QUESTION:

Dear Livitician,
I have just found out I am about 5 weeks pregnant. I'm suffering from nausea (no big surprise there) and food aversion. Nothing seems desirable to me. I'm concerned about eating enough and giving my baby the right nutrition.

I work full time in retail so it's hard to find the time and energy to cook or to eat full meals. Add to that I can't seem to find room in my stomach for half a can of soup and I'm at a bit of a loss.

I peed on another stick tonight...yup, still pregnant! 5 weeks and the poppy seed is now a sesame seed. Over the last couple of days I've been a little stopped up. Not such a pleasant picture, but it is what it is. And one of the things that causes problems. Dairy. This spells trouble and despair. I love dairy. I drink more milk than anyone I've ever met. It is my beverage of choice. In an attempt to make myself feel better about this wicked turn of events I had a piece of chocolate. Gag-o-rama. Chocolate AND milk?! Seriously?! There goes my mocha and hot chocolate.

Our story, is probably not too rare.
My husband and I were married 2 1/2 years ago and decided that we wouldn't wait to start a family. My mother was extremely fertile so I never thought that I would have any problems conceiving. After 6 months I began to feel nervous. After persuading my Doc. to give us the battery of tests that they usually make you wait a year for we were diagnosed with unexplained infertility.

Almost one year after our marriage we found that we were pregnant, and were over the moon. Unfortunately it was shortlived and at 6.5 weeks while on holiday I began to miscarry. I think I lost a large part of my heart that day. It took me a long time to get over it.

Over the next year, we tried chineese acupuncture which helped regulate my cycles and I took a mind body class which helped me get my emotions undercontrol. I began to meditate regularly listening to Jennifer Bloom's fertilty meditations www.anjionline.com and slowly came to a place of peace about our fertility journey.

I've had many thoughts over the past two years. I can't say how many times I've wished that the pregnancy test would just show positive. So many negatives, how hard would it be to have a positive! The month that I got pregnant after the first year, I knew I was pregnant before I checked the stick. My boobs were sore and I'd had funny aches in my tummy. I just new it, the test was just a confirmation.

In November I took a pregnancy test, not expecting any thing extraordinary and there it was...pregnant! I was totally suprised.

The next few days were long and painful, with every twinge I thought that I'd get a late period. I was terrified of loosing this one too. I booked an appointment with my Dr. but couldn't get in for a week. I couldn't imagine staying pregnant for an entire week! My fears were confirmed a few of days later when I felt that my boobs had got much less sore. I figured it was only time before I bled. I sat at work in my cubicle and couldn't stop crying. I had to excuse my self (via email so no one saw me) and went home.

I didn't start to bleed, but I did start to feel nauseus and my boobs got sore again. My Doc. ran some tests and said that my HCG was just fine and doubling on schedule. I was still pregnant.

I was really nervous about passing the 6.5 week mark that had been my miscarriage last time. Unfortunately it came over christmas surrounded by family. I was feeling really sick and would pretty much rather have been any where else as long as I could have been alone.