Pre-penguin phase and Popcorn

“Sorry, I don’t think I can walk the dogs all the way down to the beach. I will likely puke, plus it’s too windy for my nipples.”

*** Please be advised, although after reading the following post I feel like I sound whiney, I still think it’s worth posting. Only because there may be future mama’s or mama’s partners reading it, and I wish I had had someone to relate with when I was going through this stuff. 

One night I got home earlier than expected from babysitting a toddler that I occasionally sit for while his parents go on date nights. I had received many texts from James asking what time I would be home, to which I didn’t respond to because I thought I’d surprise him with my 10pm arrival instead of the predicted 12am. I was walking down our apartment hallway thinking that our floor seemed awfully drafty... maybe heating maintenance again. When I reached our suite at the end of the hall, it seemed particularly freezing... and really noisy. I opened the door cautiously, and first thing I noticed was the smell of burnt popcorn, followed by our exceptionally loud oven fan, the fire alarm going off and finally, the draft source: all of our windows, sky light, and balcony wiiiiide open in the middle of winter. But the best part was James and the dogs running circles around each other while he tries to fan the smoke and calm the animals. James broke rule #1: No. Popcorn. Making. during pre-penguin phase. 

I have never seen him look so guilty and scared of me as I did that night. It’s like I caught him cheating! He ran up to me cautiously (after screaming... with all the ruckus going on he didn’t hear me come in ha ha ha) gave me a huge hug and started apologizing and  explaining that he thought he could air it all out by the time I got home. I couldn’t help but laugh hysterically at the whole situation. Thankfully, shortly after James’ breaking of rule #1, my nausea began to subside, and popcorn making, egg frying, and garlic were allowed in our home once again. But it took us a looooooong time to get there...

During my first two trimesters - what I will refer to as my pre-penguin phase - a.k.a. six months, some pretty intense chronic nausea disabled me from being able to do normal activities. Right off the bat I assumed that a couple pukey days here and there were just part of the experience. A fair trade-off for creating a miracle... no big deal. But when the nausea didn’t stop, got worse, and prevented me from being able to leave my home (major loft fever!!!), function at school and work, or be anywhere that didn’t have access to a rest room, any form of socialization between myself and the world was basically cut off. Most people have heard about “morning sickness” but I, personally, never ever heard anyone experience the extreme morning, afternoon, and night nausea that I had in pre-penguin phase. I’m talking almost half a year of debilitating, isolating, can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t think nausea. And the only thing that would sort of help was the one thing I didn’t want : medication. 

My doctor warned me that if I continued to lose weight and couldn’t keep even water down (yep that’s right, sometimes even water was a trigger), I would have to be hospitalized to ensure that me + baby stay hydrated. Ew, hospital!! As soon as she cautioned baby being in jeopardy, taking the medicine became a very easy decision to make. 

*** A note on DIclectin: My experience with this drug was both good and bad. Though it did increase my drunken pirate feeling syndrome, disabled me from feeling confident to drive long distances by myself, and made me extremely sleepy all day, it did enable me to eat normal food again. Which lead to normal weight gain. Which lead to healthy mama and healthy baby. Worth it! 

What did my extreme nausea look like, you may wonder? Well, imagine you’re carrying a conversation with someone, anyone, and as you are chatting away, you can pinpoint exactly what they ate for breakfast, lunch, dinner, when they last showered, if they had a bowel movement on this particular day, what type of laundry detergent they use, and whether or not they believe in deodorant. Now imagine knowing that much info about a stranger. Now imagine all those strangers in one classroom for an hour! That would be how sensitive a preggo nose is. Or, I guess that would be how sensitive my nose was. On top of that you’re hungry (creating a human and all), but most food tastes like what you’d imagine an old sock at the bottom of a compost pile would taste like. Even your favorite foods! Not to mention, eating and smelling things often lead to puking anyways.

At the beginning of your pregnancy a lot of people ask, “so how are you feeling?”  I remember trying to gauge what type of person this was, and how to answer accordingly. I would think, ‘is this the type of person that genuinely wants to know the nitty gritty, if so, how much time are they willing to invest in listening to my response?’ Or, ‘is this the type of person that wants a really quick socially appropriate “great!” response’. Sometimes I would guess right, and sometimes I would guess wrong, and the uncertainty and frustration that followed eventually made me clam up entirely about the subject and basically only talk about it with my baby daddy. Poor guy. 

After pre-penguin phase ended, it was at a monthly check-up appointment that finally one woman, our midwife, related with me. She talked about her chronic nausea, and I remember feeling like, ‘o.k. phew, it’s not just you, you’re not a bad kangaroo after all, your experience, though uncommon, was normal.’ Her sharing her experience with us for half a minute gave so much relief to both James and I. I made a mental note to share mine someday too. Not just for pregnant women, but also for their support partners. It’s hard on them too! 

  Each preggo will react differently to their new cocktail of hormones and hopefully most don’t ever experience any of those not so fun things I mentioned above. There are so many amazing, funny, interesting, quirky things that happen to a preggo throughout her journey that I can’t wait to blog about, but I really wanted to get this one out of the way. So if you have had, are having, or will have chronic nausea, just know I can relate!

Popcorn and socks,

Martyna

P.s. I know you’re left wondering about the wind + nipples mentioned earlier... I was going to make a list of all the weird physical changes that happen throughout pregnancy but clearly I needed to get this particular one “out of my system” for the last time. Stay tuned for enlarged nipples, shpeezing, hot flashes and more!