Decaf, please!

I was feeling pretty confident this weekend and when I was out to lunch with a couple of close girlfriends from law school who I don't see very often anymore (one of whom had a 3 month old) I told them the news. Under strict instructions not to spread it around until I've had a chance to tell family. They were both so excited, particularly the new mom who knows what I've been through and had a m/c just before mine last year.

It was a great day, relaxed, happy. I felt pregnant. I felt like it was going to happen for me. And as I was walking to my car, feeling good, something possessed me to walk into Pe3ts for a latte to drink on the drive home. I get decaf lattes periodically. I love them. I've been 'off' of caffeine for about a year and a half. So definitely throughout this pregnancy. My indulgences are decaf and chocolate. That's it. Minimal caffeine so I didn't really change those habits once the pregnancy started. Yesterday I was enticed by Pe3t's awesome marketing to get a raspberry mocha instead of my usual plain latte. "Decaf" I said. The cashier repeated it back to me so I was surprised to find by the time I had finished it and pulled into my driveway that I was overcome with jitters and felt kind of sick. Later at one point I got kind of a head rush when I stood up. I am really sensitive to caffeine, especially now that I never have it and there was NO WAY that mocha was decaf.

Commence freak out. Now, I know caffeine is ok in moderation, I was just upset because of the magnitude of the physical affect it had on me and had probably irrational thoughts that if someone isn't used to caffeine the effects on the baby might somehow be worse. And then there are all those studies floating around saying too much caffeine can cause m/c. Too much over a long period of time? What about one big dose? I was also mad that try as I might to control my eating habits, to be religious about the few things that I choose to be religious about during this pregnancy, it really isn't in my control. Either that or I should know better than to be ordering from strangers. It's exactly this kind of experience that makes me so anxious and paranoid when it comes to ordering from a restaurant or eating whatever is given to me. See? it does get screwed up and it would have paid to double check witht the barista or whatever they are at pe3t's, despite how ocd that would have seemed.

I don't think that drink could have had more than 100mg of caffeine and I'm not running back to the dr over this one. It was just a good example of the ups and downs I'm experiencing lately.