I’m Pregnant! + The First Trimester

I’m going to keep putting off the house post because there’s something else I want to tell you, though if you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you already know: I’m pregnant!

I don’t have a super detailed week-by-week because, frankly, every time I sat down to write a lot, I fell asleep. But I do have notes, and I want to keep a record of this time, so allow me to recap my first tri here.

Weeks 3-6

I knew very early that I was pregnant. I mean, I didn’t know-know, but I knew. At about 3.5 weeks, I walked by a lady at IKEA and double over retching because I couldn’t stand her perfume. It was a fine perfume; I thought it smelled like one I have or have had in the past. But I couldn’t stand it. Same thing with the smell of outside after rain, the coconut scent in my bronzer, and coffee grounds.

Jack kept telling me I was pregnant. I kept denying it, saying I was probably just feeling sick because I was stressed to avoid getting my hopes up. When it was finally time to take a test, I only took one. It was positive, and I was pretty sure anyway.

We told our parents and Jack’s sister that day, and everyone was so happy for us. A theme of our wedding had been that everyone knew we wanted to grow our family and have kids ASAP. I told my manager the day after the weekend since I didn’t know how I’d be feeling. Also, I’m due right around the time one of my major projects will launch.

I started falling asleep by 8pm more nights than not, feeling exhausted every morning, and feeling nauseated approximately every other morning. I dropped my workouts to about 3 days a week, and took longer walks and did some yoga if I felt up to it on the other days.

My only food aversion was coffee. I still forced myself to drink at least half a mug most days because I wanted the caffeine.

7-11 weeks

After 6 weeks, my nausea stopped being an every-other-day thing and started being an every-day-from-8am-to-2pm-and-often-4pm thing. I still wasn’t having any real food aversions. My only cravings included ketchup (not by itself, but I wanted fries for the purpose of also having ketchup) and every possible form of takeout and convenience food. I’m pretty sure I was only craving the latter because I felt tired and didn’t want to cook. Mostly, I ate my normal diet of lots of veggies, meat, eggs, cottage cheese, and sourdough toast with peanut butter or avocado or salty butter. Plus, way more fruit than usual.

I start eating at least a spoonful of peanut butter first thing in the morning to help settle my stomach and give me a little energy, but felt like I ended up eating less than usual throughout the day.

Around this time, I upped my workouts to 5-6 times a week because I felt up to it. I was still often asleep between 8pm and 9pm.

My first doctor’s appointment was at about 7 weeks. I was super nervous and convinced something must be wrong, even though I was consistently nauseated and exhausted. But everything was fine. We saw a little bean and heard a heartbeat and got blurry ultrasound pictures. It was so cool. At that point, I felt a little bloated and my bras were tight, but hadn’t really gained any weight. I was just at the high end of the normal 3-pound range I usually fluctuate between.

I declined nausea meds because I was so afraid that something would go wrong and I wouldn’t know. Pretty sure this isn’t how it works, but I was using morning sickness as an indicator that everything was okay.

Jack left for a month of Army training when I was just about 8 weeks. My biggest fear was that something would go wrong while he was gone. He gave me the Red Cross information to contact him when he was in the field just in case.

One Saturday not quite two weeks into the month, I started having excruciating pain in my left hip. It’s the kind of pain thatI’d usually just write off as something that would go away the next day. But my mom was at the house helping with some decorating and she kindly took me to the ER just to be sure.

Logically, I knew nothing was wrong. Why would I be miscarrying and feeling it all the way in my left hip? But after a couple hours of waiting, I had worked myself up and absolutely convinced myself I was having a miscarriage.

Long story short, I wasn’t. I saw a much bigger and more human-like 9.5-week baby and heard a good heartbeat and stopped freaking out, and then went home at about midnight. The next morning, I had one stab of hip pain, and then it was all gone.

No other scares after that. My next appointment was at about 11 weeks and everything was good then. The doctor heard a good heartbeat and I got blood drawn for cell-free fetal DNA testing. I also finally asked for Zofran to help with the nausea. I weighed in at a couple pounds less than at my first appointment.

