My pregnancy thus far... to be continued... untill she comes!

No one can prepare you for the day that you miss your period and decide to take a pregnancy test. First you will go in to the bathroom and stare at the test or read the box while wondering if maybe you are taking it to early. Then you will decide that the worst that could happen is your get a negative and then take another one in a few days if your period still hasn’t shown up. After finally deciding you are going to take the test “just for fun” you will then sit and stare for a few minutes. Your mind might play tricks on you so you may decide it would be better to set it down and come back in a couple minutes when it’s ready to read.

 Now, for me, when I went back to read my test the “positive” line was so faint (because lack of hormonal strength in how early a stage I was in) I thought maybe my eyes were just seeing things. I rushed the test to my husband and asked him “am I crazy or is there a line there???” I said, “its really faint so make sure you get a good look”. After really squinting his eyes and tilting his head he handed back the test with a smile and said, “I think there is!” I still was unbelieving so I called my sister, who is a nurse, and asked her if it was possible to get a bad test or a false positive. I told her that the line was so faint I wasn’t sure if it was for real. She was just as unsure as I was but mostly felt that if the test said positive (no matter how faint) it meant that my HCG levels were rising which meant I was probably pregnant. It was then that I started to really think, “Me? Pregnant? No way!!” So I decided to keep testing. I told myself I would only do a few more tests but for the first day it seemed like almost every hour on the hour I was in the bathroom taking a test to see if the line would get darker. I even tried a few old wives tale tests like (sorry TMI) putting dandelion leaves in a cup of my urine to see if the edges would turn red (which actually they did). What many people fail to mention is that no matter how many tests you take or do, it is extremely hard to believe that your body is producing a small human being. You continually feel as though Ashton Kutcher is going to pop out somewhere and scream “you’ve been punked.” Two days later, on my husbands birthday we got a test that was dark enough that we knew it had to be real.

 

             After the shock settles in a little bit you really start to feel those hormones. For me, they kicked my worrying switch on. I think this is the case for many mothers. I started to worry about anything and everything from insurance to “will picking that piece of paper up off the floor make me miscarry?” My first pregnancy symptom was probably crying. I cried about the most ridiculous things like, “will my family like my baby?” or “is someone going to feel burdened by me having a baby?”

 Everyone tells you to try and keep it a secret till you are about 12 weeks pregnant because the likelihood of a miscarriage goes down after that. I was 4 weeks when I found out and it was just barely under a week later that we could no longer hold it in. We told our parents and family members and that was it for a while. We didn’t want many people to know just in case we did miscarry but we also couldn’t keep it from our families. We found out in the beginning of October so we carved pumpkins with the words “Mom, Dad, and Baby” in it and sent the photo to our siblings in a text message. Apparently, it is better to call. We got a few phone calls saying, “are you serious? And you told us over a text?” Oooops! It seemed like a good idea at the time.

After about the first week of knowing and wondering if you are going to feel sick you start to get symptoms of morning sickness.  I can’t decide if I was lucky or if I was unfortunate because for the first 12 weeks my morning sickness consisted of extreme nausea and lack of appetite. I laid on the bathroom floor for weeks it seemed like. I was just waiting to throw up and feel some sort of relief but I never did. I felt horrible. The biggest meal that I had during that time consisted of potato chips and ginger ale. I felt so nasty that I brought a pillow and a blanket into the bathroom and set up camp. There were many times where I tried to lay in my own bed but because of the nausea I couldn’t stay. I either felt too worried I would throw up everywhere or  laying down with my eyes closed in a comfy bed made the feeling of being sea sick stronger. During the first trimester you will wonder to yourself how others hide it so well. You will feel and look like death and not understand how other people can walk around pretending like it is just any other day. You will wonder if there is something wrong with you because other pregnant women “CLEARLY” don’t feel incapable of going on with life but for some reason you do. This may make you break and you may begin to tell a few others (co-workers, your boss, a few friends) what is going on with you. They will try and give you advice on what worked for them and you will find that there isn’t a single thing they told you that helps you.

