Weeks

Throughout your life you measure time differently. Years in school, months until your wedding date, or days until your big vacation. I’ve reached a point where I’m now measuring time in weeks.

It’s currently January 25th, 2018 and week 7.5 of being pregnant (although I didn’t find out for sure until a week ago). Two more weeks until the first ultrasound, a few more until we’re ‘in the clear’ to share with people.

Now as I update this post, it’s March 7th. I am currently in the middle of week 12, almost out of the first trimester, and I am going to make a conscious effort to try to document my journey. Likes, dislikes, the good, bad and whatever else comes up. Things I’m looking forward to and things that maybe aren’t as appealing. I will be real and raw because I think we need more honesty and openness in this world of social media highlights. I write for myself, as a way of sorting through my thoughts and emotions and as a remembrance of the time I’m in, however, I’m choosing to share the experience not only because friends and family have asked for it but because I’ve heard so many of my friends say “I wish I would’ve known ___” or “why didn’t anyone tell me ___ was going to happen” and if I can help people with their own journey as I’m documenting mine then that will be an added perk.

This experience has already been surreal (and to be honest many days hasn’t fully sunk in yet) and I know it will continue to surprise and excite me. So here you go, my open pregnancy diary…

For those of you who know me well, you know that I’m not a person that overly exaggerates things so when I’ve said over many years that I never knew if I wanted kids, I meant it. However, after getting married to a man who has always had a longing for kids, I slowly began to have a change of heart. Long story short, here we are. I also said over the years that I feel like if I ever had kids I would get pregnant right away and sure enough, it happened very quickly (law of attraction at work, folks).

First trimester happenings: In the early weeks of my pregnancy not much had changed besides my growing bra cup size, which was fine by me, but then in the middle of week 7 my morning sickness rolled in hard. Right before this I was telling Jeff, I’m going to workout every day I’m pregnant, even if it’s just something small. I want to stay fit and healthy and active but then the sickness hit me like a ton of bricks. It was awful. I had days where I couldn’t get out of bed or I would just run to the bathroom to throw up. I needed all the sleep I could get. My food aversions were strong. For example, Jeff and I eat popcorn almost every night and suddenly the smell of it was enough to make me run to my bedroom and close the door to escape the smell of it. I didn’t feel like myself and that was the hardest part. Then after a few weeks of that, I turned a corner, praise Jesus. My energy got better, I was able to actually go to the grocery store instead of having to wait for each meal to come around to see what I’d be able to tolerate.

We also found out we are having a girl! I’ll be honest, I thought for sure we were having a boy. I spoke to the baby like it was a boy, thought of the baby like it was a boy, and we even had some boy names picked out. I was shocked, and to be honest, a little disappointed when we found out that it wasn’t. (I told you guys I was going to be open and this is something that people often think but wouldn’t share aloud. Instead they’d say “oh, we don’t care just as long as the baby is healthy”. Yes, duh, of course, we all want that but I think it’s probably BS for most people to say they don’t desire a certain gender.) I yearned to have a boy first. I think probably because I grew up with older brothers and that’s what I had envisioned for my own family but ultimately God knows what’s best, so if that’s a girl, then we just are happy she’s healthy and know this is the perfect plan for us. I’ll keep the faith that we will eventually have a boy (or two), not only because I really want one but because we have to have one to carry on the Bell family name. No pressure.

Oh, the reason we found out the gender so early was because we had the Panorama genetic blood test done. I had to give 107834 other vials of blood for my general check up and the Panorama test was covered by our insurance so we figured why not make sure all is healthy with the baby (it test for genetic conditions such as Down syndrome) AND find out the gender early (I usually love surprises but with this I’d rather know ASAP). So that’s what we did. It’s a simple blood test and they can find all this out because the baby’s DNA is already in the mother’s bloodstream, pretty cool.

I’ve been doing a ton of reading (many thanks to my family and friends for the abundance of books – they know me well) and gaining as much knowledge as I can without overwhelming myself. I am eerily calm for the time being. That may change but I do hope I remain even keeled and not overly stressed or anxious about the process (that doesn’t help anyone). Read on for some likes, dislikes, and pics from the first trimester.

• Likes: Telling our family and friends. And hearing a handful of people respond with how great of parents we’ll be and more specifically my girlfriends telling me how wonderful of a mother I’d be. I kinda thought at first that was just a standard, obligatory compliment but the more I thought about it, the more I decided that wasn’t the case, which made the compliment even more special. To hear people tell me that they thought I’d be a great mother was so touching, especially since I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be one and hadn’t until recently seen myself in that way. All of that has been incredible but the greatest ‘like’ thus far has been seeing how excited Jeff is and seeing him start to take on the role of a dad. He’s more nurturing towards me and the love that he already has for this little girl is unmeasurable. Experiencing this with him has definitely been one of those ‘I thought I loved you then’ situations.
• Dislikes: Being nauseous, exhausted, and not like myself.
• What I’m looking forward to: Being able to feel the baby.
• What I’m not excited about: Not being able to fit in my normal clothes (hopefully this won’t be for a little while though).
• Things that make me nervous: Um, hello, everything about growing a human and then having to keep it alive.

Here are some pictures from the first trimester including ways we told our parents, ultrasounds, a few of the many generous goodies/gifts from family and friends, and a lack of a baby bump (figured I needed to take at least one picture of me in the first trimester if I’m going to keep taking body pics).