I am exactly 22 weeks and 4 days, according to the pregnancy cycle wheels, which means I have 120 days left of marinating our little pickle, who we fondly call Pickles.
The reason behind this name stems from my out-of-nowhere first ever craving: pickles. We were in Adelboden, Switzerland, in February for some kick ass skiing in the alps. I had just finished and was wandering around with some friends when we realized we were in chocolate country, so we hit the local grocery store. When I walked in, there was a display of pickles, and without hesitation, I grabbed one, opened it and started eating. In my normal state, I remove all pickles from my plate, because I detest them. But here I was, in the middle of the mountains, eating this like it were my lifeline. I "shared" the jar (gave away 5) but in an hour, the entire jar was gone. When we got home, it was all about this condiment. Pickles with cheese, pickles with toast, pickles smothered in jam, pickles with fresh-squeezed lemon juice (undiluted)...it was sick. And then I tried pickles with my cereal and threw up, and that was the end of pickles. I couldn't even look at a jar without gagging. That phase lasted two weeks, and in that time, poor Ax got panicky and bought not 1 but TWO big jars of pickles.
The first three months involved some intense miserableness too. Not only was I sleeping every 2 hours, for two hours, and when I was awake I was barely awake, but I was nauseous but hardly vomiting (as my friend Terri, who just had her baby describes this feeling, it's like being car-sick 24 hours a day). The most miserable part of these months involved itching like I've never itched before. On my legs and arms (not my palms and feet, which will come to play when I explain). And my skin became impermeable to any lotions. NOTHING would work. We went through a total of 11 bottles of lotions of all brands/kinds and some would make me itch more, while others would just make me hot and force me into the shower, which would make me itch more because there was something about the calcium in the water that was just intolerable. The body shop had the closest thing to being absorbent (buriti body butter) and it was less itchy than the others. It wasn't until I spoke to Axel's sister, Anne, when I found the ultimate solution. Anne mentioned that she was also itchy in the first trimester and the only thing that helped her was Aveeno products. That got my radar going since I have a friend Melissa who works for J&J and could get those products for cheap and who I was meeting in NYC a month later. You can't get Aveeno products in Europe except for the UK, and although I was desperate enough, I don't think it would have been so cost-efficient to head over to london to get lotion. The day I arrived in NYC, Mel gave me this 24h dry skin relief with menthol, and it has changed my life. The itching stopped immediately as did the non-absorption. That stuff is incredible. Paggy brought 9 tubes plus 3 tubes of anti-itch lotion for me a couple of weeks ago when she arrived in Provence, and Catherine brought me 6 tubes of it from Vancouver. I am positive this should last me until Oct 1 (when Pickles is due).
I started reading about the itching and what could possibly cause it. In 2nd and 3rd trimesters, itching is caused by two reasons: obstetric or intrahepatic cholestasis or PUPPPs (Pruritic Urticarial Papules and Plaques of Pregnancy). But because I was in my first trimester, there were no papers on these conditions for my timeframe. I attribute this to the fact that most women don't often see the doctor from week 7 until week 12 (many doctors won't even see you until you are in week 12) so there's no real data for the first trimester maladies. This started happening to me in week 8 and I saw my doctor then, told her about it, and she sent me for liver tests. Apparently with both itching maladies, a probable cause is the elevated hormones that your body has not gotten used to getting rid of. This causes an overload of hormones in your liver which then can't cope. The hormones apparently cause the itchiness, although this I'm still not really sure is a sound conclusion. What was interesting for me is that I was craving really acidy things like pickles and lemons. Liver detox kits you find in healthfood stores rely on acids to work, and it has been suggested to intake lemon juice and other acids during detox, so it was interesting me how my body was doing this by itself, causing me to crave the most acidy foods I know.
All this to say, my liver tests came back normal (which is actually normal in these cases...they have shown that it takes a while for your liver tests to show something wrong because your liver is working overtime to keep the balance), and I didn't have the traditional itchy palms and feet for obstetric cholestasis nor the itchy torso for PUPPPs. So I'm not really sure what the itch was all about. All I can conclude is that Aveeno is my lifesaver and I curse J&J for not making it available in France or in Germany.
Here is a picture from May 21...which would be around 21 weeks. Yes, this is cheating since this was supposed to be the first three months only, but it is appropriate.