Something I wish I had really known deep in my heart is that everyone’s body is so different and this forces you to have to get to know your own body and what works best for it during this horrible time. For me, I had to have my husband force feed me while I laid on the bathroom floor for weeks.  I couldn’t think about food. I couldn’t talk about food. I didn’t want anything to do with food. Eventually I found a way to make a system where I knew when I could eat and what I could eat to get something in my system to feed me and the baby. The best and only advice that you can really take to heart in your first trimester is “the rule of survival”. Work to survive the first trimester. It may possibly be the hardest thing you have ever done and at times you will feel like you could just die and be done with it but the best thing you can do is just survive.

My first doctor’s appointment was when I was 8 weeks. I had high expectations. I thought I would meet my doctor and hear the baby’s heartbeat and maybe even get to see it on an ultra sound. I was excited but I was so nervous and that morning was the first time I threw up. It could have been a mixture of morning sickness and nerves. Instead of meeting with my doctor, I met with a different doctor’s nurse who gave me a gift bag, some pregnancy magazines, and advice. I was then sent to the lab and got my blood drawn. Last I went back to the receptionist, set up another appointment for 11 weeks, and left. I anxiously anticipated my 11 week appointment. Coincidentally, the morning of this, my next, appointment I got sick again. It continued to be a pattern for a while that I would always get sick right before my doctor’s appointment. I would get sick a few days in between but like clockwork I never seemed to hold back on the day of an appointment.  

At the 11 week appointment I met with my doctor and received my very first ultrasound. Before the appointment I knew what was coming and I went through a wave of emotions. I was so excited to see our little baby but at the same time I was terrified. What if they found something wrong? Or what if they did the ultrasound and there was no baby? As soon as I saw that little baby on the ultrasound all of my worries went away. I was at peace. I was amazed that my body could create another human. I was struck by this feeling of love for this little one that I knew could not survive without me. We were (literally) attached.

 

            There is an amazing feeling of love that cannot be explained when you see your baby on an ultrasound for the very first time. You feel as though you know the baby. He/she is a part of you. It’s almost like you are splitting your heart in half and giving it to this child out of a love that immediately overcomes you even though you don’t “know him/her” yet. You walk out of that office with this new found energy and happiness. For a moment you feel as though no pregnancy symptom could get you down. This week I was also able to take a test that many parents haven’t heard of. It was called a “Harmony Test”. This test is meant to check the baby’s DNA for genetic defects. My doctor explained to me that we could take the test and it would allow us to also find out the gender of the baby at that early stage. We agreed to take the test. For the test I went to the lab and they drew a few tubes of blood from me. They would then send the blood in for testing. They would put the blood under a microscope and find the baby’s DNA in my blood stream which would allow them to take a close look and see if there were any defects and also if there was an X or Y chromosome for a girl or boy. About 3 weeks later we found out the results that we were having a baby girl. We were in shock. We always thought we would have a lot of boys and a girl seemed sort of unreal to us. I remember the nurse telling me over the phone and I was absolutely speechless. I paused for a good thirty seconds trying to find the words to say and finally all that came out was an excited, “OK!” Because of my hesitation the nurse responded with a teasing tone saying, “is that alright?” Of course it was alright! What would they do if it wasn’t anyways? I was overjoyed. I have always wanted a baby girl.
          
             By now I was 13 weeks and doctors’ visits were a little boring the next few times. We just went in a checked her heartbeat. On the bright side this is the time when pregnancy symptoms started to finally ease up a little at a time. Somewhere between 16-18 weeks I started to feel great. I could eat food again which seemed like a huge improvement but I still had to be careful on what I ate, when I ate, and how fast I ate it. I began to realize that my body seemed to need food about every 2 hours at least. If I didn’t eat that often I would get sick. Of course there were times where I would eat that often and I would still get sick. During this time I also got familiar with techniques that would relax my body. Sometimes it was luke warm showers or baths. Other times it was massaging my stomach in a downward motion to help myself digest or even just taking naps. I also started a loving relationship with my new best friend calcium. I began drinking milk like it was going out of style and I became very familiar with Tums. These two things helped immensely in my battle against heartburn. As I found ways to nurse myself I began to feel like a huge weight was lifted off of my shoulders. Life became a whole lot easier.

