Growing Life in a Tired Body

In my last blog post, I shared the whirlwind of our honeymoon and the thrilling news of our pregnancy. It feels like a lifetime ago now, especially since it has taken me months to finally wrap up this follow-up post! Anyway, I thought I’d follow on and dip into life since our honeymoon and the good, the bad and the downright ugly of pregnancy. Thinking back now, because my RA has been so well behaved since pregnant, I think it definitely helped when we were away – I honestly thought my body wouldn’t be able to do that much!! .. Just I didn’t know at the time!

It was the start of January when we found out and now we’re in July (I have written and had to edit this from May, June and now July!). How time flies! Although this is the most exciting time of our lives, it hasn’t been plain sailing. Some weeks it has felt as if time has stood still and others I’m not quite sure how time has gone so quickly already. It’s hard to believe it’s been over a year since we tied the knot, and even harder to grasp that we’re just two months away from welcoming our little one!

On our way back from our honeymoon, we faced a lengthy delay at Dublin airport. No better time to get organized. Between dashing to the toilet due to relentless nausea, I managed to call my GP to sort out the necessary referrals and let the hospital know about my pregnancy. From that moment on, the next 10-12 weeks were a blur of nausea and sickness. I found myself questioning my life choices more than once. The hardest part? Trying not tell the people I needed most. I don’t think I’ll be able to abide by that if we’re lucky enough to have another; it makes you feel so isolated. I had to inform work much sooner than family and friends because I was often too sick to function, and when I was at work, my head was usually in the toilet!

And then there’s the fatigue... not the one. I’m no stranger to fatigue from my RA, but this was a whole different ballgame. It’s hard to explain, and I can’t say one is worse than the other—they just feel different. The isolation was again the hardest part, I kept telling people it was just general RA fatigue. At least that gave me a cover story! No amount of sleep could make you feel refreshed... when you could actually get some sleep. At first, because of the nausea, and once that subsided, hip and pelvic girdle pain took over, disrupting any hope of a good night's sleep.

I think I had about a week in between the constant nausea and the start of the hip and pelvic pain that I felt maybe half normal. I was sent into false belief that I was going to feel good. My joints were behaving, the nausea and sickness were dying down and then gradually this pain had other plans for me. In April, I was starting to discuss with my boss when I was going to start maternity leave and things I needed in place for months and months ahead. And then I was off sick for a few days at a time because of this pain, I thought if I did my physio exercises and took it a bit steadier, then I would be fine. My body decided that wasn’t good enough – so at the start of May I decided to stay off work so I wasn’t going to make myself worse. It was a tough decision but at the end of the day, it’s not just me I need to look after anymore and if I’m not looking after myself then I’m not looking after baby. In one way, it was definitely an easier decision than when I used to have to be off because of the arthritis, because I could push myself and it was only myself it was affecting. But this time it’s different. Not being able to work has always been one of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with with my arthritis and at the start of my pregnancy when my arthritis had decided to hibernate, I thought my body was finally letting me get on with life. I was planning to do more work whilst I still could as I knew that I wanted to take a year off maternity leave. And the fact that it was my body that had made that decision for me again that I couldn’t work, I felt so disappointed. All my friends and family and my midwife were great and reminded me that growing a human takes a lot – they are not wrong. Every time I see posts on social media that being pregnant is the equivalent to doing a marathon a week – that puts it into perspective of why my body is not coping, I mean how can anyone’s really!!!!

I won’t delve into all the other symptoms—there are just too many! I started recording little videos with the tagline “pregnancy is wild” because so many aspects of this journey have shocked me. I might look back and share some of those on Instagram later, but for now, I know I still have two months of surprises ahead!

I always feel guilty when I complain about being pregnant because it’s the best thing that has ever happened to us and we are so lucky. Accepting that you can feel both grateful and frustrated during pregnancy is a journey in itself. I’m still working on this, the guilt always creeps in. There are only a few things that I enjoy about being pregnant, but it’s all about what’s going to come and I can’t wait.

I keep imagining and picturing how things will be but the thing that always brings me back is the worry of how I will cope – I know my friends and family are absolute rocks and will always be there for whatever I need. But what if I can’t do certain things with my own baby, what if I miss things because I have flare up? At the end of the day, I live with a chronic illness, and even though it’s been manageable during my pregnancy, I worry that this calm period is just a false sense of security. I will always have a chronic illness.

The emotional whirlwind that comes with pregnancy and preparing for a new life is nothing to compare to. The biggest thing I’ve learnt through this is truly how amazing our bodies are. We see it daily on the farm and friends and family have gone through it but until you experience it yourself, you will never know and could never truly understand.

Thanks for reading, see you on the next one!

Ali x