The Twelve Week Wait

The Twelve Week Wait for me hasn’t been the most enjoyable experiences for me. Not for any reason related to nausea, tiredness, or sore boobs, no. Those things don’t bother me as it reminds me I’m pregnant. (Not that I’ve had any nausea, thank God.) I’ve just been so scared of something going wrong.

The Twelve Week Wait, you would think, would be an enjoyable time where you’re boobs are getting bigger, you’re not really gaining that much weight despite eating a lot more, and you generally feel full of life – literally. For me, however, although I am over the moon and full of glee, I am also full of worry and anxiousness. The Two Week Wait was bad enough, but this is a whole new type of torture. Every cramping sensation, I’m worried that something bad is happening. Every wet feeling down below, I’m worried it’s blood and dash to the toilet to check. The fact that I haven’t had any nausea concerns me! I’m so nervous about losing Beansprout and going back to square one. I hate not being in control of something.

Like most first time mums I imagine, especially those that have worked their socks off to get there, you desperately fret over the littlest of things. I know you shouldn’t, but you do. You’re not in control of anything going on in there, apart from looking after yourself on the outside so that you don’t hurt what’s going on on the inside.

As an avid gardener, I deal with plants easily. You water them and give them plenty of light. You know when it’s not happy and you know when it is. With a Beansprout, it’s completely different. You can’t see, hear, or even feel them. You don’t have x-ray vision or a way to communicate with them to see if they’re OK.

On top of this, especially if you’re waiting until after the scan to spread the news, you don’t have many, if any, people to ask. I have a couple of people at work to ask certain things to, but even so, if I did ask one or two questions, their answers weren’t always good enough because I know deep down every pregnancy is different. Sure they reassured me, but I am expecting something to go wrong just like the constant BFNs we’ve had over the past 18 months. I can’t believe it has finally worked… not for us, anyway. I totally expect the rug to be whipped from underneath us as I never thought it would work. Honestly. After the tenth BFN I genuinely started to think we would be a childless family with lots of dogs instead.

I hate being so negative, especially during what was meant to be an exciting time – but I can’t help it. It’s awful, and not to mention stressful. Most of the time I feel pathetic as women were having babies during wartimes and babies survived! Hell, I’m sure cavewomen didn’t fret over little things, and look how we turned out. It is never expected that women are to go onto constant bed rest during the nine months, so I try to behave as normal as possible – which was also tiring as I then spend the next 30 minutes checking whether I should have done this and that. I know not to lift anything heavy and not to eat certain foods, but even the way I sit down worries me in case I crushed something. Yes, I am crazy and paranoid, but I cannot bear the thought of possibly begin the cause of a loss.

S is probably the person I feel most sorry for. Not only does she get bombarded with questions, which she doesn’t have the answer to, and often says “babe, I don’t know” (she never bullshits me, but sometimes I could do with a little “It’ll be fine”), she has the awful task of keeping me occupied when I am restless, and fed when I am constantly hungry. Hands down she is amazing and I couldn’t do it without her. I’m sure she had her own worries, but she never showed them or told me. I love her so much.

K

FYI: This post was written when I was approximately 10-11 weeks pregnant.