At 20 weeks I went in for an ultrasound. This was an exciting appointment because it was the appointment that most people find out the gender of their baby. Even though we already knew she was a girl we were still excited and nervous to see if that was what the ultrasound showed as well. My husband and I were both amazed to see how much she had developed. She was so beautiful. We could see her beautiful hands and feet with all ten fingers and ten toes. We saw her heart beating in her chest. We saw her hiccup a few times. We saw her try and stretch and give a few energetic kicks. It was one of the most uplifting experiences I have had in my entire life. She was absolutely perfect.  The ultrasound tech gave us a cute pink bracelet with the words “it’s a girl” written on it. I began to wear it every day because I was so excited. It was around this time that we started to notice that our little one truly has a personality of her own. We were now able to feel her kicks and flips as she would test out all of her new abilities. She has been a very active baby ever since.

 

The next few appointments were just average check-ups. The doctor would measure my belly and check the heartbeat. At 24 weeks my doctor expressed that she was concerned that my placenta might have been lying a little low. She said she wanted me to schedule an ultrasound for 28 weeks to see the placement. I came home from my 24 week appointment and cried. I didn’t know what it meant to have a low lying placenta. I was scared for my baby. I had grown attached and I couldn’t imagine life without her. I cried because I felt helpless. I wanted to be told that everything was perfect and when I didn’t (no matter how seemingly small the concern was) I cried. After I cried I reminded myself that I didn’t even know what that meant. It could be nothing. I got on the internet and looked around at different discussion boards and pregnancy websites. It turned out that the only thing it really effected was you might have to get a C-section to deliver your baby but it was also commonly known that the placenta often times moves up as your belly expands and grows. At 28 weeks I went in for my ultrasound and everything was perfect yet again. The ultrasound tech said that everything was in its right place. I couldn’t have been more relieved.  

I had now made it through the first two trimesters. I felt on top of the world. It seemed like everything would be downhill from there but that isn’t always the case. Many people will tell you that in the first trimester you will feel horrible and the second trimester will give you some relief and the third trimester you will start to feel a little worse again. It is my belief that you never really get much relief but instead, you just trade certain symptoms for new or different symptoms. For example, my first trimester I dealt with horrible nausea and although that eased up going into my second trimester I traded it for vomiting and many bloody noses.  As I go through this final trimester I feel nausea at times but the worst part is all of the aches and pains you don’t understand that your body is going through. It doesn’t always help when you are achy and your baby wants to roll around in there. It becomes extremely hard to sleep because all of the pressure inside your body either causing you to have to get up and go potty a million times or just refusing to allow you to get comfortable. Oh, and if you get comfortable give it about 15 seconds and your baby will start kicking you right in the spot that was making you comfy. It may drive you crazy but you can’t help but continue to love knowing that your baby is healthy and doing well. Our little baby is so active that when she does move it feels like a whole mountain rolled over inside of you. She has so much personality. Whenever there is any pressure on any part of the belly she will automatically start trying to kick it. My husband Ben loves to “play this game with her”. He has also realized that when she is not moving she must be asleep; which is apparently his cue to “raspberry” (or make a small farting noise) on my tummy. Every time he does this our little girl jumps as though something just scared her. If she is sleeping, it works every time. You can’t help but laugh and feel bad for her at the same time.

I may not have completed my pregnancy journey yet but so far I have learned so much. Something that I will never forget is that no matter how hard the pain or how ill you feel, love for your family can conquer anything. The key to getting through pregnancy is to continually remind yourself of what this means. You are sacrificing your body, your strength, your “health” so that you can be a family. You are putting it all on the line because this one little baby will be worth it. This one little baby will change your life forever. One day you will look into your baby’s eyes and you will see God’s hands, you will see heaven, and you will know that life is a divine gift. As a woman I feel lucky to be able to create life, to sustain a life, to bring a new life into the world. I can’t wait to meet our little baby girl. She is already my pride and joy. I am grateful that God made it possible for families to be eternal. She will always be a part of my family. I will love her throughout all eternity.

“I love you forever. I like you for always. As long as I’m living my baby you’ll be.”