The many stages of pregnancy acceptance

Weeks before I had the positive test and hours before I took the first negative test, it was very difficult to figure out how to feel. I was a wee bit giddy at the possibility of being pregnant. Could my body be harboring the beginnings of a whole other little person? These wonderings were tempered by my firm belief that I would have a difficult time conceiving. It had taken fertility drugs and several years for my parents to conceive my older brother. It seemed like most people I knew did not have an easy time and who gets pregnant the first month? I was also afraid. A good friend had been trying unsuccessfully for several months to conceive and that would be so mean and not cool if I got pregnant right away. If I had thought it would be so easy, I might not have tried because it would be too mean. I also had this worry of jinxing myself. I didn’t feel like I could really allow myself to think that it was a possibility. I took the test that night when we got home from work. It was negative, and I don’t think I was happy or sad. I just felt confirmed—of course it wouldn’t be positive. I was further confirmed a week later when I took a second test and it was also negative. In fact, I felt pretty silly for taking that second test in the first place. Lesson learned: negative pregnancy tests do not mean that you are not pregnant. They just mean that you are not pregnant enough yet and that you should stay tuned for further updates.

So, as you can imagine, I was totally unprepared when I got the positive test. I felt like I needed to read a million books right away—to study up on this whole thing. I had to figure out which foods and medicines and such I couldn’t have. Just a few weeks earlier I had switched a few of my allergy medications to baby-growing-safe versions just in case. I thought the switches were a bit premature—who knew? I got a big Ziploc bag and put all the not-safe-for-pregnancy medicine cabinet items in it. That left me with some lotion and a bottle of Tylenol really. Breaking up with Excedrin was the hardest. Oh how I miss Excedrin.

Even after the positive test, it was still hard to let myself fully believe and accept that I was going to have a baby. I didn’t want to get my hopes up only to have them dashed with a miscarriage. Also, since I was pukey and feeling like crap, it was hard to embrace the whole thing. I was just trying to make it through the day without puking in front of coworkers. I was cautiously excited, worried and nauseous for a good many weeks.

My first days of really unbridled joy and giddiness over the matter coincided with my first days of having some energy again and being able to eat adventurous things that consisted of more than cheese and bread.

I plan to stop writing in so much past tense soon. I just want to sort of get this all down while I remember it. I think next I'll have to thoroughly cover the puking issue--oh what a read that will be ;-).