This blog post is part of a series that I began for telling our story. You can read the first post here.

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Pregnancy was always complicated for me. People would tell me I was glowing, but I often suspected they were either being polite or trying to describe my sweaty, pale, nauseated face in a good light. And the term “morning” sickness is stupid. I would start feeling sick as soon as I woke up and lay down at night feeling the same. I craved cold water, the colder the better. My first task upon waking would be to eat something, which would calm things a bit in my stomach. Generally I found that if I ate a little bit all day long, I would feel better. That’s a bit complicated to attempt, however, when you’re still supervising a room full of students.

When I returned home, I went back to work for a few weeks at the school. By this point in the summer, the work was simpler. The class got smaller and smaller each week, because families would plan their vacations in August. Finally, at the end of the month, the entire program shut down. I think maybe for a week? At that point, my job was done. The closing was to prepare for the new school year, allowing the regular teachers to get their classrooms ready. So I gathered up the things I had used for my summer session and handed back the room to the regular 2nd grade teacher. I began to use the time spent working to take frequent naps and fight off sickness.

I also got more nosebleeds along the way. That was fun, particularly the Sunday when I made a mad dash out of church in the middle of the service. It took a while, but after seeing my doctor and having some blood work done, I started to take some medication (hormones? iron supplements? I honestly can’t remember) that stopped it from happening.

I missed church the next week because of morning sickness, and coped with bouts of insomnia too. Between not sleeping and growing another human inside my body, I was exhausted, with no chance for rest in sight.

 

Next post coming tomorrow.