I Will Survive!

Repeat! I will survive!

The first trimester of pregnancy can be a bit of a tricky thing apparently. I'm at 10 weeks now, and it's been a ride to say the least. Every woman's body is different and everybody responds differently to growing a human. And my body is PISSED, apparently. I do have something to be thankful for. The nausea passed by week 7, so that's not really an issue anymore. I'm VERY grateful for that. Although it seems I have a whole new set of fun things to deal with now.

First, it's almost impossible to breathe through my nose. Apparently it's called Rhinitis of Pregnancy, and YAY! It only gets WORSE throughout your entire pregnancy supposedly. So there's that to look forward to! That in itself, I could probably live with. I'd just stand up a lot to breathe and keep a cold pack on my face which seems to help a little.

But the bad thing is, I have a history of Cluster Headaches. I've had them since college. They're caused by not getting enough oxygen (through your nose) to the blood vessels in your brain, and the consequence is about 30-45 minutes of what feels like someone taking a coal-fired, freshly sharpened pickaxe to left side of my brain right behind my eye. Still, I might say, it's 45 minutes out of my day! I'll suck it up and be fine. I have experience with these things.

BUT.

They're coming at night. ALL night. About every hour and a half when I'm supposed to be sleeping. I'm averaging getting up, walking around, trying to breathe, about 4 times in the middle of every night. I'm going on twenty consecutive days of this. And while everyone's knee-jerk reaction is to say, "Get used to it, honey," that's not working for me right now. Sleep is ESSENTIAL to keeping your blood pressure down during pregnancy. And this is something that is going to be a struggle in my pregnancy. And your body instinctively wants to sleep. We all know that- this is why you're exhausted all the time, especially in the first few months of your pregnancy. But even napping is out of the question for me right now because of the headaches. And while I'm more than ready to be up all night feeding and comforting my precious kiddo, I need that kiddo to get here safe and sound because I've had a healthy and rested pregnancy. And I'm worried about it right now.

So, all that to say I hope maybe this is somehow connected to first trimester hormonal shifts and that at least the headaches will ease up the further I go along. Because along with the hormonal exaggerations and exhaustion, the pain is just psychologically draining. I have three more weeks to go in my first trimester. And two and a half more weeks until school starts. So until then, I'm literally kicking back and doing as little as possible so as to maybe balance out the lack of sleep my body's getting. But believe it or not, I'm actually ready for school to start. I'm ready for a new routine and trying to figure it all out while a baby is growing in my belly. And I know when school starts, time will FLY. And before I know it, kiddo will be here. And I AM ready for that!