just because a calendar says you have left one stage behind to enter another does not necessarily mean that your body is caught up with the change.
Second trimester came along and I'd hear things like "you should be feeling better now." and "it will be easier for a while." Mostly when I heard that I was in the thick of a new round of what I considered morning sickness that was actually hitting in the morning and making me dread waking up. Turns out it was just the wonders of slow digestion and acid reflux.
Here's the second thing you learn about being pregnant - glossy truths. Basically there's the marketed image of pregnancy, which is all about the joys of becoming a mom. The smiling belly caressing women in magazines and on television commercials that sell you on how wonderful life is going to be for the next nine months. And the way your friends who are moms will gently pat you on the hand and smile and say, "it'll get better" to comfort you. Reality check - find the friends who will smile and pat but it's because they are breaking you into a harsh new reality.
Pregnancy is hard. It's tiring, like bone tiring, and painful and gross and your body is going to do loads of things you never imagined possible. There will be smells and sounds and tastes that you are never going to want to experience again but sadly become common place. I tell you this not to be a downer or complain about my own experience, but to just talk for a moment about the reality of it all. Because after figuring out the torture of acid reflux and how to handle it, after knowing that my body is going to start to ache and stretch and pull and know how to deal with it, and after deciding that somethings are just going to happen and so have supplies handy - pregnancy does have those amazing moments almost right out of a TV ad.
At 22 weeks I'm told I should begin to feel Jackson moving. I have no idea what this means other than all that I've read and been described. I've heard it's like a flutter, like popcorn popping, like this or that. I feel a tightness now and again on my left side more than my right. I think that's maybe him stretching. I feel a sensation I describe as a drop, a bit like when you are on a roller coaster or a plane and you descend quickly. The feeling is not as extreme as that, but similar in the quickness of it. I've come to believe that is him moving around.
All of these new sensations - the morning sickness, the highs and lows, the anxiety of waiting to feel him move - it all makes up this unique experience of mine. And regardless of the pain, discomfort and stretching that I endure, I know in the end it's all worth it.
