9 weeks 2 days
One of the weirder symptoms of pregnancy is the dreams. Now, I’ve been known to have weird vivid dreams and nightmares for some time, and worse, I talk, moan, and apparently sing in my sleep (my husband woke me up to tell me this once, and I immediately realized I had been, in my dream, singing something to the tune of The Beverly Hillbillies – a show I have always, always hated. Talk about embarrassing…). But my dreams since becoming pregnant?
Freaking weird. And nearly always awful. A couple of nights ago, I had this horrible dream about a person I went to high school with who was known for incessant meddling in people’s lives. In this dream, she’d somehow managed to take over mine, and I woke up really angry. It’s funny, actually – I seem to dream about people I’d completely forgotten about from high school a lot, more or less to my embarrassment (not that the dreams are particularly embarrassing, I just wake up really confused). And other nights, I dream about a relative who is pretty much always angry with or annoyed with me (note that I have a lot of nightmares about this situation anyway, but since I got knocked up, this has reached new and evil heights). The majority of the dreams are disturbing, though except for the odd high school dreams, it’s no mystery to me why I dream about some of what I dream about. I haven’t been in high school for 17 years now – why I even remember half of the people I end up dreaming about I don’t know (the dreams aren’t terribly exciting either, just odd…).
What sucks, though, is when the dreams become highly relevant so that I never have that moment of “I’m probably dreaming” in my sleep. Last night, for example, I dreamt that I was bleeding and having a miscarriage. Now in truth, that probably came from the primary evil symptom I’m having in this pregnancy, but still, it sucked, and I woke up surprised to find myself still pregnant. Some of all of this is that at this early stage, there’s almost no outward sign of being pregnant, and it will still be another 3 months or so before I’m able to actually feel the baby. Sure, I need a bigger bra and my belly is starting to not fit into my jeans (then again, it barely did so beforehand…), but I don’t really look pregnant – just, er, bloated.
Which brings me to the primary evil symptom – intestinal distress. No, don’t worry, I’m not going into detail here. But if you think PMS bloating sucks, ladies, just you wait. Your system slows down to get maximum nutritional benefit for the baby from anything you eat, and there’s already enough going on down there to make things uncomfortable without this added “feature” of pregnancy. It’s annoying, it makes your clothes fit funny, and it hurts in all sorts of ways. So I’m sure something related to this was going on when I was having this miscarriage dream, or perhaps the pains from uterine growth (which really do suck – very hard to distinguish from cramps), and I guess this is the downside of not having to deal with having your period for 9 months.
Still, I shouldn’t complain. Symptoms are symptoms, and I really have very few. I’m not usually nauseous (although the brief morning battle between “I’m starving” and “I’ll throw up if I eat that” is sort of interesting…) and the only weight I’ve really gained is the initial weight that I swear I put on a week after I knew I was pregnant for no apparent reason (I’m only supposed to gain around 15 pounds total anyway, and very little in the first trimester, but I know that my calorie intake didn’t really increase in that week), and my cravings aren’t too weird (although the 8 am enchilada lust the other day still amuses me… in fact, I should find enchiladas for lunch…). Any other symptoms are comparatively mild, and except for wanting to sleep all the damned time and getting really dizzy every few days, are pretty manageable. In fact, I’m tempted to go back to sleep right now and succumb to breakfast food coma.
In any event, that’s where things are at 9 weeks. I’m really ok, even with a little stress going on in various areas of my life, and I can only hope it stays this way, the baby grows, and things progress the way they should!
Professional computer geek and linguist living in Germany, doing infosec stuff and being the freakiest mother ever.
I had really weird dreams during my first trimester, too! And the main theme was people from waaaaay in my past making some sort of benign appearance. It was very strange. I’d have dreams where I was going to parties and there would be people from elementary school and high school that I was barely even acquaintances with.
I’m sure your nasty dreams will start to lessen as you get more and more comfortable with being pregnant, and confident that everything is going well.
Good luck and congrats!
I had really weird dreams during my first trimester, too! And the main theme seemed to be totally random people from way in my past. I had a lot of dreams of being at parties or in a crowded place and everyone around me was someone from decades ago I had completely forgotten about and half the time had barely even been acquaintances with.
I’m sure your nasty dreams will lessen as you get more comfortable with being pregnant and more confident that everything is going well.
Good luck and Congrats!