I’ve Got News…

Hello! I am excited to share some exciting news…I am 12 weeks pregnant with Baby #2 due this July! We are over the moon with excitement, and I really can’t believe how fast the first trimester has flown by.  I want to share my experiences going through this pregnancy, and would love to hear from other mamas-to-be as well!  This will be long post as I have a whole first trimester to cover, consider it a warning! 

It took me a long time to feel *ready* to even fathom getting pregnant again.  I think I was a little nervous about being sick with pregnancy and working and taking care of a toddler.   I had pretty bad nausea and vomiting with Emma.    Then one day a few months back,  I was really surprised when my husband said “I’m not getting any younger, we should really get on this if we want another!”  So, I slowly got to the point where I thought, OK, I think I could do this now.   Then, I got really excited about the idea, but wanted to be cautious about getting too excited because I didn’t want to set myself up for disappointment if it didn’t happen right away.    

So, there we are, the last week of October, it was approaching the end of my cycle and I took a pregnancy test that Wednesday and it was negative. It was too early and I knew it.  But, why is it that the moment you are REMOTELY approaching a period, you have an impulse to just pee on that stick?! Those tests are addicting.   I really didn’t think I was pregnant, but I knew we had tried at the right time (thanks to those ovulation predictor pee sticks!) and I got anxious.   The next day is Thursday, and I don’t take one. That night at 7pm, I meet my friend Pam at Dream Dinners’ to make our dinners. On the way driving over, I am feeling EXHAUSTED. Not my typical end-of-the-day with a toddler exhausted, but my body just felt weird and heavy and I felt really out of it. I think the Dream Dinners’ girl must have thought I was a little out there.   In the parking lot, I tell my friend that I feel soooo tired and her first comment is “Are you pregnant???” And she had a twinkle in her eye.  It made me excited, but I didn’t want to be disappointed. I knew the next morning I could take another test.  At that moment, I knew in my heart that I was really ready to be pregnant.

So, the next morning is Halloween, a Halloween I will never forget!  I wake up early and go and pee on the stick.    I start to see that faint line come up in the test window.  And I know.  I start shaking and I start to feel tears well up in my eyes.  I think “oh my GOD, oh my GOD, oh my GOD…” over and over again. It is just as intense of a feeling as the first time.   I go and get my daughter up and I am staring at her thinking, am I am really going to get another one???  Is she going to be a big sister???     

My husband comes home from his jog and I tell him, and he says, “What? Noooooo…..REALLY?!” Being the practical, methodical one of the family, he asks “Are you sure??”  We stand there staring at the test, and I ask him “You see a line, don’t you?!”  He gives me a hug and we just stare at each other in disbelief.  In the movies, he would likely lift me up and twirl me around and we would look at each other and be crying with joy.   But at our house, the first real comment he says is “Are you sure you are ready for this???”    He looks a little pale.

Disclaimer: my husband is the nicest, kindest, most amazing husband and father in the whole world, but his initial responses in situations like these do not always win the”best reaction” award. Luckily, after being with him for 10 years, I know what to expect.   Then, I have to laugh at his question, because we both totally knew what we were doing and trying to do, but when it actually happens, there is still that feeling of total DISBELIEF!

That whole day was sort of surreal.   A mix of joy and disbelief and euphoria and shock. The whole day I repeated in my head “I’m pregnant! I’m pregnant?”  I went to lunch and the mall with my sister, and just kept thinking about it.  I wanted to shout it out to everyone around me. Like the girl behind the Wahoo’s counter, “I will have a # 1 with black beans, and by the way, I’m pregnant!”  We tell our family and close friends, and still have that feeling like, is this for real?  It is so hard in the beginning weeks because you want to be SO excited, but you still have that cautious feeling, hoping and praying that everything works out.      

I got about a week and a 1/2 of a “honeymoon” period where I felt GREAT. I felt totally healthy and happy and kept thinking, maybe this pregnancy will be different. I tried to use all my powers of positive thinking to convince myself I wouldn’t be as sick.  Come week 5 1/2 (same EXACT day it started with Emma per my journal) the nausea kicks in, regardless of my positive thinking. And it sucks just as bad as I remembered with Emma, but worse!    Emma has no idea and expects Mommy to be on her A game and  I am barely making it through the day between the constant nausea and fatigue.  It really hits me like a ton of bricks.   Add on a home burglary at that same time, and this mama was not a very happy camper for this time period!   The hormones, sickness and trauma of getting robbed nearly put me over the edge.  

I went for my first doctor’s appointment at 7 weeks, and he gives me the OK to take a Unisom Sleep Tab (Doxylamine Succinate 25 mg) at night with vitamin B6 to help with the nausea and vomiting. I was barfing a couple times a day and completely miserable. I took Unisom with Emma, but not until I was 13 weeks and still barfing and couldn’t take it any more.  I was so paranoid to take anything with my first pregnancy, especially in the 1st trimester, which is why I waited so long.  He said it is considered a totally safe medication and to take it if I needed it.   I got it that same night.  It is a miracle for me.  IMPORTANT NOTE:  If you are suffering from nausea and vomiting OF COURSE ask your doctor before taking Unisom.  I take 1/2 a tablet at night and it gets me through the entire next day. It takes my nausea from like a 9 to a 3, and makes it totally manageable.   Just make sure (if your doctor gives you the OK) to buy the Unisom that says Doxylamine Succinate 25 mg (white box) as that is the ingredient that works. 

At that same 7 week appointment, he feels my uterus and tells me it feels more like a 10 – 12 week uterus.   I am somewhat glad it wasn’t my imagination, because I seriously felt like I got that pregnancy pooch almost immediately.   They send me for an immediate ultrasound to check the dates, and he said it could be  1) I am a month farther along (I am freaking out thinking about the WINE I had that month – although I really didn’t think that possible) 2) fibroid or some other growth on my uterus 3) just the way my body is made and reacting to this pregnancy.   However, the lady checking me in at the ultrasound place, and the nurse at my doctor’s office both asked if we had twins that ran in the family!   The check-in lady took a look at my face after that question and said “Breathe!”    Turns out, it was just the way my body is made (most likely also having to do with having a previous c-section – Emma was breech.)   There on the screen was ONE little 7 week old with a beating heart already.  I felt so GRATEFUL.  I continue to feel grateful every day.       

So, here we are at week 12, and I am feeling like I am slowly coming out of the 1st trimester yuckies.   The fatigue has started to lift (a bit, not totally), my bowels are functioning better (OMG, week 8 was the WORST), I still am nauseous periodically throughout the day, but I am soooo much better.    I am totally in maternity clothes already, however, I am in that bad stage of looking like I have been enjoying the holiday sweets all too much, but don’t look obviously pregnant yet.  I keep telling myself to embrace the body changes, that my body is a vessel for a new life, blah blah blah, but I have to admit, when getting dressed and looking at the tire around my middle that is not an obvious pregnancy bump, it is a tad hard!    

Today we go for our 12-week ultrasound, the sequential screening.   They didn’t offer that with my first pregnancy.   I didn’t even have an ultrasound with Emma until I was 19 weeks.  I am nervous and excited, and just want to hear that everything is looking okay.  I am hearing from some people they found out the sex at this early one?!?   We for sure want to find out.  I am wondering if they might be able to take a guess today?   So crazy!!!    

Wish me luck, I will write back with a report!

{Graphic taken from a design on Tiny Prints}