My Pregnancy Story/First Trimester

WE ARE PREGNANT! Dan and I have been so blessed to be welcoming our little babe in November 2019, but we did have some bumps in the road that were unexpected. I wanted to share with you all, all the deets, so that this might help someone else out there that has gone through the same thing good or bad! Warning- this is a long post and does have some graphic details.

How We Found Out 

We found out on February 26^th and at this time I was around 5 weeks or so. That night I indulged with way too many slices of pepperoni pizza and was about to open the wine bottle when I started to second guess myself, since I was a couple days late. In order to have peace of mind, I made the decision that before opening the wine bottle, I would take a pregnancy test. Minutes after taking the test I saw the big words staring back at me – PREGNANT. I started shaking and was so excited, but knew I had to take another test just to be sure. Another 3 minutes later….two lines appeared. Still shaking, excited, and somewhat in disbelief, I went to go tell Dan. Dan at this time was was right in the middle of an intense video game and was so excited he was finally winning. Just being the good wife I am and knowing how hard he has been trying to beat that game, I decided to wait the couple of minutes for him to end it. So now you all will understand how fitting our gamer onesie is (lol). When I told him he literally jumped out of his chair and was in the same wave of excitement and shock as me. We were both ecstatic and a lot of happy tears were shed that night.

The Pregnancy Scare 

This paragraph is a little harder to write because it was the scariest moment in Dan and I’s life, and we are so blessed that everything worked out and baby Adler is well. It was about 8 weeks or so into my pregnancy when I was cleared by my doctor to start working out again. If you all know me, working out is something I truly enjoy doing and have done it regularly for a really long time. I was excited that I was able to continue it and really made sure the workout was moderate by using lighter weights (5lbs), doing half the reps, and only worked out for a short amount of time (20 minutes). Then 3 hours later, I started to feel mild cramping and went to the bathroom to see large amounts of blood (as if I was getting my period). I knew something was wrong and immediately started to panic. I called my doctor right away and she said to go to the ER. Of course, the night we went, the ER was packed so the wait was a lot longer than usual. I literally could not stop crying for 2 hours straight. When they finally called my name, they took a lot of bloodwork and brought me to take a sonogram. In the ER, at least by us, they have a policy that the sonogram techs are unable to disclose anything about how the baby is until you are seen by the doctor (for liability purposes). The tech was extremely nice and knew I was so scared. She tried comforting me and kept saying please don’t worry, everything will be okay. And at the end before I went back into the waiting room, she said it again but this time she winked. I found some comfort in knowing that maybe she was trying to tell me something without directly saying it and tried not to think the worst. Two more hours later we are finally called back to be seen by the doctor and at this point I am a nervous wreck. The doctor came in and finally said the words we were praying so hard for ….your baby is okay!  I started crying because I was so happy and knew that God was looking down on us that night. They couldn’t pinpoint the exact cause of what made the bleeding happen and they said they weren’t sure if it was because of particular movements during my workout or just another complication since some women do bleed in their first trimester for various reasons. Even though everything with baby was showing okay on the sonogram and with the vitals, we were still informed to be cautious because sometimes miscarriage can happen after the fact. I had another 2-3 weeks or so before my next doctor visit and that was literally the longest couple of weeks ever. It was comforting knowing everything was okay in that moment but then the what if’s would start flooding and that was the cycle I was in until that next appointment I had. That next appointment turned out to be fine too, which we were ecstatic about. Due to the incident though, they gave me a hormone pill that I needed to take up until 13 weeks. The doctor said the pill can’t guarantee not having a miscarriage or other complications, but It could potentially help minimize any risk. At that point, I was open to trying anything as long as It wouldn’t hurt the baby, which I was assured it wouldn’t. I have had some other spotting scares throughout my first trimester but all in all everything was okay!

All About My First Trimester..

I was really really lucky that during my first trimester I didn’t have any morning sickness. I hardly even had any food aversions. Here and there I would randomly not want a certain type of food in the moment (like ground beef) but then I would eat it again the next week. My cravings during this time were more on the sweeter side like ice cream and pink lemonade. And the only feeling that hit the hardest throughout this trimester was exhaustion. I was tired all the time! It was at the point where I would be able to go to bed at 8pm, get 10 hours of sleep and still be tired. I cut out coffee when I first found out I was pregnant and started to slowly incorporate it back in (only a cup a day) when my doctor gave me the green light to drink it. Due to my incident, they told me I had to stop working out potentially until I was in the second trimester. I am currently in my second trimester now (17 weeks) and am still scared to workout. I have been walking for 30 minutes a day, but I think I will start up my cycling again (at a SLOW pace) soon. At week 10, I did a blood test to find out the gender. Dan and I decided that we wanted to find out asap with a private, intimate reveal (just us two). So we received the envelope with the gender from my Doctor and gave it to a local bakery to make cupcakes for us and fill it with the pink or blue icing. We are still doing a big gender reveal for all of our friends and family this weekend, but I wanted to be able to have that private moment with Dan to find out the gender and I am SO glad we did. We even took a video of it to be able to look back on! As far as physical appearance goes – for the first trimester I’ve gained a total of 4lbs. I have also seen an increase of varicose veins developing on my legs. I’m not going to lie, it’s been hard seeing these changes happening to my body. Especially for someone like me that has always been so hard on myself and my appearance. But I am learning to love the way my body is changing because of this little baby and I know in the end all of the weight gain, sleepless nights, veins, and scars will be so worth it.

Apps I’ve used so far: The Bump, What to Expect, and Ovia are my favorite for getting weekly updates on baby and how he/she is growing.

Other products: I bought this pregnancy journal to track each week with how I was feeling, thoughts, and cravings. It has spots for sonogram/bumpie pictures and an envelope at the back of the book to hold all of the sonogram pictures. For a prenatal, I chose this organic vitamin by Garden of Life. I did not have any side effects from it and have used multiple products by Garden of Life before.

If you made it this far – THANK YOU SO MUCH <3 I wrote all of this because I really do feel like you all are my second family! I want to be able to share this journey with you in hopes that it helps someone out there, know they are not alone and to keep their faith strong! I will continue to post about my second and third trimesters as I go through them, but NEXT UP will be the gender reveal so stay tuned! 

*DISCLAIMER: This post was not meant to tell you exactly how your pregnancy should/will go, nor am I trying to give you any type of medical advice. Please make sure to talk with your doctor specifically on any of these topics since everyone’s pregnancy is different and needs different type of care.