Baby On Board

Happy Valentine’s Day! Today I’m documenting the first part of our journey with our newest family member. We’re due with a baby girl at the beginning of July! I already broke the news on Instagram, but I have been really wanting to document more of my pregnancy and for some reason analog isn’t really cutting it for me lately (I can’t seem to read a book or write in a journal to save my life.) So here I am!

As I’m posting this I’m in the middle of week 19. I’m feeling a lot better! Still not 100% rid of the nausea, but it’s manageable right now. The first trimester was really rough so a lot of this post reads somewhat negatively. It’s silly how guilty that makes me feel! And it makes me realize why so much of this came as a surprise – I felt like I should have been way more prepared for pregnancy than most based on how many mommy blogs I’ve read over the years. But truthfully, I was not AT ALL prepared for how hard it is to be pregnant. And I’m guessing a lot of that is because women feel bad focusing on the bad parts of pregnancy. So here are my notes from the first trimester, the good and the bad.

First Trimester Recap

4 weeks: surprise! We’re pregnant. And it was truly a surprise – we had planned to start trying a few months later, but things turned out a little differently than we’d planned! We were both thrilled and I was pretty nervous.

5 weeks: one day I went to the grocery store and bought ALL the root vegetables. The next day I started to not feel so good… I proceeded to not be able to look at the squash that I’d bought and continued to be turned off to all that stuff for weeks. I started feeling nauseous every day, usually starting between breakfast and lunch and continuing until I went to sleep anytime I hadn’t eaten within 10 minutes.

6 weeks: had our first doctor’s appointment! Overall pretty anticlimactic, but we told our parents after we got the official confirmation (well, I told my mom the day after we found out – we work together, it was too hard to keep it a secret!)

7 weeks: first ultrasound, got to see the baby’s heartbeat! It was such a relief as I’d been worrying a lot, and such a surreal moment to see that little nugget in there! And there’s definitely only one baby in there! For some reason I really thought we might be having twins at the beginning.

11 weeks: we had our ultrasound screening at a more high-tech facility. It took forever because the baby wasn’t very cooperative getting in the right position, but it meant that we had 45 minutes of getting to watch her (didn’t know that at the time!) move around. So crazy the difference a few weeks can make, we got to see the baby move and wiggle around and it started to really sink in that we were looking at our baby in there!

12 weeks: we decided to wait to tell our extended family so that we could tell them at Christmas. This was also the time period that a lot of people told me most women start to feel better. We announced our news to my mom’s side of the family on the 23rd, but morning sickness took care of the rest of the plans. On Christmas Day I made it to brunch at my parents but spent the rest of the day on the couch. I threw up for the first time (MERRRRY CHRISTMAS!) and proceeded to get sick many nights that week. I had horrible indigestion and was generally miserable. This was definitely a low point for me. I could not have been more excited to say goodbye to the first trimester!

General Observations and Feelings

• Though I was super grateful that we had no trouble trying to get pregnant, having it happen when we hadn’t been “trying” made me feel even less in control in a situation where you already have almost no control.
• Before I started feeling nauseous, I felt like there was a 50% chance that the tests were wrong and this was all some kind of joke. After I was nauseous it seemed unlikely that I was somehow not pregnant, but then I started to feel nervous – what if something went wrong? Before getting pregnant I read a lot about infertility and miscarriage which definitely didn’t do me any favors in those early months.
• I almost instantly found that I had way more congestion than usual, and that is still going strong. I go through a ridiculous amount of tissues, it’s annoying.
• I didn’t want to tell people too early but it was also hard to be around people without telling them, so I found myself being a hermit for most of November and December. I can handle being antisocial for a period of time but after a while I start to feel pretty down about it.
• So much fake drinking! My mom and Brian learned to drink for two by sneakily swapping wine glasses with me, and I learned that Moscow Mules (sans alcohol) are a great drink to order at the bar – you can’t see what’s inside, and the ginger beer and lime combo is perfect for nausea.
• I had some spotting early on (right before that first ultrasound) so while I had been going on short runs with Emmett before that, I stopped around then and then felt like too much time had passed to pick it back up again. I didn’t really start working out again until the second trimester. I always thought I’d be one of those women who ran throughout their whole pregnancy, but between nausea, fatigue, and being a nervous first-timer, that’s not in the cards this go around.
• I never wanted to be one of those pregnant women who worried about gaining weight, but between not exercising and carbs being the only nausea relief I could figure out, it was hard not to be concerned when my numbers didn’t align with what I read online. I really hoped my regular clothes would get me farther in my pregnancy, but I quickly realized that most of my regular pants were not going to cut it for long. I’ve been relying on a few pairs of maternity pants and leggings for the most part.
• I found myself feeling less than thrilled at various times due to how I was feeling and then I’d feel guilty for feeling that way. I felt like I should be so grateful, which I was and am, but at the same time some of the symptoms of being pregnant just suck.

Eating Habits

• Carbs. Like every carb you can think of. Preferably with cream cheese.
• Egg McMuffins! We call the baby McMuffin a lot because of how many I’ve eaten during this pregnancy, probably 2-3 per week at times (I’ve cut back a little in the second trimester but still definitely get my fair share.)
• Eggos with Nutella are life changing. Haven’t been as into chocolate as usual, but this is the exception. SO GOOD.
• A lot of white cheddar Cheetos.

Thanks for reading this if you got to the end, I’m excited to share more of this journey on here as it unfolds!