Can you all explain first trimester fatigue to my OH please

[loveanap]

This is our third baby so I'm not sure what he's not understanding.

I've just fell asleep in the kids room for an hour, we was playing doctors and before you know it I was gone.

OH has come upstairs and ripped the blankets of me and told me to get up as the kids have trashed the room whilst I was snoozing.

Now I feel like a zombie and have moved to the sofa!

I would love to show him this thread so he knows what it feels like, as I could sleep all day anywhere any time but he seems to think I'm just being lazy & unproductive.

To loveanaps DP,

You’re a cunt for ripping the blankets off her and complaining the room is trashed.

You have arms, use them, clean that up whilst she sleeps.

HTH
FTEngineerM

I was in utter disbelief when the midwife told me I wasn't anaemic. I've never felt tiredness like it.

I used to come home from work, sleep for hours on the sofa, wake up for dinner then almost immediately go to bed. I would get everything out and ready the night before to get an extra 5 mins in bed rather than choosing my clothes. I took EVERY opportunity for a nap, intentionally or not.

Your DH needs to pull his weight btw. You're growing a human, what is he doing?

Good grief, what an arsehole! I spent the first trimester each time unable to survive the day without conking out. With the first pregnancy I'd often get in from work and pass out on the sofa. With the second and third (and remembering I was looking after other children as well, as are you) I'd just have to sleep in the afternoon, it was beyond my control. I would often stick a DVD on but a fair few times the kids would get bored and amuse themselves (Once decorating the bathroom with reams of bog roll).

Dear DP of a very deserving napper
If you ripped blankets off me whilst I was napping when pregnant you would be a single man, enjoying your kids every other weekends and Wednesday nights.

I would have got over the napping stage by then and be enjoying not having to do jobs that you could do with your own little hands.
You would have a chance to learn how to look after 3 children on your own some.

Alternatively we could show you how if feels to be so tired by keeping you awake for 3 nights in a row.

Your body is ploughing everything it has to grow a whole human being as well as sustaining you. Of course it's bloody tiring!

So what if the kids have trashed their room?! He can tidy it away if he's so concerned.

@FTEngineerM

To loveanaps DP,

You’re a cunt for ripping the blankets off her and complaining the room is trashed.

You have arms, use them, clean that up whilst she sleeps.

HTH
FTEngineerM

This...surprised you're choosing to have multiple children with someone who behaves so appallingly.

Would explain but too tired (also first trimester).

If he won't take your word for it then what can we do?
I'm very sorry that you're married to such a prick.

The explanation for fatigue includes the fact that the progesterone is sedating.

Not sure what the explanation is for your DH being a dick.

This is awful - I wouldn’t feel safe or happy with his attitude. I’ve literally been lying down most of the day and DH fully helps, he is both working and did both school runs. and remembers I was similar with first two. It’s exhausting and I am listening to my body and resting as much as can.

I fell asleep standing up on the tube on my way home from work at about 7pm. Tiredness like I’ve never experienced before. People / society needs to have a better understanding about how hard the first trimester is for some women. Some women have no symptoms, others are bed ridden with fatigue and morning sickness. I’ve had four pregnancies, my third was my easiest and my fourth was my hardest. Society seems to blame the expectant mother for some kind of ‘weakness’ if they have a difficult pregnancy. It’s weird.

Op if he's not listening to you, why would he listen to a group of randoms from the internet?

You have my sympathy.

Dear 'D'P

Did you really pull the blankets off a sleeping pregnant woman? Rather than tidy up after YOUR kids and let her rest whilst she is growing YOUR baby.

Think about it. And realise.

@PieMistee, never mind a single man, he'd be a dead man in my house!

I was beyond exhausted in the first trimester! All I did was sleep and throw up! Had anyone ripped blankets off me I'd have thrown up all over them and then strangled them with said blankets. Sorry but your dp is an asshole.

I remember the tiredness...it's all consuming and like nothing else. Some people, mainly men, think because you don't look pregnant you can't be experiencing such strong symptoms.

He needs to read up on what your body is actually doing right now, it's literally making another human being! Ask him why, if you're just being lazy, it's a commonly accepted symptom of pregnancy to be 'unusually tired', a term most people realise is something of an understatement!? Ripping the blankets off you was cruel and unnecessary and he owes you a massive apology OP, is he usually an arsehole?

First trimester tiredness (and it's lasted for me well into the second) is feeling so exhausted that you need a nap after your nap. Your arms feel so heavy you can't even brush your own hair. And walking up even one flight of stairs is torture. X

Quite simply, it's tiredness like I have never known. When I had DTwins, this was amplified, and I slept 20 out of 24 hours, numerous days in the first trimester.

I agree with the poster who suggests he stays up for 3 days solid to replicate the feeling. It's like nothing else I can describe. When pregnant with DS, we first realised I was pregnant when we went to a nightclub (many many years ago) and I fell asleep on a couch there at about 11pm. In a booming thumping nightclub. That's how much it consumes you.

In the first trimester, your body is taking a ball of cells and turning it into a tiny baby. You are growing two legs, two arms, a head - all out of a bunch of cells. You’re growing a heart, a brain, a stomach, eyeballs and ears. By 12 weeks it will be a tiny baby. You have taken those cells and turned it into an actual tiny baby with organs and limbs in 10 weeks. Your body is growing something that is the size of a poppy seed to the size of a plum. That’s what your body is doing whilst your body still functions, keeping you going and while you keep being a mum to your older children. Not to mention you’re carrying the dead weight of a useless partner which must be extra exhausting.

Thank you all!

I don't know what it is with him, he knows I'm tired but it's like it doesn't like to see me sleeping. When he is having to do anything in his head he thinks "she's just lying there and I'm having to do everything" he gets in a right huff about it.

It’s the sort of exhaustion that I don’t have words to describe. I remember being seriously considering laying down on the pavement on the way home from work because every cell of my body was screaming for me sleep. I’ve never known anything like it. It’s like the feeling you get as a general anaesthetic just begins to take hold. Unreal.

@loveanap

Thank you all!

I don't know what it is with him, he knows I'm tired but it's like it doesn't like to see me sleeping. When he is having to do anything in his head he thinks "she's just lying there and I'm having to do everything" he gets in a right huff about it.

He is pretty horrible then, a self-centred dick. I'm first trimester, no other children, struggling to do much at all. Thankfully DH just says "don't worry, you're growing a baby, that's where your energy is going" and he does the extra bits that I can't do. Frankly, I don't think your "dp" deserves kids, or a relationship. Sorry, but I'm so angry on your behalf! He should want to look after you and help you right now.

I’ve done the first trimester twice now (currently pregnant with no.2) and it’s honestly the most crushing all-consuming fatigue I’ve ever experienced. I remember being too tired to walk to bed and crawling down the landing on all fours. It was even worse second time round when I had a toddler to look after as well - and you have TWO other kids.