I've been keeping a little secret ... and the secret is growing...

Many times I've given the reason health issues as for being less on Hive, which is true but I haven't been honest about the cause behind these health issues until now. I figured as I spent so many years writing on both platforms, invested so much of my time and building so many connections here, I can't just keep this a secret and it's a good time to announce this tiny secret that has been growing.

As per our track record of having 3 miscarriages in a row of which one happened in Spain when our daughter wasn't even a year old, and later 2 in Budapest, with the last one in 2021 being extremely traumatic and scary for me, I let go of the idea of having a little brother or sister for our daughter completely. I didn't want to go through that again and maybe the universe was telling me that I couldn't/shouldn't try anymore.

I know often it's the other way around, but in our case it was my boyfriend who kept mentioning the fact that he found it a shame we didn't have a younger brother or sister for our daughter while I already made peace with it much sooner. At some point he let it go as well and it was never a topic of discussion anymore. Until last year when in summer I got rid of my hernia complaints thanks to swimming, some spark appeared again and sometimes it was mentioned by either one of us that it would be nice to see if we could make it happen after all.

In December we decided to try but I told my boyfriend that I wasn't going to give this years, just a few attempts max and if it wasn't in the cards, then we'd accept it. To my surprise it happened the first try!

I had to quit my blood pressure medication immediately because of them not being safe and change them to another that was safe for pregnant women. Sadly the doctor (not a gyneacologist) prescribed me something that made my epigastric hernia issues worse so I struggled a lot the first months but I have not been sick due to hormonal changes once. I have been pregnant many times now and I have never experienced not being nausea even once! Other times I was hanging above the toilet even before a positive test appeared. A really strange experience and it honestly made me doubt that there would be a heart beat because it felt unreal.

When I went to the gyneacologist I was so happy and surprised to find out there was a heartbeat but still not assured things would go well because the other times my miscarriages happened between 6 and 10 weeks. So I lived from appointment to appointment and every time, all was well!

The health issues that occured were scary at times though beacuse I requested a second change of medication at some point because I had extreme constipation from the first meds that were prescribed and this was causing the epigastric hernia to be very painful. My gyn prescribed a totally different medication that worked differently and I felt so ill, my blood pressure was rising like madness and headaches were so bad that I ended up at the ER because I felt that this wasn't good.

The doctor there prescribed me half the dose as well as some relaxing stuff in case I my blood pressure was up because the side effect of that medication is a lower blood pressure and he also told me I could take 1 gram paracetamol at once in case of these extreme headaches. It took two more days after I was discharged from the ER to finally be ok again.

And I could have never guessed what happened next, when the medication change (and half the dose) kicked in and did its job, I felt so energized that I woke up at 7 AM, started doing chores, felt happy and my brainfog was fully gone. I finally felt like myself again, and now knew that all the other meds (even before being pregnant) were definitely not the medication that worked well for me because I had always felt a bit blocked and most definitely not energized at all.

My overall mood was happy, positive and full of energy to take on the day, I loved it!

This stabilized a bit later, as in I don't get up at 7 AM anymore, but now I'm past the first half of my pregnancy already and the baby is growing so it's taking more of my energy as well because I feel kicks all day and sometimes the pressure on my back is a lot so I have to be careful that my back hernia pains are not coming back and rest in time. Thankfully, afternoon naps are only done maybe twice a week and the rest of the week I don't need them, so that's great.

I remember knowing at the 13 weeks ultrasounds if I was pregnant with a boy or girl, but here I didn't have a thourough ultrasound at that term so it was 17 weeks when we immediately saw that this is a boy. It was a very funny moment because I asked the gyn to check it and the first thing that came in sight was litteraly his genitals, lol.

I was still not sure about this all going well as long as I didn't have the genetic test results (all came back as good as they can be, they are never 100% sure of course) and when the guy from the 20 weeks ultrasound said all looked normal.

It was then when I could finally start enjoying the pregnancy a bit more because honestly, not feeling ill, and only having some health issues due to wrong medication made me wonder if this COULD be real, I mean surely with my age and health issues prior to pregnancy, I was expecting this to be one hell of a ride. The reality is that when I don't have any issues from the things mentioned, I have had the easiest 20 weeks pregnancy ever.

As with the one previous boy pregnancy, carpal tunnel syndrome returned two weeks ago and it's been causing me a lot of pain the past two weeks mostly. Thankfully I had a splint still from a few years ago, and ordered a second one because as with the other pregnancy, I'm lucky to be affected on both arms (/sarcasm) so yeah, this sucks but it is what it is.

It's affecting my sleep because no matter how I put my hands, it's either extreme pain in my wrist (even with splints) and hands, or my fingers get numb, there's no "no pain" way to sleep sadly. But I try to focus on the things that I'm blessed with such as not having to deal with nausea at all, just gaining 1 kg so far, and feeling more energized than I have been in the past 5 years, and most definitely than during any pregnancy in the past.

I'm well aware that the final trimester will be challenging but instead of focussing on the extreme heat that awaits me in my final months, I focus on the positive fact and that's the pool being open from end of June, meaning that any backpains will find relief easily just by being in the pool in our community garden. That's surely something I never had before and I feel confident that this will make it much easier for me to deal with back issues that will probably appear at some point. For now I can say that the first half and a bit barely gave me any back issues, unless I did way too much some days, and just had to take a step back, which is normal during pregnancy.

I'm lucky to have such a supportive partner who helps me with everything and will drive me to any appointment if needed, even though I hope now the time has arrived that I'm not scared anymore and dare to visit the doctor alone after the big tests have been done.

By the way that little artwork I showed above is made by my daughter, soon to be big sister who is excited to get a baby brother soon. If you look well, you can read "little brother" in the car. Isn't she the cutest?

She tries to help me where she can as well, she has been taking things out of my hands (litteraly) when I tried to do stuff that hurt too much and shouted ouch. I'm sure she'll be helping out where she can with the baby too, who by the way still doesn't have a name! That's something new for me too, normally the name had been decided on long before 20 weeks. We're still not there though. There's time left, so I'm sure it will be fine.

So here you have my little secret reveal... to be continued ;)