“Morning?” Yea… NO!
“Morning?” Yea… NO!So you realize you are actually pregnant. Reality starts to set in and your body begins to let you know, Hey, this is real with the most pleasant of all things, nausea. This is not your typical sickness either. No sugar coating things here ladies, it is awful! Stay with me though.
I was nauseous for an entire week before I realized I was in fact pregnant. It got progressively worse for several weeks. I wish I could tell you, “Ohhh, it is not that bad.” But I intend to be real with you. It’s hard. And maybe you are one of the lucky ones that does not experience a single moment of morning sickness. Bless you!
I, however, was not so lucky.
What is morning sickness?
The actual definition: nausea in pregnancy, typically occurring in the first few months. Despite its name, the nausea can affect pregnant women at any time of day.
Research strongly shows that morning sickness is “a mechanism for protecting mother and embryo.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10858967
Let’s get down to it…
I would wake up in the morning, roll out of bed and try to pull myself together. Pure hot mess. On my way to work (teach 66 kids) I would usually have a sack handy and it was full by the time I got to my school.
On top of that…I had to set a trash can outside my classroom door and would have to take moments in the hallway while the children were hard at work.
One of my most memorable moments happened after we had been tailgating all weekend at a college football game. We packed up the R.V. Sunday morning, got on the road only to have to pull over for me to lose my breakfast. I barely made it outside the R.V. and I remember wanting to scream at the top of my lungs to all the onlookers:
I’M PREGNANT PEOPLE!!
I was mortified. Mr. Right knew my embarrassment was exponential and laughed all the way home. Joke was on him, I slept the entire way home.
Alongside the excessive morning sickness came the extreme fatigue. After teaching all day, I would come home and go straight to bed. 5:00 in the afternoon, sound asleep.
This is not an exaggeration. Mr. Right would wake me up to eat dinner, leave crackers beside my bed and let me sleep until morning.
My point….THIS IS REAL BUT YOU WILL SURVIVE.
I thought I was going to die too! How could I do this every day? But I survived and so will you.
Will it be hard? Yes. Can you do it? Again, YES!
One day, toward the second trimester, your energy will come back and the nausea will subside. You will start to feel that ‘pregnancy glow” everyone talks about and be able to function.
Dad’s, this is an opportunity for you to have your A game. Be sympathetic. Be patient, Be supportive. It is the first of many changes that you will see in your significant other but it will all be worth it in the end.
If you are one of the many lucky ladies that deal with morning sickness, here are a few tips to help alleviate some of the symptoms according to Sally 
Fallon Morell, President The Weston A. Price Foundation. You can visit www.westonaprice.org to learn more.
- FATIGUE: Don’t fight it, get plenty of rest
- MORNING SICKNESS:
- Avoid low blood sugar, get three good meals per day
- Raw whole milk sipped throughout the day, very helpful
- Ginger, acupuncture, vitamin B6
- Plenty of liquids to avoid dehydration
Morning (all day) sickness is rough. Allow yourself some grace and know that this too will pass!
With love,
KB
