During the first trimester of each pregnancy, my symptoms have been as follows:
1. If I get 8-9 hours of sleep at night, I'm really tired most of the day. If I get any less than 8 hours, I'm practically narcoleptic. The rest of the symptoms listed below tend to worsen as well when I am short on sleep.
2. I have to eat something, preferably high in protein, every hour or so in order to remain more or less functional. Two hours is the absolute maximum amount of time I can go without feeling extremely nauseous. At three hours without eating, I am generally ready to vomit and/or pass out.
3. If I stay up past 9:00 or so, I'm pretty much guaranteed to be "calling the dinosaurs" (as we like to call "puking our guts out" around here).
4. Strong smells make me want to keel over, especially if it's a gross smell like garbage or fish.
5. Alcohol has no appeal at all. Even the smell of a drink is repulsive to me.
Through all my pregnancies, I had good days and bad, but never any days with no symptoms at all until 12-13 weeks. The only pregnancy that was different was the one I miscarried: around 8-9 weeks, all my pregnancy symptoms pretty much disappeared, which turned out to be because I had lost the baby.
On the trip over to Portugal, I wasn't really bothered by morning sickness at all, which surprised me because I hardly slept on the flight but didn't have me too worried. By the 4th day of feeling great, however, I was convinced that I had miscarried again. I was staying up until 11 or 12 o'clock, averaging 6 hours of sleep a night, eating only at meal times (sometimes going as much as 6 hours without food), and I felt just fine. I wasn't getting tired; I didn't feel nauseous at all; I wasn't hungry in between meals; I could eat whatever I wanted; and the smell at the meat section of the grocery store didn't bother me (and grocery stores smell a lot stronger in other countries than they do in the US). I even tasted a port wine in Portugal and I liked it. Basically, I didn't feel pregnant at all for 4 days.
During this time, we went to Mass in Lisbon, Portugal. After Mass, the priest encouraged us all to go to the birth place of St. Anthony of Padua, which was not far. He said it was an especially great place for any pregnant women to go as St. Anthony is not only the patron saint of lost items (I knew that) but also expectant mothers (I had not known that). So of course, we went and prayed there, asking St. Anthony to keep our baby in his prayers as well.
The next day, we went to Fatima, the site where Our Lady appeared to 3 young children: Lucia, Jacintha and Francisco. It is also the site of the "miracle of the sun," witnessed by 70,000 people - believers and skeptics alike. We brought with us the prayers of many of our family and friends. We, of course, prayed especially for our baby - hoping, if the life of our baby was indeed in danger, to bear witness to one of the many miracles that have occurred in Fatima.
One of the messages that the children in Fatima received was to recite the rosary daily. So the next day Seth and I decided to pray the rosary together. We prayed for our baby and for my morning sickness to return so we could have some peace of mind. I never in my life thought I would be praying to get sick, but that's basically what we did. When we finished the rosary, I immediately ran to the bathroom and threw up. Then we high-fived. And for the rest of the trip (and the rest of the trimester), my morning sickness gradually returned...and we were thrilled every time I started to feel miserable from there on out.
I know some might think that it was all just a coincidence, but the experience truly felt like a miraculous event. My guess is that one of two things happened. Either we lost (or almost lost) Francis and were blessed to have him given back, or I was blessed with a complete reprieve from morning sickness on our trip until I asked to have it back. I had, after all, prayed before the trip that my morning sickness would not be too bad on our vacation so that I wouldn't be a wet blanket the whole time.
If it was the latter, I think it's a classic example of the importance to "be careful what you ask/pray for." So often we think we know what we need rather than just trusting God to give us what he knows is best for us. And sometimes we get exactly what we ask for only to realize that maybe it wasn't all we thought it would be.
At any rate, when we were at Fatima, thinking that there was little to no chance our baby was alive, we decided that we would name the baby either Francis or Lucia in thanksgiving for our answered prayers.
And that is the story behind Francis Anthony's name.
No comments:
Post a Comment