Exhaustion

I’ve read three pregnancy books already; my favorite of which is an outdated, completely non-scientific book called “The Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy: Everything Your Doctor Won’t Tell You”. The others have been very detailed, almost to the point of making me even more paranoid, and have been hard to get into. The “Girlfriend’s Guide” is nice because it takes into account various women’s (and their husbands) point of view. It doesn’t give you stats on the likeliness of you experiencing the same thing, but informs you of the possibilities just in case.

Her chapter on the first trimester focuses a lot on the “bone deep” exhaustion. Before now, I have thought that I knew what exhausted really felt like; I was wrong. Her description of “bone deep” is more accurate than I could have imagined even two weeks ago. I know that my body is working hard - giving its water and nutrients to my growing embryo - it’s just becoming more and more difficult to function my entire 10 hour work day.

In addition to just being tired, I have given up caffeine (well mostly). I had planned on giving up my beloved Diet Coke as a new year’s resolution; then I found out I was pregnant. I have done very well with not drinking any Diet Coke; but earlier this week I gave in to a Vanilla Coke. I was only able to drink maybe a quarter of it before I started to feel queasy and guilty. I know that there is a threshold around 200mg a day of caffeine that is safe for pregnancy; but I will continue to avoid it whenever I possibly can.

The worst part about my non-caffeinated, bone-deep exhaustion is that sleep never seems to help. I will rest, relax, sleep-in, nap, and go to bed early throughout the entire weekend; and I am still tired. During the week, I will be in bed before 8:30pm and the mornings seem to come earlier every day.  I truly hope the second trimester is as great as everyone seems to make it sound. I am very much looking forward getting rid of my exhaustion, occasional nausea, and constant fear of miscarriage.