Pregnancy Week 5 to 13 #MorningSickness

Oh man, remember last week when I said how I wasn’t feeling any morning sickness, or anything really and how I wish I was so I could “feel” pregnant…be careful what you ask for. This week has probably been the most physically and emotionally challenging week of my life!

Spotting | Most women experience spotting around the time of their period – it happens for any number of reasons, like implantation bleeding, or just extra fluid with the thickening of the uterine wall. Well, I did not have any spotting during implantation, but we went to play tennis on day 1 of the week, and I guess all that exertion got things moving in there, and I had a little spotting over the next 2 days. It was all totally normal, and in the list of things to expect – I probably did have implantation bleeding, but it just took it’s time making it’s way out. So like I said, totally normal and to be expected – but I was honestly so freaked out. And I think that’s something I’ll save for another blog – fear! I don’t even want to think about that day and how I felt, I think all my anxiety compounded into that one day, and it was just not a good day.

Morning Sickness | The morning all-day sickness has just wreaked havoc on me. The only time I haven’t been nauseous in this first trimester, and when I’ve felt even remotely like myself, is probably four hours between 4 am and 8 am.

And it’s not like being nauseous, then throwing up and feeling better, it’s just that 5 minutes before you’re about to get sick repeated on a loop over and over throughout the day. One night, I was sick all day and night, worse than I’ve EVER felt, and before we went to bed, I told Derek, if I don’t get sick before tomorrow, I’m going to be really surprised. Cut to 3am, I’m in fetal position in bed, I couldn’t sleep and I’m just crying because I just felt so sick, I finally woke my husband up and said, “Babe, I need some help, can you get me the trashcan and some ice water with apple cider vinegar.” I literally felt like if I got up, I would not make it to the bathroom. After drinking the water, and calming down a little, and praying, I finally was able to get some rest, like I said, the only times I can really sleep, like a deep sleep, is between 10pm-2am, and 4am-8am.

I’ve been taking Unisom and Vitamin B6 prescribed by my doctor. I finally had to cave in, and had Derek call the hospital and they told me to go to the ER. So, he had to leave work, and come take me in. I can smile looking back now, but whooo, guys, that was rough! I was pale, and could barely walk and had to get an IV with fluids and medication, etc. etc. But, literally within the hour of the medication starting, I ate a sandwich – you guys, I hadn’t eaten real food (anything apart from rice, smoothies and pineapples) for WEEKS! Needless to say, we got our prescription filled that day.

I hate medicine, and chemicals and the fact that most drugs have a longer list of side-effects than seems worth it, but, I guess, as I’ll learn from motherhood, not everything is in my control. It’s OK to hold on to your standards, but at some point, my stubbornness was preventing me from actually enjoying my pregnancy and being able to nourish my baby. So, I learned from that experience, to let go of my plans and trust that God gave me the wisdom to know what to do moment by moment. I am so thankful that I was able to get some help so I could actually feel alive again.

I am SO thankful for my husband. “In sickness and in health” started literally a month after our wedding and I am SO thankful to have it confirmed so soon that I married way, way up.

Baby #1 Weeks 3-4

Here’s what happened in pregnancy week 3 and 4 🙂

Week 3

“This week, your baby is smaller than a poppy seed. As sperm meets egg, fertilization occurs and your baby-to-be takes form — as a tiny group of cells.” – What To Expect

• Feeling semi-nauseous, not sick, but just not myself, and that I’m dragging around an anchor with my chest, lol.
• Feeling SUPER tired and sleepy – this may also have something to do with calming down from 3 months of intense wedding planning and 2 weeks of honeymooning/newly-wedding/traveling with my mom.
• Something is definitely up and sure enough, 7 tests later, we are officially 3 weeks pregnant! (Baby is 1 week old. Pregnancy is measured from 2 weeks before you’re actually pregnant. Confusing I know.)
• Decided not to tell anyone until we were sure, but I ended up telling my mom, Derek told his mom, and our close friend at his job.

*Welcome to earth sweet pea!

Week 4

“Guess what? It’s implantation time! The blastocyst burrows into the uterine lining, then splits to form the placenta and the embryo. The amniotic sac (also called the bag of waters) forms around it, and so does the yolk sac, which will later be incorporated into your baby’s developing digestive tract. The baby is now 3 layers of cells, which will begin to develop into the specialized parts of baby’s body.” | – What To Expect

• This week, the nausea all pretty much went away. I guess it was God’s way of letting me know there was a bun in the oven. I think for most women it starts out from week 6-11, so I’m enjoying these peaceful moments, haha!
• I’ve been craving healthy food – not sure if that’s a craving, or just the realization that I’m about to gain 15 pounds in the next nine months and I do not want to become a whale. That in addition to making sure everything keeps moving – I hear preggo constipation is no joke! I also started taking my prenatal vitamins & DHA’s a.k.a, baby’s first take-out meal 😀

*Pumpkin, please take all the nutrients you need! 