While Jack was gone, my diet changed out of laziness and convenience. It was around this time that I decided that watermelon is basically the answer to pregnancy. It sounds appealing at 10am and 2pm and 10pm, is hydrating, and has vitamins and some fiber.  Also, 15 minutes of effort cutting one up can last several days. I used it (and still do) to solve nausea, hunger, and thirst. Otherwise, I ate a lot of rotisserie chicken, salads, fruit, eggs, and cottage cheese. Our families came to visit me a bunch and brought takeout, so I ate a good bit of pizza, barbecue, subs, and leftovers of all that with salads.

I dialed back some of my workouts for a couple weeks in the middle of June because I was doing a lot of stuff around the house and overdid it a couple times early in the month.

12-14 weeks

The most annoying pregnancy symptom so far hit me at about 11.5 weeks: constipation. Sorry, TMI, but wow. Since gaining 35 pounds a few years ago, that’s not something I’ve had to deal with. I forgot how much I hate it. And for some reason, I was under the (false) impression that you can’t take senna while pregnant, which is the only laxative I’ve ever liked for extended use. I hate Miralax and avoided getting it for as many days as I could stand, but finally did, and it made me feel awful and didn’t help. After my appointment at 13.5 weeks, I started an intense regimen of senna and aloe water, so I’m hoping that works.

But grossness aside, something really cool happened at 12 weeks! I was in the middle of a call I listen to every week at work when my doctor called. He had the results of the cell-free fetal DNA test and asked if we wanted to know what we’re having. Um, yes. I put him on speaker and told Jack we were about to find out the gender.

It’s a girl! We were both shocked, totally expecting a boy, and spent the day saying, “Holy sh*t, we’re having a girl.” This news made it way more real.

We told our parents immediately. I totally forgot my parents were with my grandparents that day and would have to hide their reactions to the texts. Oops.

That was also the day I told my team I’m pregnant. We have an informal catch-up most Thursday afternoons and we were talking about Fourth of July plans. When I was asked, I said we were having a relaxed Fourth with just the two of us because the following weekend we were hosting a party where we would be telling the extended families that I’m pregnant and having a little girl. They were so surprised and super happy for us.

With Jack home, I started cooking again, so my diet is more varied than when I was on my own. Nothing really sounds particularly unappealing, and fruit sounds great always. I got pretty lucky with the nausea, really, even though I did have it every day and it still hits sometimes. I’ve heard tons of pregnant women say they can’t eat a vegetable for four months. The only time I haven’t wanted to eat a vegetable was if it took more than 5 minutes to prepare and I was feeling lazy.

At 13.5 weeks, we had our families over to see the house (extended family hadn’t seen it yet), celebrate the four July birthdays across our two families, and tell the extended family that I’m pregnant.

Reactions ranged from big hugs to, “Is this a joke?” to stunned silence. It was perfect.

We went to dinner with some friends the next night and I made Jack take my first official non/slight bump pic. I started taking bad mirror selfies at about 8 weeks when I started feeling a little bloated, and I’ve looked and weighed the same pretty much ever since. But I might not for too much longer, so figured it was time to get someone else to take my pictures.

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A ruched dress might not have been the best choice since there’s extra fabric at my stomach, but you get the point. I’m a tiny bit thicker around the middle but my clothes only feel tight in my chest. Also, a good dress to grow with me a little bit!

And then a couple days later, I had my first appointment with a new doctor. I wasn’t crazy about the first one I saw, so I switched. I think I’m happy with the decision. We got to see our baby kicking and moving around like crazy, which was about the coolest thing ever. I’m still at the high end of my normal weight range.

Also, the new doctor wants me to see a high-risk doctor due to the Ehlers-Danlos and advised that I don’t go back to working in the office due to COVID risk. So, I’m going through that process at work right now since I was supposed to go back next week.

All my research and a conversation with my EDS specialist leads me to believe that I’m not actually that high-risk. But the NP said it will make the doctors at the practice feel better to get me and the baby looked at. So, I’m trying to look at it like, “Hey, cool, we get a 45-minute ultrasound at some point relatively soon.”

But also I’m a tiny bit nervous.

And that brings me about to now; I technically entered the second trimester yesterday! I’ll start writing weekly updates now that you know and hopefully I won’t be quite so sleepy.

Your turn:

If you’ve been pregnant, what was your worst pregnancy symptom?