We’re Pregnant! First Trimester Recap

“I vividly remember on my first date with Jake, telling him that I wanted a big family, and I wanted to start it young. Most guys would get up right there and then, and run. No, sprint. As fast and as far away as they could. Jake didn’t budge though. He listened to all my dreams, and decided to walk straight into that life with me. Maybe, just maybe, that was God’s biggest nudge to me, that Jake was the one, very early on.”

Yep, I’m pregnant! You read that right! And wow has it already been an emotional, hormonal, and absolutely unreal experience. With every week that comes and goes, I see my belly growing bigger, and I realize what a TRUE MIRACLE this whole journey really is. LIFE is growing inside of me…. and I have almost zero control over it all. With all of the amazement and gratefulness comes a whole bunch of other emotions though too, that I was truly, honestly not prepared for. Nobody told me about the anxiety and the fear. Hormones are REAL people!

And before I get into my personal experiences on this pregnancy journey, of course I need to address the “elephant in the room”, the OBVIOUS, whatever you want to call it; Every pregnancy is different. Everyone’s story is their own. Whether this is your first pregnancy, your third, you’re currently trying to get pregnant, or maybe just dreaming about it someday… my heart is with you. I feel blessed, and at times, weirdly guilty for being able to experience carrying a child, while others are struggling. Regardless, I pray for you wherever you may be. I hope my journaling helps you, encourages you, or maybe makes you feel not so alone. I promise, you are not alone! Your feelings are VALID (I’ll be saying this a lot), remember that.

Without going into too much detail, on a random Sunday back in May I took a spur the moment pregnancy test, very much expecting it to be negative like the previous months before. Within just seconds, that second faded pink line appeared, and I knew our lives had instantly just changed, FOREVER. I’m not sure who was in more shock, Jake or myself. And after taking approximately EIGHT more tests (I’m not lying. I actually couldn’t believe it. I swore that second line was going to disappear), we cried and cried and couldn’t stop smiling like fools. We had prayed, dreamed, felt heartbreak, and prayed some more… but this time, God gave us the thumbs up. We were PREGNANT and that second line wasn’t going anywhere.

Within only a couple days, the anxiety and fear set in. I could and very well may do an entire blog post on this topic, because I don’t think enough people talk about it. Don’t get me wrong I felt like I was living a dream (and I still do), but there was one day specifically where I had the closest thing I’ve ever experienced to an anxiety attack. Reality was hitting me hard and my hormones didn’t know what the hell was going on. I’m grateful that those initial fears are gone, but I will touch base on that another time.

Back to the exciting stuff:

I found out I was pregnant just shy of being 4 weeks, and to be honest I didn’t even know that finding out that early was possible! Haha! It amazes me that some women could go a couple months without knowing, because let me tell you, my body KNEW!

Some initial symptoms right away were sore and swollen breasts, and fatigue. Even now, my fatigue hasn’t given in. I’m finally staying up past 8pm, but I swear I could sleep for 12 hours and still wake up needing a nap. Hence my lack of blogging… the LAST thing I wanted to do was sit down and write/I had zero focus. My sense of smell has heightened even more than usual as well. (Thanks for giving me a good sniffer, Mom) One night Jake was eating a handful of almonds, and I absolutely promise you it smelled like Donatos Pizza. SO WEIRD!

Right around 6 weeks was when I kept hearing that morning sickness would kick in. Perfect timing because I was heading to Nashville for a music festival, and what’s more fun than hanging with your drunk friends on Broadway AND having your head in the toilet?! Thankfully the pregnancy Gods were on my side and the nausea didn’t kick in until the day we were driving home. The car ride wasn’t fun, but I had survived what could have been 4 days of misery. (Wouldn’t recommend hanging out on Broadway sober though😉)

Weeks 6-8ish were my worst yet.. and compared to most women, I can hardly complain. I never actually had my head in the toilet, but instead felt like I was hungover all day/every day. Absolutely nothing helped. The thought of food made me gag, but then eating helped my stomach. My major food aversions were any kind of meat (GRILLED CHICKEN, OMG NO WAY), any kind of vegetable, and zero sweets. (WHAT?!) I could only drink water if it were absolutely FREEZING ICE COLD *and still feel that way today* Plain cold cheese pizza, Eggo waffles, toast, and smoothies saved me! I’m not sure how our laundry got done, or if the toilets were clean for those 3 weeks, but I was in SURVIVAL MODE!

I’m happy to report back that my never-ending hangover eventually went away, and slowly but surely my appetite started to go back to normal. I have zero idea if it’s a coincidence or not, but I kept convincing myself that if I kept up with my normal workout routine, I wouldn’t get as sick. I proudly never missed a workout, even through those miserable days. Whether that helped my lack of morning sickness or not, I’ll never know. I applaud women that are much sicker and can still kick ass with their daily routine. We’re in this together!

I’m currently hanging at 14 weeks and overall feel really good! My belly is growing (hi peach-sized baby), I still crave ice cold water, but also am loving Jimmy John’s sandwiches with extra hot peppers. I’m getting more comfortable with the changes that I’m seeing, and most definitely have some thoughts to share on embracing a growing body, but I’ll save that for another day; it’ll be a long one. We won’t be finding out the gender, but I have an intuition that it’s a girl. Jake thinks boy though, so I guess come January, we are in for a good surprise!

I think I have felt every emotion in the book, but most of all I feel blessed to get to be this sweet baby’s mommy. Jake and I are both speechless at times talking about how lucky we are to have such great family and friends supporting us and already loving our baby! I’ve never looked forward to the winter months more!

XOXO,