As my baby could come any day now, I've spent some time looking back at my blog, just for kicks and giggles. As I did this, I started to realize that there were some things that I didn't write about or certain pictures that I didn't post. Part of this is because I didn't know how I felt about blogging at first. Who was I primarily blogging for? Me? Far away family members? Baby J? A book to put on our coffee table? Each would result in very different details being shared and as a result I ended up posting basically nothing [see Week 11. What in the world? Why am I so boring?] Clearly, as I've regaled you all with the weekly ongoings of my belly button, I'm now over this, but there are a lot of early details that are missing because of my indecisiveness.
The second reason I didn't post some things is because sometimes there are thoughts you don't want to put into words until you know how they're going to turn out. Will this memory/feeling/fear be something that is funny 10 years from now or something you don't bring up around the family unless you want everyone leaving super pissed? Thankfully, everything has turned out well thus far and in the interest of posterity and maybe helping others who have felt the same feel not so alone, I'm going back to put these things into words. Plus, full disclosure...I have this image in my mind of Jenna looking through a Snapfish book version of these posts during her first pregnancy and I want her to have as many details as possible. Strange that I'm already picturing my unborn baby having an unborn baby? Probably. Sorry, Jenna.
Alright, so without further ado, general pregnancy timeline with randomly added details and photos:
Getting Pregnant
Don't worry, I won't include the gory details. I do just want to say...Natural Family Planning works! We just didn't do it right haha. Title this section of the saga: "Surprise surprise, I'm irresponsible = SURPRISE! You're pregnant!" We were planning on starting our family in a few months anyway, so the timing here was actually pretty great. BUT we weren't expecting it which leads me to...
Finding Out We Were Pregnant
Here's why I love NFP...I know EXACTLY when I ovulated. Not the average ovulation date for the average woman's cycle, but legit when my ovary released that little ball of 1/2 of Jenna's DNA to meet up with the other half. When did I ovulate? April 2. When did I start experiencing pregnancy symptoms? Exactly one day later, on Jacob's birthday. Happy birthday, honey!! I made you a baby.
So anyway, we go to dinner and I was trying to be a trooper, but about halfway through the meal I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. I think my words were something like, "Babe, happy birthday, I love you so much and this BBQ is the best I've ever had, but I don't think I can physically be awake another second." I fell asleep on the drive home. (FYI, this same exact scenario played out on my birthday. Just exchange "BBQ" for "seafood" and take out the part where I tell Jacob happy birthday)
The next few days pretty much went the same. Get home from work, make dinner, eat, go to bed by 7. After about a week of this, this conversation happens:
Jacob: How can you possibly be so tired? You've been sleeping 13 hours a night for the past week!
Me: Really? That can't be true.
Jacob: Do you think you might be pregnant?
Me: What? No, there's no way.
A few days later...
Me: Are my boobs getting bigger? Maybe I'm pregnant...
Cue trip to Walmart to buy pregnancy tests and waking up at the butt crack of dawn day after day because apparently that gives you the best results. Negative...negative...negative...maaaybe positive? Cue taking a thousand pictures of a pee stick so I can obsessively analyze throughout the day and play with the contrast on my computer screen to figure out if that is actually a second little pink line or not.
Cue second trip to Walmart to buy dummy-proof test because the first kind is giving me a heart attack, and plus I've used them all up already.
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| Boom. Pregs. Thanks ClearBlue! |
This is the part where my happiness is clouded over by the worst freaking experience of my life. I blocked out quite a bit of this, so I forget some of the details but here's the gist: I started spotting, which I read was normal, but then it went on for like 5 days. I'm starting to get nervous. At some point I called the doctor and they say it's was too early to see me but to wait it out. The bleeding gets worse, so they send me to get my hCG levels tested. Three days later...tests are inconclusive, I need to get another test. Have to wait over the weekend, on Monday no one calls with my results, I call them on Tuesday, nurse practitioner tells me that my levels more than doubled. I say, "Oh that's good, right? Thank goodness, does that mean it's not ectopic?" She says, "No, I didn't say that." I say, "Oh, but it's a good sign, right?" She says, "It could be. Honestly, I don't know if it's going to stick." I'm sorry, are you the devil? Why would you say that to me?? I didn't ask any more questions because frankly, I was too afraid to hear her answers. This started a few days of obsessive internet research about hCG levels, culminating in me bringing a multi-page packet with color coded highlighting to my vice principal (who knew about all of this because I kept having to leave work for testing and because she's a great friend). First of all, are we surprised that I accumulated a packet of color-coded research at some point in this pregnancy? No, we're not. But my VP gave me GREAT advice which was basically to calm the heck down. My research wasn't helping anything and if anything was making me more stressed, which definitely wasn't helping. So here I will repeat that advice to pregnant people who are nervous something will go wrong: Relax and enjoy, take care of the fact that you're pregnant right now and don't worry about anything else. Perfect advice, and that's the ONLY reason I'm exposing this awful (and awfully long) paragraph to the general public.
Reveling in Being Pregnant
This was the best. We got to tell our families and friends (videos and stories about this are posted here, here, and here), we went to the library to check out books about pregnancy (Jacob was really into that part of it), DIYed the chalkboard into existence, started the blog, and went onto websites that predicted what our baby would look like, which was always hilarious. This part was awesome.
