Not glowing yet

Just as the nausea and exhaustion of the first trimester have started to abate, I have a lovely new pregnancy symptom. For the past few weeks, I’ve been having trouble with kidney stones. When I get an attack of renal colic, the pain is the worst I’ve felt in my life and there’s absolutely nothing I can do. Fortunately, the worst of the pain only lasts about 30 - 40 minutes and then disappears completely. The lead-in (pretty painful in its own right) can last an hour or two and sometimes I can stop the worst of it by guzzling several bottles of water at that point. For some reason, now, the attacks seem to be getting more frequent, in spite of the fact that I’m drinking water like it’s going out of style. I’ve been waiting since last week for an appointment with a urologist, though I’m not even sure how much they can do. I wouldn’t try any intervention that could potentially hurt my baby. My midwife is prescribing me some pain killers, but I probably will avoid taking them since they usually make me really sick to my stomach. Still, nice to have some as insurance.

So, with this extremely painful medical issue, Adam and I are supposed to be flying to Iceland on Saturday for 6 days to attend a conference and see the sites. On top of that, Iceland isn’t sounding like the best place to travel to at the moment. If people think our economy is bad, they should try Iceland, where four of their major banks have failed, their currency has lost most of its value, and the government has given up trying to peg the Krona to other currencies. People can’t even get their money out of their banks. Since the people of Iceland (and companies) can’t get foreign currency, they’re predicting serious food shortages and other problems. Normally, I’d be game for this and probably would find it a fascinating experience to bear witness to what’s going on there. However, now that I’m responsible for another human life, I feel like I need to be more cautious. And with my current health issues, I don’t want to be stuck in a country where I can’t get the basic care I might need.

So, the trip I’ve been looking forward to for months and months now feels like an anchor around my neck. I don’t want to let the conference organizers down — I’ve never missed a conference before and I’ve spoken with food poisoning, a horrible hangover, a cold, etc. I also don’t want to lose the money I spent on two plane tickets to Iceland if Adam and I decide not to go, as well as the experience of visiting a county I’ve dreamed of going to for well over a decade. Adam and I plan to wait and see how things look late in the week and then make our decision, but I definitely will not take any risks that could put baby in danger.

On a positive note, I’ve just started to show a bit, though to most people I probably just look like I’ve developed a small pot belly. It’s definitely made the whole baby thing feel more real to me, and I can’t wait until I can actually feel the baby move around and kick. In spite of how crappy I’ve been feeling, it hasn’t lessened my giddiness over the pregnancy one bit.

Still waiting for that second trimester pregnancy glow though…