The Story of Nora | Part II: 9 Long Months

Family of six looks down at mom's pregnant belly during family maternity session at the lake

Nora’s pregnancy was my hardest from day one. Ok, maybe not quite day one, but within a week of getting a positive test, I was sick. And not just a little sick, I was a lot sick. I fought the urge to throw up all day, every day. And when the throwing up finally started just a few weeks in, it didn’t stop until well past the 20 week mark.

I was on anti-nausea meds until our Maui Babymoon at 32 weeks. And as soon as those anti-nausea meds went away, the heartburn set in and oh, it was bad. I had to sleep on an incline and load up on heartburn medication just to take the edge off. I could hardly eat because I was out of room and everything made the heartburn worse.

On top of just feeling like garbage for 41 weeks, I also had a few health scares. I was extremely itchy and would randomly break out in rashes. This had the midwife looking into potential liver issues. My gestational diabetes testing was iffy and I had to track my blood sugars for several weeks to make sure all was well there. After our summer camping trip, I came home with the beginnings of a UTI, which can be extremely dangerous during pregnancy. Sciatic pain, extreme pubic bone pain, hip pain… I had all the pains. I was a walking disaster… well, actually I could hardly walk at times, so more of a waddling, hobbling disaster!

And thanks to an anterior placenta (meaning it was at the front of my uterus), I didn’t even get to enjoy the one part of pregnancy I was most looking forward to- feeling my baby move inside of me! It wasn’t until the end of being pregnant that I could actually feel her on a regular basis. Scott only felt her move a total of three times the entire nine months. She was a rather calm baby anyway, but what little movements she made were quite muffled by the location of the placenta. Plus, Scott says he has a soothing effect on her. He’s not wrong. Even now, she calms down almost instantly when he holds her. Her lack of movement during pregnancy was really hard on me. I wanted desperately to enjoy feeling her move around, especially while being so sick and miserable, but it just wasn’t happening.

While all of the physical ailments were hard, the hardest part of all was the emotional toll the pregnancy took on me.

I knew she was our last, which I was 100% ok with, but I’m very much a “savor the moment” kind of person. It was hard to not be able to savor and enjoy her pregnancy the way I wanted to. I felt guilty for not enjoying the pregnancy I had longed for so greatly. I felt bad for my other four kiddos who had suffered along with me. They didn’t have a fun, nice mom for 9 months. I was grumpy and mean, I yelled a lot and had a super short temper. I spent so much time throwing up and my girls would run to me and hold back my hair and bring me water to sip, without ever being asked. It was a rough time for me, but even more so, a rough time for them. And that wore on me emotionally as much as any of the other stuff did physically.

By the end of my pregnancy I knew two things for sure. I was beyond ok with this being our last baby. And I was ready to be done being pregnant. The 42 week mark could not come fast enough.

Find Part III here!