Saturday, April 5, 2014

Preggers



Now that the secret is out, I feel like I can talk about being pregnant! I'm not good at keeping secrets, so each week, a few more people found out until we finally leaked it through the interwebs this week, and now it is time that I will share some of the facts about the pregnancy so far.

This is a big year for us, as Josh is turning 30, I'm 25, we'll be married 5 years this year, and I'll be graduating from college for good (hallelujah!) In our heads, this was always the time we would start thinking about starting our family. So, assuming it would take a little while to get pregnant after going off birth control, I stopped in October. Fast forward to early January, and we found out that I was pregnant. It didn't take quite as long as I was expecting, which is great, but it also caught me off guard a little. I don't think I really believed I was pregnant and growing a creature until I hit 12 weeks.

I have always wanted to have a natural birth, and there is a great birth center nearby--a great birth center that our insurance doesn't cover, of course. So we decided to go with a practice that has 3 doctors and 2 midwives, with my primary person being one of the midwives. I really hate everything about doctor's offices, and this really isn't an exception, but I really like the midwife, so I'm hoping that's what really counts.

We have had two ultrasounds so far, the second of which we could see the heartbeat. That was the moment that it became real--for the first ultrasound, it just looked like a blob, but in the second one, with a heartbeat, it made it feel like it was an actual living thing in there. Then at the last visit we heard the heartbeat, and that was just a relief, just to know that the babe was still there.

I didn't have too much trouble in the 1st trimester--some nausea that was taken care of by eating frequent small and simple snacks, extreme fatigue that was taken care of by taking naps when I got home from work, and sore boobs. But those only lasted a few weeks and by about 9-10 weeks I was feeling pretty normal. At this point, the only "symptom" I'm experiencing is a no longer flat belly-which is very strange!

For the 1st time in my life, I am running, but still feel like I have no control over what my body looks like. Which cognitively, I understand, as I'm pregnant and I know my body will change, but realistically it's a very different and strange experience. The thing that helps me the most though is to keep running consistently. I've still been running 3-4 times a week, and that has really helped my mental status and helped me still feel like myself.

So while we knew this year would be a big year for us, we had no idea how big! We are very excited, and also very nervous. It's not really in Josh's or my nature to get really nervous in the typical sense though-- very nervous for me is more of "I just want to know how everything will work" while knowing it all will and not worrying too much about it at the same time. I just assume we'll figure it out when it gets here!