I’ve been bursting at the seams to tell the world we’re having a baby. Lucas and I decided to wait until the three-month mark to make it public, which is very normal. But as a blogger, I feel this is an especially long time to wait. I’m used to blogging about much of my (and our) life. Even though I’ve been extremely tired the past two months with no energy to write, it’s been very hard to not blog about my experiences. I know there are a million mommy blogs out there; I’m not here to become the next expert on growing/raising a child. I’m here to share my experiences, just like I have for the past three years. For me, my blog is practically a journal. When I look back in 10 years, I’ll have so much of my life documented and preserved; it’s going to be awesome.
On that note, you can still expect my blog to be filled with completely random new experiences in my life. This will not transform into a baby-only blog.
The past three months
I don’t know what’s more nerve-wrecking: waiting for the result when you are trying to get pregnant or waiting for the result when you are not trying to get pregnant. I can only speak to the former and let me tell you – that was one of the longest minutes of my life. Lucas was sitting on the bathroom floor, and I was pacing as we waited. I passed the stick to him with a smile on my face. Neither of us screamed in joy or cried in happiness, we were just… part surprised, part happy, part scared to death, part amazed. While we like to think we’re ready for a child, is anyone ever really ready?
I feel blessed it was easy for us to get pregnant, but the hard part comes in growing the embryo into a human being. There are more things pregnant women shouldn’t do besides drink and smoke. I’ve already had a few hiccups like soaking in a hot tub and eating cold deli meat, undercooked steak and undercooked eggs. Changing my diet has also included decreasing my caffeine consumption, which makes for some groggy mornings.
Weeks 6-9 were pretty tough. Fatigue hit me hard (on top of no coffee) and nausea followed every meal. Fortunately, I haven’t actually thrown up – that would have made it a lot harder to hide it at work as we have just one bathroom with multiple stalls. Now going into the second trimester, my energy is pretty much back but my stomach is still a bit sensitive. Quick and easy foods like pop tarts, granola bars and soups are no longer appealing to me while fresh fruits and salads sound delicious. Instead of bigger meals, I’m eating smaller portions about six times a day, which really helps with the sensitivity.
Baby bump
Week 13: I’m starting to get that bloated feeling. When I wake up in the morning with an empty stomach, my tummy looks normal. Once I eat breakfast, it stays a little bigger all day. There’s no more sucking in. Maybe I’m being unfair, but I’m not counting this as “showing.” I’ll post my first tummy picture in the next week or two – regardless of how big (or small) I am.
A few promises
As I continue on this journey of growing a human inside my body, you can expect me to be pretty open about it all. I'll share things like how I’m feeling, pictures of my growing belly, working on the nursery, finding out the gender, picking a name and the delivery, to name a few. I have some wonderful friends who are moms who have promised to keep it real with me because they had no idea about the not-so-great-things that come with pregnancy and motherhood. I promise to keep it real with you too.
One thing I promise not to share: sonograms. Part of me is still freaked out by 3D sonograms and the other part of me believes a picture of my unborn child is just too amazing and too private to share with the whole wide world.
Based on our baby photos, we're also pretty pumped that our child is going to have one awesome head of hair!