and just like that....we're pregnant!

This post has been a long time coming and so many have asked specific questions so I'm dumping the whole story here. For guys, this post may be TMI....

So, first of all, we've wanted kids for a long time but when are you ever really ready? As I got older, I felt like my time was running out yet I was anxious mulling over all the details, and expectations, and assumptions, and statistics. Oh, the statistics...

I'm going to be "an older mom" although I feel like I'm in my 20s. Okay, I feel a bit wiser so maybe my early 30s. I started to feel like time was running out. Another hiccup came when we found something unexpected in a routine MRI to establish a new baseline after my last surgery (another blog for another day year). Chaos ensued - not only with the worry of "what could be ," "why me AGAIN," but the timing. Time was running out for me if I wanted to have a biological child. This seemed to ruin everything. I waited 6 months for a follow-up in July to find that it was still there (although not bigger) and it was anyone's best guess what it was. Comforting, eh? I had the choice of waiting for another MRI for 6 or 12 months. I chose 12 with the intent of calling back if anxiety totally ate me alive. In my head, I thought I have one year to get pregnant and birth before the next MRI expected to occur in July (2017). Then, I turned to the odds. At my age, I had read that the chance of pregnancy was 5% during that window per month. I'm not sure how true that is, but the number stuck and so did the worry. This is on top of this small window of opportunity per month at any age. I threw all this out the window and just skipped worry to dive into despair. I had so many hard (tearful) conversations with God about where I am versus where I thought I would be and had started to consider the disappointment if I could not be a mom biologically. The silver lining is that I've always planned to adopt and was fully satisfied with this being how I became a mom. However, I also wanted Luba to have a biological child and then this was one of my dreams as well. In short, I adopted a whole lot of undue stress and pressure. I sort of shrank into my cocoon of darkness with little expectations. With my hindsight, how could I have not even considered a giant loving God working all this out already? And actually, it was already worked out without my knowing on so many hard days that I suffered alone in my own whirl of chaos, anxiety, and despair. Isn't that the way it goes? It is done. On so many days I cried between clients tearfully and woefully over-exaggerating NEVER being a mom and pleading, I was harboring my own little being. Already. Just like that. It reminds me of my former boss who was like a mom always reminding me in times when I catapulted into chaos, "God doesn't care about your statistics that you've found. He works outside statistics."

I had just downloaded an ovulation app and couldn't wait to use it. Why not? Let's do this. I imagine watching this unfold was hysterical. Does God get frustrated and shake his head like we do when we watch a poor puppy chase his own tail? Even if he finds it, he never really gets a good hold on it.

Yeah, nothing that was expected happened in 19 days.....or any day after that. It apparently happened immediately when the opportunity presented itself. Take that, odds! Maybe we should think Chris Martin and the big arena of love and awe and magic he creates with Coldplay because Luba backtracked to the weekend of the concert.

In August, I was at a home and felt sick as soon as I walked in the door. I have been in some homes of those in severe poverty in rural Mississippi, dirty homes with bugs on the floor and crawling around/on me and in my therapy bags, packed homes 1-bedroom apartments housing multiple families of immigrants trying to make ends meet, etc. I'm never sickened. I'm not one that ever asks not to go there. I understand hardship. This home was different - the sights, the smells, the circumstances. I almost vomited immediately when I took my first step in the house. I made it through a portion of the appointment and had to excuse myself to finish via phone. I was sick the rest of the weekend. Thoughts of anything brought back that smell. This apparently kicked off my first trimester without me knowing. No wonder I never shook the sickness.

I kept feeling a slight stomach bug I thought. It would come and go. I took a few pregnancy tests. Okay, let's say 6, and they all said negative. Well, they were just geometrically confusing. No + ever showed up, just a line that went a different direction. The lines were so faint. My sister finally instructed me to get digital. Sometimes you just need a voice of reason.

Now here's a language I understand.

I can't tell you much about the weeks after that because of morning sickness. Can you guess one of the first foods I could keep down? Yep, pho!

Finally after weeks, I decided I couldn't be a martyr and hang on to my full-time job seeing clients so I got on Zofran. Immediately, I could hold down food and eat although I still had clear preferences, turn-offs, and cravings.

Cravings, you ask?

All of the cheeseburgers and root beer!!

Here are a few thoughts on the first trimester:

• what A@@hole coined the phrase "morning sickness?" It's not "morning," it can be all day and all night. I skipped eating for days. I tried all the over-the-counter tricks. I would find one tolerable food, overdose on it and then gag after I saw it. I survived on cold grapes and ice cold water or Mango-a-go-go at Jamba Juice.

• someone should warn you about your nipples. They need their own zip codes and security detail. Who knew a slight swipe of them by a shirt or an arm (or a nail) could send you spinning? Now THIS would be a great pregnancy bra!

Photo: google images

• pregnancy brain is for real. At work, I carry a post it note to remind me of why I have gone somewhere. This is after so many trips to the front office spent wondering what I needed to come up there for. I can't even get vitamins right.

• exhaustion starts early. Why did I think it was because you are big and cumbersome toward the end? I'm useless after work and then asleep. That simple.
• you'll go to the bathroom all the time yet you will never go to the bathroom again. You'll suddenly stand in solidarity with those red-butt baboons. Use google images if you must. 

It is really cool to have modern apps and technology. It's so fun to find out weekly what has developed thus far. The science behind and development of the baby and change of my body is mind-blowing. We love to read what has developed each week. Each Thursday, we see our update on the size (aka fruit or vegetable) and what has developed that week. However, it doesn't make me want to eat my veggies.

We had some fun being able to share the news with my niece and nephews. We had these cookies baked for the announcement:

Then, we gave them these fun eggs when we knew the sex.

That about wraps up Trimester 1. Now we are floating along in Trimester 2, and there was only one way to go from the first one!

Until next time,
Danielle