• I missed my super regular monthly companion for the first time in my life, so I guess it’s official!
• I stood up to go to the bathroom and I thought to myself, “wait didn’t I just go to the bathroom?!” Despite that, I’m still committed to drinking 8 glasses of water a day to keep this babe healthy.
• The bloat is real…somehow I passed my husband on the how loud can you get meter. I blame it on the healthy eating! For the record, I firmly believe mine don’t smell 😀
• Cramps here, cramps there, cramps everywhere. Oh man, every time we’re in the car driving somewhere, then we get out, I feel like my muscles are stuck together and I’m trying to rip them apart. It is somewhat bearable once you find out it’s a normal part of the process, and you’re not scared out of your mind thinking something is wrong. What To Expect says, “A feeling of pressure in your tummy or even mild cramps without bleeding is very common, especially in first pregnancies, and is usually a sign that everything is going right, not that something’s wrong. What you’re feeling may be the sensation of embryo implantation, increased blood flow, the thickening of the uterine lining or even the growth of your uterus, and it could just be gas pains.” Abdominal cramps are one thing, but the night time leg cramps…OH MY GOSH! My leg cramped up so bad one night I was pretty sure a vein had burst and woke my husband up in the middle of the night to tell him as much! Btw, this is so fun to be going through this right when we started living together, midnight conversations for the win!
• At around w4d5, all the symptoms, except for the occasional lower ab muscle tightness pretty much went away, to the point that I had to take another test just to be sure I hadn’t dreamed up the whole thing. Yup, still there. I think after implantation, things kind of lull down and the baby gets to do some of the hard work.
• Tried working out, going on an uphill jog, not for even a minute, but I was so winded and out of breath, it felt like I’d just ran a marathon. I’m sure it doesn’t help that I live on top of a mountain, but hey, can’t blame a girl for trying!
• Told my best friend, and told more people at Derek’s job…the excitement is real people!

Finding Out About Bean

We found out we were pregnant extremely early, right around 3w4d. Fun fact, pregnancy is measured from the day of your last period, not from the day of conception, so technically, at this point the baby was just a week old little ball of cells, lol.

I remember we had just gotten home from honeymooning/playing tourist and all day, I felt weird, like you just ate too much mac n cheese and topped it off with a lime margarita, not that I’ve ever had a margarita but that’s how I felt, lol. I chalked it up to eating too much restaurant food because all we’d done for the 2 weeks after the wedding was go out to dinner almost every night, not to mention having boxes and boxes of leftover cake we still had from the wedding.

Anyway, this feeling didn’t go away, I wasn’t “sick”, I was just not myself, and I’d wake up at 3 in the morning with this feeling. On the second night waking up like this, I woke up and went to find Derek, who was getting ready for work and I told him, “I’m pretty sure I’m pregnant.” And he asked me why I thought so, and said not to worry about it or get too excited because really, there’s no way we’d even be able to tell this early. But I just knew.

I decided to pick up a dollar tree test just to see. And I got a faint pink line.

I always thought when I got pregnant, I would come up with this really cute way of telling my husband and filming his response, and all that cuteness. Yeah, it didn’t quite go like that. I just texted him something like, “Hey, about what we talked about, can you pick up some tests on your way home.” When he got home, I went to meet him in the car, and handed him that test, and he got the biggest smile on his face, and we just sat in the car for almost half an hour processing, kind of being excited, but not really because it was still so early, and we wanted to make sure. We went in and did 2 more tests, and another test on week 5, and another test on week 6, all to make sure I was absolutely positive before I went in to the hospital.

From the very beginning, I felt an instant connection and love for this little one. You can’t even begin to imagine how happy our hearts were and how much love we felt from when this baby was no bigger than the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Can you believe how much God loves us then, because to Him we are just a speck too, and the way we love this baby doesn’t even begin to compare to the way He loves us!

Ahh! I’m so thankful!

“I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him.” | 1 Samuel 1:27

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Next up on the blog is Week 3-4 recap

Woah Baby!

Our hearts have been bursting at the seams over the past few months.

Next Spring, we will be welcoming our first baby to the world!

I know, I can hardly believe it myself! Finding out we were pregnant was a pretty different and incredible experience. This past Mother’s Day, even before we were married, people told us that next Mother’s Day, I’d be a mom, and we’d always joked about it, as had our friends, about having a “honeymoon baby”, and…if you’re reading this, you guys totally spoke it into existence, and I think you owe us college tuition! :-p

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” | James 1:17

Things have definitely been emotional…shock, awe, joy, shock, fear, excitement, shock, thankfulness, excitement. Hahaha, we’ve been feeling all of the emotions. At the end of the day, our hearts have never had more hope in the promises of God as they do now, and God has stretched us and grown us in ways we couldn’t have grown had our journey been different.

It’s so crazy how He knows us, knows our heart’s desire, has a plan for us that is so beyond our capacity to think, dream or imagine. When Derek and I met, God spoke to him about what our relationship would mean, what my family would mean to him, and what role he was going to play in our lives. Getting a front row pass to see God’s Word fulfilled in his life is the best experience in the world.

As for me, I don’t think there’s any role in life I’ve wanted to play more than the role of mom. I remember being 7 years old playing pretend, getting all my dolls dressed up and pretending we were going to Church. All my life I’ve wanted to be Annie Camden from 7th Heaven sitting in the front pew with my babes in tow 😀

Every single moment since that first (of SEVEN!) positive tests, I’ve told God, “You know you didn’t have to do this, but You did.” As women, we know the challenges others have faced to see those pink lines, and it’s not lost on me what a blessing it is for how shockingly quickly this blessing came, when that didn’t have to be the case. I am so thankful that this baby will be there from the very beginning, reminding the two of us everyday of the covenant we made, and of these first days when we were just 2 young crazy kids in love.

I know a lot is to come, the challenges of conquering new terrain: new home, new family, new marriage, new baby, new job, new business, new responsibilities…new, new, new. But this is what God has for us. I have full confidence that He will give me what I need to not only survive, but thrive. Energy, sleep, finances, babysitters, meals, community…there will always be more than enough. Maybe not exactly what we want, when we want it, because then that wouldn’t leave any room for His power, but my core belief is that we will be content, and we shall not be in want.

Psalm 136:3-4 Give thanks to the Lord of lords: His love endures forever. To Him alone who does great wonders, His love endures forever.

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Next post will detail the first few weeks, finding out, symptoms, recommendations etc. 🙂