Pregnancy So Far: Pro/Con

PREGNANCY SO FAR
CONS
(-) constant nausuea. This shit is no joke. I spent all of september and october trapped in nausea/vomitting hell. For two months, I felt like I was in a massive hangover, and to all my friends at work, that's exactly what it seemed like. I looked like shit, I vommitted 3-4 times a day and wasn't really eating. I lost weight. This part blows.
Eventually, I worked out some finely-tuned systems for managing the nausea, which I compiled into a list.
(-) fatigue. Also no joke. To be fair though, I was already a very serious 8-hours-of-sleep-every-night gal, so my current 9 (sometimes 10) isn't really that huge of an adjustment.
(-)  Constant fear of miscarriage. See other post and post

(+) SEX DREAMSSSSSS  seeing how shitty I feel for most of the day, these make my nights a relief on so many levels. These dreams are epic, by the way. Its like pregnancy has unscrambled the spice channel in my mind.
(+) Hearing the hearbeat!
(+) growing a human inside you! I still can't believe this is the system for maintaining the human race. If I was a martian, I would place my bets on the stork story before believing that humans grow inside of other humans and then come out of a very small hole. I'm surprised we've lasted this long.
Anyway, even though I think its conceptually bizarre, I feel a great sense of accomplishment. I'm growing a human! I know I can't really take full credit, I had Ben's help and well, evolutionary biology is doing most of the heavy lifting here- but dammit, this thing is incubating inside me!
I love it when Ben and I talk about our days, because no matter what he accomplished (and its usually a great deal since he is in the process of building us a house), I win because I'm making a human! Score!

What Made Life Slightly Better While Fighting Pregnancy Nausea

Greetings from Zombie-land. For the last few months I have been suffering from some serious, all day long, pregnancy-from-hell nausea. I officially have hyperemesis gravidarum, and it has made doing anything but lay in bed pretty difficult. I don't know how women are supposed to deal with this and still have normal lives. I feel so grateful that as a grad student I have a flexible schedule and non-traditional work hours. I don't know how anyone with a 9-5 does it.

Eventually, I worked out some finely-tuned systems for managing the nausea, and I've collected them here in case future Sarah finds herself in this position again or if any of you out in the interwebs are searching for remedies.

• Stacy's pita chips before getting out of bed
• I ate a half of an avocado for breakfast. Something about the fat content, potassium and b vitamins helped I think. Plus they also have folic acid.
• If you can stomach it, have a nutritional supplement like boost or ensure. Most of the time, the nausea prevents me from having an appetite for anything at all, but then I think low blood sugar makes me feel even worse- a viscous cycle. If I can manage a boost (in a big glass with lots of ice and a straw) then it takes some of the edge off.
• Ginger juice helped sometimes. I got it from Whole Foods.
• I couldn't always keep it down, but when I could, this Iron/B-vitamin supplement seemed to help. Also purchased from Whole Foods.
• Sea-bands! They worked! It may have been a placebo effect, but they worked. Or maybe I bought them so late into the first trimester that the nausea was easing on its own anyway. Do I care how it worked if it worked? Nope.
• Rest. Get as much as you can.

Good luck ladies (and future me)- remember, it will stop at some point...