While at work one day and I just felt it, I just knew it. I was pregnant. The next day I was going to go visit my grandmother in the hospital, on the way I picked up a test with my toddler in tow. We got to the hospital and we went straight to the bathroom. I had my toddler wrapped on my back and was too lazy to unhook her; plus nasty bathroom + toddler who touches everything= ew. Boy was that an adventure, trying pee on a stick, balance with toddler stuck to my back without either of us falling into the toilet. Luckily we didn’t end up falling in. The test instantly turned positive! I snapped a quick picture and sent it to my husband, only to call him right after it sent. He hadn’t even had the chance to look at the picture. We were both ecstatic, but we kept it quiet for several hours while I went to visit my grandmother and called the doctor’s office. I ended up only being 4 weeks along when we found out.
That night we did what we did the first time and called everyone. Everyone was so excited! The first thing my mom said was, “I knew it!” The next two weeks I was still feeling great but all of a sudden between week 6 and 7, all hell broke loose. I felt horrible, weak, exhausted, nauseous and dizzy. Unfortunately with this pregnancy I fainted twice. For those of you that haven’t fainted it feels absolutely terrible. For me it isn’t snap your fingers and the person goes down, it feels drawn out. I remember one day I went to visit my dad at the hospital (he is a nurse) and had my toddler strapped to my back, and we were standing there waiting for maybe ten minutes and all of a sudden I felt it. Bone deep weakness came over me and my vision started getting dark around the edges, I sat in a chair at the nurse’s station quickly and unstrapped my daughter. I basically tossed her at my dad and was like, “I don’t feel good.” He held onto my arm and took me in the breakroom and sat me down. While holding my daughter in one arm, he was holding his daughter with the other, he told me to put my head between my legs. Nausea came on hard and fast, I asked if the room next to me was the bathroom, my vision was winking out and my head had so much pressure in it I felt like it could explode. Barely hearing my dad asking me if I was going to be sick I recall telling him I didn’t know. The pressure hit another high and then all I knew was darkness.
When coming to I remember my dad shaking my arm and saying my name. Everything was slowed down and my head was killing me. As I was coming out of it I vaguely remember other nurses walking by making sure everything was alright and my dad telling them to get a blood pressure cuff. He told me I had only been out for a few seconds but my body was sore, and slow. One of the nice nurses hooked me up to the blood pressure cuff and it came out at about 103/64 I believe, everything was still foggy when they told me. I remember my dad taking my daughter to go get me a milkshake to help my blood sugar while I called my doctor to see what they needed me to do. Since it happened in my last pregnancy they took just a wait and see approach. As the minutes went by I slowly started feeling better. My dad sat with me for a while longer while I drank my milkshake and by the time I went to leave I was a little sluggish but I felt well enough to drive home. That was the second time it had happened during that pregnancy, after that I had gotten spooked about going around by myself with my daughter alone. Whenever I went out I took someone with me. I was terrified of it happening again, if it was just me it wouldn’t be so bad but what would happen to my daughter if she was with me when it happened? Would someone take her when I was incapacitated? Would it happen when I was driving and didn’t have time to pull over? All kinds of thoughts were running through my mind. My husband was just as worried as I was about it, whenever I didn’t have to be somewhere I stayed home.
On top of the worried about fainting issue, I felt weak and dizzy a lot, my doctors couldn’t figure out why. They mainly thought it was a blood pressure issue, when you stand up and get light headed it was like that but all the time. Standing and walking for long periods would aggravate those feelings. I tried to stay active to see if it helped but all it did was wear me down more, so I did a lot of resting. However there is only so much resting one can do when they are home all day chasing around a toddler. Luckily I didn’t have constant nausea for the first trimester like I did with my daughter, but what I did have was a lot of nauseous moments throughout my pregnancy. That wasn’t any better but at least I could ride in a car without wanting to be sick.
The cold October day finally came when we were going to find out the gender and this little baby was hiding the goods. Legs were crossed, arms wrapped around them tight, sitting right on my bladder where they couldn’t see. The poor technician worked so hard but finally after a long battle managed to catch a glimpse, a boy. My husband and I were shocked. Obviously it was entirely possible for a boy but I don’t think either one of us thought it would actually happen. What the heck would I do with a boy? I didn’t know anything about boy stuff; football, penises, Legos. I had no clue. Girl stuff was my forte; I could do hair, talk about boys, and give The Talk when the time came but when it comes to boy stuff I was desperately out of my league. I was excited but for a while I was in shock, I just couldn’t believe it. Now that we knew what he was it was time to plan for the reveal party two days later.
The next morning was Halloween; everything was going great we had a list of things to get for the party the very next day. As we were getting ready though I got a call that I wasn’t yet prepared for, my Nana had just passed away. My Nana had been fighting cancer for a while; it started in her colon but had quickly spread throughout her body, a few weeks before we learned that the cancer had made its way into her lungs. We knew it was getting harder for her to go around and do things. She was tired and was in pain from what the cancer was doing to her body but she was a fighter. Every chance she could she was out and about, talking with her friends, seeing her grandchildren and her great grandchildren, staying involved with her church, planting flowers in her garden and helping others. Just three days prior to her passing she went with my dad, my daughter and I to the store to shop for Christmas items. My Nana was a fantastic lady, the moment she met you you were family, she was Nana to everyone. As I got older we grew closer, especially after the great grandkids were born, we hung out all the time. It was awful hearing the news she was gone, she never even got the chance to know she was going to have a great grandson.
As upset as everyone was we stuck with out plans to continue with trick or treating that night for the kids’ sake and with the reveal party the next day. It was a bitter sweet time. We had family over to our house for the announcement, food, drinks and some fun. The original plan for the reveal was to pull balloons from a box but we had gotten overly excited while shopping and got some a little too big for the box so we hid them in the stairway that led to our basement. The second the door opened and people saw the color of the balloons they couldn’t contain their excitement.
From that day on we went into preparation mode, well I did at least. When I was six months along I hit a two week span of needing everything done NOW. That nesting instinct hit me full force. (What is it with my nesting at six months?!) My husband was a good sport about it though; he had a lot of “yes dear” moments and “honey do” lists that he put up with. Re-doing floors, painting walls, setting up furniture, decorating rooms, washing tons of baby clothes, and putting up with a hormonal pregnant wife it was a crazy life for a few weeks and I can’t thank him enough for it. Throughout my whole pregnancy my daughter went with me to every single doctor’s appointment to check on her brother. She would sit on my legs when they listened to his heart and made sure all the ladies knew that he was her baby. From the start she loved him dearly. Eight months out of the womb and she loves him even more. She is his fierce protector, best friend, soother of boo boos and number one playmate. When he was still doing time on the inside she would lay her head on my belly and cuddle, talk to him so he would kick her, and give him smooches.
The week I was due my daughter and I went to my 9 am “baby doctor” appointment as we called it, where they stripped my membranes and goodness gracious did she do a good job. It hurt like hell but boy did it work, little man was on his way.
Diary of a Mom 