I remember mono.
Well, I remember a month long dream interspersed with Enya tracks, a sore throat that reached epic proportions, and lymph nodes the size of golf balls. This is because most of that month when I was terribly sick, I was sleeping. I couldn't do anything else.
So when the pregnancy exhaustion hit in week 6, I was familiar with the need to sleep 18 hours.
However this exhaustion is different from being sick. This is the kind where you get bursts of energy for a moment. Suddenly you can unload the dishwasher - and then you have to take a nap. Immediately. No questions.
Or you start cooking dinner and then all of sudden it's too strenuous and you have to sit down because you can't breathe and you might keel over if you stood one second longer.
People don't talk about these things.
WHY DON'T PEOPLE TALK ABOUT THESE THINGS?!?!
I had no idea pregnancy would be so exhausting in the first trimester. I was completely ill prepared. If I was married to a lesser man this would be hellish (mostly because I would never have clean clothes or eat home-cooked meals).
Fortunately Christian is superhuman. He's patient, gentle, and calm. He cooks dinner, does the laundry, takes out the recycling, and rubs my back when my ligaments decide it's time to move around making me sore. I could not imagine going through this time by myself - or even worse, with someone who didn't understand or didn't care.
He, like all good husbands, realizes that I'm exhausted because I'm building a completely new life inside me. Not only am I building things like ventricles, lungs, arms, and legs, but also supportive structures like the placenta and umbilical cord. When you think about it like that, it doesn't seem so bad to leave a light layer of dust on the TV stand. It makes perfect sense that I would need to take 3 extra naps. Of course I have to eat another snack during the day. It's not just for me, but for the life I'm creating.
I'm not being lazy. I'm being reproductive.
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