Facciamo le corna....

Dare I say it? Dare I even think it???
After an entire month of feeling horribly nauseous, pretty much at all times in all places, I have been feeling almost “normal” for the past few days. Not completely normal, obviously – as demonstrated by this morning’s little episode of opening the fridge to get the milk out and having to run to the bathroom upon spotting a jar of black olives….. But, for the most part I only feel sick when I think about food. So, it’s good news and bad news!
Today I reached 10 weeks, so I can officially say I’m in my “eleventh week”, which sounds much better than ten! My waistline is rapidly expanding (more as a result of the consumption of junk food than anything else – it’s been all I can stand lately!) and it’s becoming more and more difficult to conceal this little “secret” in the office. The good thing is, it now being august, the entire world is on holiday (as will we be this time next week!!) until September so the number of people from whom I have to do the concealing is rapidly diminishing….
Luca is more and more like a kid the night before Christmas every day. I appear to have gone from girlfriend to goddess and his affection for me and mini-bump is so great that yesterday I had to ask him to leave me alone for 5 minutes as the hair-stroking, cuddling, nuzzling and general constant attention was starting to make my head spin. Don’t get me wrong… I am NOT in any way complaining about the love and devotion demonstrated by the father of my unborn child, but mamma mia…when your hormones are telling your that every moving object which crosses your path must be spontaneously obliterated, well it’s hard to feel lovey-dovey schmoozy-woozy. Get my drift?? Bless him though… I know I am very lucky, and I repeat – I am not knocking it!
I’ve been watching those documentaries on SKY which follow the goings-on in the maternity department of the hospital in Bologna (Reparto Maternità) and I have to say I am almost numb to the amount of hysterical screaming and evident suffering that they always show. Friends keep telling me that every woman is different, not everyone has a terrible experience and you just have to be prepared etc. I’m sure it’s true, but the way I see it, at the end of the day there’s not really anything you can do anyway. You can ask for pain relief, but here in Italy you’re never guaranteed to get it, so maybe you’ll just have to stick it out without. You can create a detailed birth plan and make sure that everyone involved is aware of your choices, but you can’t be sure that you won’t have an emergency that doesn’t throw that out of the window, so again – you just have to live with it. You can every try to mentally prepare yourself for labour, do yoga and breathing exercises, and anti-natal classes, but ultimately these (albeit useful) add-ons won’t completely take away the pain and trauma involved in bringing a new person into the world, by whatever means…. So, although I still have over 6 months to go (God willing…), and therefore find it quite easy to be philosophical, this is the road I have decided to take. We’ll talk about it again pre-labour and see whether I’m quite so breezy! And, as they say in Italian “facciamo le corna” (make the sign of the horns – or “knock on wood” to the rest of us), here’s hoping that these past few days of relative comfort are the start of a more enjoyable, easier pregnancy experience than the one I’ve had until now! Fingers and toes and eyes crossed….

Aversion!

I hope to have something more interesting to blog about than nausea over the next few months. For the time being, however, that sicky feeling is at the centre of my universe… Today I’m even home from work as I just couldn’t stand the thought of another day feeling nauseated by my colleagues’ perfumes, not being able to stomach even a cheese sandwich at lunch and generally wanting to curl up in a ball and cry. Yesterday we went to the usual bar under the office for lunch and, although I felt like I couldn’t face anything, I ordered what I thought would be the easy option – pasta in a tomato sauce. It arrived, I took one bite and couldn’t face the rest as it tasted somehow wrong. My colleagues assured me that it was perfectly fine, but my super acute sense of smell / taste told me not to eat it, so I ordered a plate of roast beef, potatoes and mozzarella instead. The minute they put it down in front of me I knew it was going to be a problem! Half an hour later, having left two full plates of food, I found myself arguing with the very friendly owner, who insisted that I shouldn’t pay for any of what I had left. She was convinced that there was something terribly wrong with her food (I’m usually a big eater and we go there every day…) and I felt awful for her. I couldn’t tell her my stomach was subjecting me to pregnant tantrums as I was with a group of colleagues so I got two free lunches which I didn’t even eat. Not quite “everyone’s a winner” but there you are!
So far the only foods I can even contemplate (and not even all of the time) are: cereals, mashed potato, cheese, breaded fish, ice cream, pasta, chocolate budino, apples and pears. This is not a balanced pregnancy diet! What can I do? I’m taking my pre-natal vitamins, eating whenever I feel I can and hoping for the best….

Sick

I feel sick. Sick and gross and yuck. For the past few days, I’ve had a constant underlying feeling of nausea, which only goes away if I eat, and only if I eat very specific things. Cheese, pizza and pasta are at the top of the list, and chocolate is also in there somewhere, albeit much further down. I feel so queasy as I am writing this from my office that just typing out the names of food is making my stomach turn! And those are the “safe foods”…
My phone just rang and woke me up. I am NOT KIDDING! Right after the words “safe foods” I must have started to nod off because I jumped out of my skin! Not too pleasant so far this pregnancy stuff…. The usual healthy eating which before was part of my everyday lifestyle is now totally out of the window – I’m not even going to list the foods I used to love and now can’t think about because just writing them down will certainly make me gag! I had trouble getting my folic acid pill down last night – that’s how bad the situation is!!!
I told my boss. It’s way too early, but we work very closely and I was getting stressed out trying to constantly think of new ways to explain my lateness in the mornings. Headache, forgot to set me alarm, traffic on the tangenziale, doctors appointment… After about a week and a half it was all too much, and so I took him aside and told him that it’s still early but for the sake of me not getting stressed and him not wanting to fire me, this was the reason. He said he had already guessed!! It makes sense I suppose – his wife had a baby not too long ago and so he probably helped her to make up the very same excuses in the same way that Luca has been helping me! Bless… So anyway, I told him I would ‘inform the company’ after the summer holidays (assuming everything goes to plan….) and that until then he was to leave me alone if I didn’t make it in before 11 or disappeared in the middle of the day! I think he got the message….
OK, back to concentrating on not throwing up all over my desk. Apologies for the detail ;-)

I'm not ill, I'm pregnant...

Well, the gynecologist was 50 minutes late arriving at her office, so our 15:30 appointment was actually at 16:20. No problem, but she could have called her secretary so that we knew that she was on her way, but didn’t. Ho hum. We didn’t really get any further to be honest – she answered a few of my questions, said there was no point in doing another “official” pregnancy test as I’d already done two, and that if I wanted to become her patient, that was fine but she’d be on holiday starting in two weeks’ time and had no free appointments before then. So that told me basically. I left feeling not much more informed or looked after than before and, the next day decided I would cut my losses and go back to my previous gyno who, despite being the most expensive in the city and not connected to a hospital, would at least provide me with a decent level of care. Just a few hours later, having sent her an “It looks like I’m pregnant, what should I do now?” email, she got back to me with a long, detailed response which I received at 11pm. Now that’s dedication. In fact it was the first of 3 consecutive evenings at around that time, during which I received further communication from her about which blood tests to do and when to book my first appointment with her. Friday morning I battled the nausea to do my first bHCG test, which is the pregnancy hormone, and which is supposed to double every 3 days or so, indicating “normal” progression. So, tomorrow morning I will drag myself off for the second one, hopefully feeling a little better than I do today! They say pregnancy isn’t an illness, but when the slightest movement makes your head pound and your stomach churn, it’s quite hard to believe!! Now where did I put my ginger biscuits…??