At the end of January, I received the best news. A little embryo the size of the poppy seed instantly gave Daniel and me a new title– parents! After months of negative pregnancy tests, I was so excited to see those two little lines. I called my doctor’s office that morning and received my first congratulations and an appointment to have my first ultrasound at eight weeks.
I cannot begin to tell you how hard it was to wait. I was feeling nauseous most mornings, exhausted, and for the first time ever I was oddly aware of my breasts (yes, breast tenderness is a REAL thing), and yet I was so afraid I would lose the pregnancy. I took a pregnancy test two weeks later, just to be sure I still was pregnant.
Daniel joined me for my ultrasound appointment in February and told the technician he was hoping for twins. Thankfully, we saw ONE baby on the screen with a healthy heartbeat measuring about the size of a kidney bean. Looking at the ultrasound, I kept thinking how surreal it was. I was finally seeing the little life growing inside me. That joy instantly erased the pain of our (thankfully short) journey with infertility. God haven’t forgotten us, it just wasn’t our time before now.
In many ways, my first trimester was easy. I felt nauseous, but never vomited. I started eating a graham cracker when I first woke up, and somehow that seemed to settle my stomach enough to eat breakfast and drink a cup of coffee. I was exhausted, but settled into a routine where I went to bed early and forgave myself if I didn’t have the energy to exercise. I also bought a super comfortable bra, which really made a world of difference too! I never had any weird cravings. My biggest complaint was the “pregnancy glow” was more like an encore of teenage acne. Thankfully, that’s mostly behind me now!
I really enjoyed thinking of creative ways to tell our families about our little pumpkin, which is what I call the baby as my due date is October 8th. Since Daniel’s parents live in Florida, I created a card with the ultrasound and wrote on the outside of the envelop “Call before opening.” Daniel’s mom sounded very confused with the instructions, but was then VERY happy to see/hear our good news.
Since my immediate family mostly lives locally, I decided to wait to share the news at our next family birthday party so I could tell everyone at once. I had a blast coming up with ideas to give my dad a birthday present that would announce his new grandchild. I settled on a pack of Founder’s Breakfast Stout (thanks to the picture of a baby eating oatmeal), a pack of spaghetti with Prego sauce, a Rockabye Baby CD with Grateful Dead covers, and finally a onesy with a picture of the ultrasound. My dad guessed with the third clue & you can see that by clue #4 he was pretty excited to have another grandbaby on the way!
I suppose the weirdest part of my first trimester was the Coronavirus pandemic. Just as I finally started to feel like myself (around 9/10 weeks), news of the Coronavirus spread. So while I briefly enjoyed getting back to my gym routines and having the energy to do social things on the weekends; that all came to a halt. I keep thinking when we’re finally cleared to leave our “social distance” and resume our regular lives a lot of people will be thinking I gained the coronavirus-15 (you know like the freshman 15 in college?). Nope, I haven’t been eating Cheetos and binge-watching netflix. Just growing a tiny human!
Probably the most exciting moment has been noticing “quickening” or the first fetal movements. The first time was a Monday afternoon (4/6) at work while I was filing papers; it felt like a wave of butterflies. As soon as I could touch my stomach it was over! A few days later while typing at work, I felt another flurry of movement. So cool! My pregnancy book says usually first-time moms miss these early movements, but honestly it seems more weird that I usually don’t feel the apple-size blob floating around my uterus.
I will leave you with a last funny moment from my first trimester. I knew from my labs (and my amazing OB/GYN) that there was a good chance I conceived in January. So one afternoon I stopped to pick up a pregnancy from the drug store. Of course, I remembered to pick up a Valentine’s Day card for Daniel and a few random items but realized I forgot to pick up the pregnancy test when I got to the check-out line. I asked the clerk where they were so I could quickly grab it and finish checking out. She sent me on my way, but turns out they were moved to a different aisle. The whole store had the pleasure of hearing the clerk shout “Young lady looking for the pregnancy test, they are right here! Come to Aisle 5.” Let’s just say I was very grateful to be self-assured married woman hoping to be pregnant. Otherwise, I would have died of embarrassment.
XOXO,
Kari
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