20 May 2009

The First Trimester

I am so grateful that Meiltrine gave me the wonderful book to help me through pregnancy process. The title of the book is “What to expect when you expecting” by Heidi Murkoff, Arlene Eisenberg & Sandee Hathaway. I think this book is a must to have for every couple who want to be new parents. This book did help me a lot and I passed the book to others as well. Unfortunately, the language becomes barrier in my country and sometimes I have to translate it to my friends whenever they need information.

I made a small research about pregnancy with 10 friends of mine. We all were getting pregnant on our thirties and 50% of us took more than a year for this chance. 80% of us were expecting the first child. I found out that 80% of us during the first three months had almost no negative emotional change such as misgivings, mood swings, irritability, irrationality, or weepiness compared to those who got pregnant on their twenties. Nausea, vomiting, heartburn, headaches, food aversions and cravings were rarely being found. Not even fatigue, or morning sickness, we really enjoy the pregnancy process. In our country we called it “buffalo’s pregnant”. I have no idea why they called it that.

The others 20% got terrible condition. They even could not eat or vomiting every time smelling foods was cooked. Their weight even dropped instead of gaining and took the bed rest even more. I was thinking, could be getting pregnant on the thirties made our body and emotion more prepared for any changes. One of the friends who were part of 20% was Cane’s cousin. I was so sad to see her condition and she kept on rejecting foods except sweet warm tea, then an idea just came up. In order to avoid giving her foods with smell (actually delicious smell for me), I asked her husband to make jelly from seaweed powder. He could fill in the jelly with any nutritious ingredients (milk, fruits, vegetables, or else) and fed her. She just loves to have the jelly and it helped her a lot.

I did not gain very much weight during the first trimester and no stretch marks either. I guess this is due to my fatness before the pregnancy process. This was the moment that I love most; I still could go around on foot and took stairs as exercise. Nevertheless, being cautious is necessary since people told me that miscarriage could happen during these months. One thing that is important is a medical check up before becoming pregnant especially on AIDS, rubella, hepatitis B, sugar level, and blood pressure. I was once had history on rubella 5years before and luckily there was no sign of rubella infection.

Taking ultrasound examination gives better benefit than those who did not. The case was happened to one of my staff who got pregnant on her twenties. She did not take any sonography examination until she was found being unconscious in the bathroom. She was ectopic pregnancy (implanted outside the uterus, usually in the fallopian tubes) and had to have abortion due to the heavy bleeding in the fallopian tubes. These were symptoms that she felt during that day: sharp crampy pain in the lower abdomen, light bleeding continuously, nausea and vomiting, weakness, dizziness, and shoulder pain. If you just felt the same, you should consult with your physician before it was too late…

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