Travel Fatigue

Checking in just this once from overseas. The trip has been an interesting one. We had a long but relatively uneventful trip here -- it totaled 24 hours of travel time, and I wasn't able to sleep much on the plane, but overall not too bad. I drank lots of water and ginger ale, peed a whole lot, walked up and down the aisles of the planes (and a few airports), and was able to check into the hotel in pretty good shape (and then slept for 15 hours).

Things started off smoothly -- it was easy to find food that I could be sure was safe, including lots of dairy (yogurt and milk, and some cheeses, though I'm being extremely careful) and we've gone through almost a dozen 1.5 liter bottles of water. I was a bit tired during the first day of the conference (Monday) but it felt more like jet lag than anything pregnancy related.

Tuesday, things started to turn, and by today, I am definitely confident that I am feeling pregnancy effects much more than lingering jet lag. It is impossible to get through an entire day without some sort of rest around 4pm or so. Walking even a few blocks at anything faster than a slow ramble immediately tires me out and often gives me abdominal cramps. I feel sick within half an hour of getting up in the morning, or anytime I haven't eaten in more than 2 hours. Saltines are starting to lose their effectiveness at relieving the nausea. I haven't actually vomited, but I burp regularly with such ferocity that it often brings up bile (TMI, sorry). And I wouldn't say that I'm actually getting food aversions, but certainly the site, smell, or discussion of some foods definitely turns my stomach, often very suddenly, and often when they were fine the day before. The tiny crepes I've been having for breakfast every day this week suddenly appeared disgusting this morning. S. had to cover up his slices of ham as well, because the site of it made me ill. You can imagine how pleased I was when he ordered an anchovy pizza for lunch (averting my eyes was thankfully enough).

Given my ever increasing nausea, I am rather dreading the trip back (we leave tomorrow morning). I wore sea bands on the trip here, and it's not clear to me that they had any effect other than giving me bruises on my wrists. I guess I'll put them on as an extra "shield" against nausea, but I'm not all that hopeful that I won't vomit on the plane. Either way, it will be good to be home. I'm at 6w3d today, and my first prenatal appointment is Tuesday, when I'll be at 7 weeks even.

Other than the flight, my only real challenge between now and then will be dragging my jet-lagged and pregnancy-exhausted butt out of bed on Sunday in time to watch the Packers in the NFC Championship game....