This is a post I wrote about my pregnancy when I was six weeks pregnant before I had announced it here.
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Today, as I am writing this, I am seven weeks pregnant.
I still can’t quite believe it, although the signs are all there. I’m nauseous in the morning. Usually I eat something small as soon as I wake. Lately, it has been a muffin or one of my Mamaw’s biscuits that she generously sent home with me, then whispered in my ear, “Take care of the baby.” But by mid-morning, the naseau is back with a vengeance. I don’t actually throw up (thank goodness) and if I eat something, I usually feel instantaneously better. The naseau is definitely related to my blood sugar dropping. No doubt about it.
My cousin April, who is due in April (ironically enough) keeps telling me to wait until I’m 12 weeks, because I’m going to be puking up my guts. I’ve told her many times that this doesn’t happen to every pregnant lady, but I think she’s secretly wishing it on me.
TMI Alert: Other symptoms include sore and bigger boobs (I’m not a masochist, but as someone who has been an A cup her whole life, I’ll gladly take some size for some soreness. It’s really not all that bad.) I also need to be in bed by 8 PM most nights. I don’t necessarily go right to sleep. Sometimes I watch TV or read. But it is imperative that I’m lying down when the clock strikes eight. I just don’t have the stamina to hold my head up. I was a trooper on New Years Eve,but it was a big challenge to stay awake until midnight.
I’m also craving salty foods much more than I ever have and I’m also craving red meat, which I can usually take or leave. I’ve been eating a lot of grass fed beef when possible in the form of hamburgers and filet mignon. I’ve had maybe three crying meltdowns, but I’m pretty sure at least two of them would have happened whether or not I had been pregnant. Crying meltdowns aren’t exactly out of character for me, although they don’t happen very often.
Vegetables, which I usually gladly include in most meals, have become my kryptonite. The thought of raw spinach or even spinach sauteed in a little butter, which I usually love, turns me 10 shades of green. So my diet has included a lot of lean meat, Greek yogurt, cheese, fruit, and bread and grains. Not exactly the most well balanced diet but I’m not going hungry.
Overall, I feel great! I feel very happy and incredibly blessed.
I haven’t ran since the week after Thanksgiving, not because of the baby, but because I haven’t wanted to run. Once I found out I was pregnant (about three weeks ago as I’m writing this), I’ve made an effort to take Rascal on a long walk almost every single day — at least five days a week. And for now, this has made me happy.
Funny enough, I lost a few pounds when I was in Belgium (probably from all the walking) and at my in-laws for Christmas (which has never happened to anyone in the history of time of visiting my in-laws). I think it has something to do with the fact that I feel full after small meals and need to eat often to keep the nausea at bay.
The past few weeks have been a whirlwind and it has been SO incredibly hard to keep this big exciting secret from people. I’ve only been partially successful with this. I haven’t told the world until the day I revealed (or will reveal it) it here on the blog, but I have told friends that I see on a regular basis. I knew my friends would know something was up as soon as they broke out the alcohol and I didn’t have a glass of wine in my hand.
The day I took the pregnancy test, I told my mom and my dad, and then Brad and I called his parents also. We told both of our close family around Christmas. I know some people do big reveals to their families and even their husbands, but I knew I’d never be able to pull something like that off. I can keep another person’s secret to the grave, but I am an open book when it comes to my own “secrets”.
Even now as I write this, I am mentally checking in with myself to make sure I still remember that I’m not out of the woods yet for risk of a miscarriage. A quick google shows me that my chances of miscarriage right now is between 5-15% depending on the rate of the fetal heart rate.
My second OB appointment is four days away, where they will do the vaginal ultrasound and hopefully we’ll be able to hear the baby’s heart rate. Brad is going with me.
The funny thing about being pregnant is that even though billions of women have given birth and most women will give birth in their lifetime, it still feels so incredibly special when it happens to you.
Brad is beyond excited and likes to joke that he’s more excited than me (not possible). He wants to “kiss the baby” daily and will bend down and kiss my belly. It’s so incredibly sweet. I have no doubt that he is going to be such a fantastic daddy. I can’t wait.
I keep thinking that I wish I could fast forward to week 18 where we can most likely find out the sex of the baby. This probably sounds incredibly silly, but I feel guilty for thinking of the baby as a girl, because what if he’s a boy? And then I feel silly for thinking of the baby as a boy, because what if she’s a girl? So silly, I know. But I just want to know what he or she is so I can picture him or her more easily.
Patience, Kelly.
So far, I’m really enjoying being pregnant but am looking forward to the following things during my pregnancy:
– Hearing the baby’s heartbeat in four days (done!).
– Crossing the 12 week mark where we’ll officially announce the baby to everyone (done!)
– Seeing the baby on an ultrasound for the first time (done!)
– Renovating the house so I can start on the nursery (more on this later).
– Finding out the sex.
– Getting a cute maternity tankini and being as big as a house while I lie on the beach this June.
Thanks for letting me share my pregnancy journey with you and thank you for reading.
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Edited to add:
If you thought that was a typo when I said I was seven weeks pregnant but the title said six, you’d be wrong. The doctors thought I was seven weeks pregnant and gave me a due date of August 23.
Color me stupid, but I didn’t realize that you actually spend the first two weeks of your pregnancy, NOT pregnant. They calculate how far you are along, but starting your pregnancy on the first day of your last period. Who knew? I thought it was based on the actual date of conception.
Anyway, when I went into the OB/GYN for my second appointment and the first ultrasound (!), they measured the baby and found out that I was actually six weeks and six days, so when I wrote this post, I was really six weeks.
So here’s my little blueberry.
They tried to do the ultrasound on my stomach at first and when they couldn’t see anything (which made my heart skip a beat), they did it vaginally, as I read they usually do at your first ultrasound.
It reminded of when I use Google Maps and can’t quite see something well enough so I hit the plus sign to zoom in. We saw nothing and then the ultrasound tech zoomed in and zoomed in some more, until we saw something and that thing got closer and closer until it looked like the photo you see above. Surreal.