It hit without warning in the ninth week. The "f" word everyone warned me about. Fatigue.
I’d escaped the first two months of my pregnancy relatively unscathed; I’d felt great and had only a handful of days marred by morning sickness. So when the fatigue arrived I was caught completely off guard.
I’m an energetic person who usually greets mornings with gusto. As soon as the alarm goes off I’m up. Yet I suddenly found myself reaching for the snooze button. I’d roll over and stare at the clock in disbelief. How can the night already by over?, I’d wonder. Shutting my eyes I’d try to steal a few precious extra minutes of sleep. I’d linger there wishing there were just a little more of the night left. When I finally managed to extricate myself from the heavenly grips of my comforter, all I could think about was how long it would be before I could return to its cozy embrace.
I began bargaining with myself. "If you get up now you can take a nap this afternoon," I’d say. And it worked. More often than not, I bartered myself out of bed and into the gym or out for a run -- but I’d suffer for it later in the day when overwhelming sleepiness struck. I’d always had lots of energy; but suddenly just getting through the day was exhausting.
Not one to let a little sleepiness get in the way, I continued to drag myself to the gym several mornings a week (sometimes a little later than usual) and I still managed to do my weekly 90-minute run. Though I was exhausted I was determined to keep going. "Pregnancy is no reason to slack off," I told myself. Tiredness had never stopped me before, so why should it now?
When my doctor asked about my energy levels at my next prenatal visit, I felt the need to confess. “I’m feeling great,” I exaggerated, “just a bit tired -- that’s all.”
When I proudly told him all I was still managing to do, he looked at me thoughtfully. “Maybe you should consider cutting back on the running if it’s tiring you out so much,” he said. “You’re not doing any harm to the baby, but you’re tiring yourself out.” He suggested incorporating a couple of walk breaks during my long run, or cutting it back by 10 or 15 minutes. “The problem for you is going to be here,” he said tapping his finger to his forehead.
I knew
he was right, yet I was determined to tough it out as long as I could. In fact, it wasn’t until part way through the fourth month that I finally cut back on my running. By then I could feel the fatigue accumulating in my body. My legs seemed more leaden than ever, and the weights I normally lifted suddenly felt several pounds heavier. It was then that I realized pregnancy was a workout in and of itself. I wasn’t being lazy, my body was working hard all the time whether I was resting, running or sleeping. And if this fatigue was any indication, my regular exercise schedule was perhaps a little too demanding for a body that was already hard at work. I knew it was time to make some changes, even if they were only psychological. It was time to give myself a break.
And the doctor was right; the most difficult part of cutting back for me was mental. Exercise has always been my way of dealing with life’s stresses; I relied on it to help me through a bad day or to get out whatever aggression was festering inside me. My body had taken on a new role and I had to respect that. This wasn’t the time to exercise to exhaustion or to run for an hour and a half, just because I felt like being out in the fresh air. For me fitness was no longer about pushing myself, or trying to run faster or farther. But what would it mean for me to be fit while I was pregnant? And what would happen as I cut back on my exercise? I wasn’t sure; but I was about to find out.
Slowly I cut back on my activities. I allowed myself to sleep in and leave the gym early if I was tired. I cut back on my runs (a little) and included walking breaks. I realized it was up to me to look after my body, I needed to nurture it, we were, after all, building something together. I told myself that ignoring the alarm at 6 o’clock in the morning wasn’t a sign of laziness, it was simply a sign that my hard working body needed more sleep. Besides, I had a lifetime of early morning wake–ups ahead of me, now wasn’t the time to beat myself up about sleeping in, missing gym sessions, or falling asleep in the afternoon. It was time to listen to the subtle cues of a body that was trying to tell me something. And who was I to ignore it?
© 2007, ePregnancy.com and Stephanie Kinnon