First Trimester
The most memorable things about first trimester was just that I was CRAZY tired. I have huge bags under my eyes in all of my early chalkboard pics. I also pretty much gave up doing my hair, which adds to why I looked completely grosky. I would get home from work, nap, wake up to eat, and then go to bed. I also was avoiding caffeine like the plague, which my students definitely noticed, and not just because they chose THIS time of year to start a coffee-selling fundraiser. ("Miss, don't take this the wrong way, but I think you should start drinking caffeine again. You're a lot nicer after you've had your coffee") Sorry to my 8th graders if I was a total slacker teacher, I barely remember being alive. I DO however remember that all food tasted RIDICULOUSLY good and that I cried about EVERYTHING! I accidentally almost started a riot against my husband on the last day of school...one of the students asked what I was doing next year and I said I was going to be a stay-at-home mom. My student then said, "You're not going to be a teacher anymore?" In my mind's eye, I pictured myself saying, easy as you please, "Nope! I'm not going to be a teacher anymore!" In actuality, I opened my mouth and just started sobbing uncontrollably. My students all got REALLY concerned and were like, "Is your husband MAKING you stay home, Miss?" "You don't have to listen to him!" "You can still be a teacher if you want!" which made me laugh and cry all the more. All I could do was just shake my head, sob, and say, "No *sob* I *sob* want *sob* to *sob* stay *sob* home!" *collapse sobbing into my hands* They must think Jacob has me chained to the wall or something haha
Other than that, this trimester involved a LOT of self control. I was the MOST careful to avoid coffee, read all cheese labels, overcook ALL of my food, etc. during the first trimester. I was so nervous something would go wrong and just wanted all of her organs to develop ok. (I've since eased up on the avoiding caffeine thing and have officially become a Starbucks Gold member since. Look at me!) The HARDEST thing to keep under control was our excitement!! Jacob and I couldn't WAIT to start telling people...it was like the slow leaking of an overinflated balloon. FINALLY being able to share with the whole world was the. freaking. best.
Second Trimester
Second trimester is where you're supposed to feel amazing, but this was not the case for like the first month of mine. This is where my morning sickness really started. I'd had a few moments of sickness in the first trimester, but second was where it really kicked into gear. If I was in the car, I had to sit perfectly still looking straight ahead with my teeth clenched or I would be sick for the rest of the day. And regardless of car activity, each evening I had a headache right around dinner time that ended with me vomiting around 8. Side note, this is also approximately when one night Jacob had an upset stomach, farted, and it smelled so bad that I threw up. That was probably his proudest pregnancy moment. Also, this post where I talk about how great our anniversary was? Yeah, I conveniently neglected to mention the part where I started crying at the dinner table because I had such a terrible headache and didn't have any Tylenol because we were in the middle of an island. Leave it to me to be crying because we're on a beautiful island. The waiter and Jacob were SUPER nice about it. The waiter even brought me some Advil and even though I couldn't take it I appreciated the gesture. Plus side pregnancy symptom: I got a HUGE burst of energy and started psycho cleaning e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. I'm not sure I even knew we had base boards before, but once second trimester hit, they sparkled!
BEST part of second trimester was finding out we were having a girl!!! I'm going to throw two truth bombs at you here. Truth bomb #1: I knew it was a girl from like week 9, but I didn't want to say that I had this really strong feeling because what if it turned out to be a boy? I wouldn't want him to think that I was disappointed with him being a boy AND I didn't want to FEEL disappointed finding out it was a boy because I had been expecting a girl. I tried to play out both scenarios equally in my head to keep it fair, but deep down inside I kept hearing "Girl! Girl! Girl! Girl!"
Truth bomb #2: I'm not sure Jacob really knew we were pregnant until we found out we were having a girl. I would try to talk to him about it and he would try to engage but...really he had no idea we were having a baby. This is a picture of me when we were about to find out Jenna's gender:
Clearly busting at the seams with excitement. Ok, now here are the pictures of Jacob:
Look at that face! That is the face of a man who has no idea he is having a child. It took everything I had just get him to open his eyes! Luckily, after we had the appointment, things totally changed. This was his first time really seeing Baby J on the ultrasound and after we found out she was a girl, things got super real. We started talking about names, we started talking about how she was going to look and what kind of activities she would be involved in, Jacob started talking about teaching her how to play sports...things we still haven't stopped talking about at almost 39 weeks. This, in my opinion, is the best part of being pregnant.
This trimester was also awesome because it's when I first started feeling her kick! First little flutters around week 15/16 and then definite kicks around week 20. Pretty amazing.
Oh yeah, AND I loved this trimester because it's when I really started to show!!! It was especially crazy for Jacob because we were in different states for a couple weeks and before I left there wasn't much of a bump, and then when he saw me again it was like HELLO BABY!! And I got to blow up his phone with text messages like this:
To which he responded...
Third Trimester
I think this was about the time I started to get really obsessed with my belly button. I wanted it to pop out SO bad and Jacob sooo didn't. Also, I had a ton a free time which resulted in this: |
| In case you were wondering, this is the gross picture. |
The last month or so has been a little tougher. Little bit of heartburn, little bit of nausea, kind of exhausted, super nervous to be a parent, but SUPER excited to meet my little girl! Labor is going to be a whole different ball game, so I'll leave all those details for another day.
Other random overall side notes about pregnancy: constantly congested (can't wait for that to be over!), often constipated, overly hot and sweaty, extra sensitive skin (tags have never been so annoying), lots of huffing and puffing, a weird feeling in my feet like my toe joints were all swelling, but really excited and happy the majority of the time. And honestly, despite the nausea and exhaustion and what-have-you, being pregnant is pretty much one of the best things EVER and I will miss it!
Phew! Long post, and I will probably be the only one who reads the whole thing (except maybe Jenna someday). Anyway, it's for posterity so at least I have all the memorable moments written down somewhere in this blog. Here's hoping there are many more! :)
Kevin's farts have made me puke on many occasions while pregnant!
ReplyDeleteHahaha my first reaction was to say, "they really need to hang out more" but I think that would probably be bad for the environment. It's maybe a good thing we're in different parts of the country. The ozone layer can only take so much...
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