My Pregnancy: 13 Weeks

I’m super excited to give you my first pregnancy update!  Since this is the very first one, I’ll give you my brief history and do a recap of the first trimester to get you up to speed.  After this, my weekly updates will give you information on what’s been happening for the previous week.  I’m so happy to be sharing this journey with you.

A Little History

My first pregnancy, with Meghan, was a normal, healthy pregnancy.  I was quite sick the first 17 weeks, but nothing out of the ordinary.  I delivered her vaginally, a week early, with no complications.

When Meghan was about 17 months (last February), we decided to start trying to get pregnant again. With Meghan it took about 8 months, so I figured it wouldn’t happen right away, but it did.  If you read my breastfeeding stories (you can find them here, here, and here) you know that I had a miscarriage in May.

I was 12 weeks along, but found out at my check-up that the baby had stopped growing at 8 weeks.  I was devastated.  I knew miscarriage was always a danger, but I wasn’t fully aware that it could happen like that.  I thought if you miscarried, you automatically bled and then passed the baby.  I didn’t even think about it happening silently.

The doctor gave us the option of waiting for the baby to pass naturally or to have a D&C.  He warned us there were risks of infections and other complications if the baby didn’t pass soon naturally, so we went with the surgical procedure.  It was the most horrible experience of my life.

We were advised to allow my body at least 3 months before trying to conceive again, but I needed even more time.  Everyone handles this kind of loss differently.  Some people want to be pregnant again as soon as possible, but I wasn’t ready.  I needed time to mourn the loss and faces the fears I had about getting pregnant again.

We were ready to start trying again in November.  At this point I was ready to be pregnant and hoped it would happen quickly.  Oh, Maryea, don’t try to make plans.  Just go with it.  Instead it took 4 months and I was pregnant again in March.

This time I only knew I was pregnant for a week when I miscarried at 5 weeks.  Again, we were advised to wait a few months before trying again.  This time, I didn’t want to deal with the hurt, pain, and disappointment.  We planned a trip to Jamaica.  I signed up for a boot camp fitness class.  All things to divert my attention from what happened.  In a few months, we’d try again and pray for a different outcome.

I had my next period exactly one month after my D&C, so I thought that I probably would start back with regular cycles the next month.  When I didn’t start my period, I had a feeling.  After a morning boot camp class, I stopped at the store and got a pregnancy test.  I went to the bathroom at the store and peed on the stick.  Sure enough, the word “pregnant” flashed on the little screen.

I was in shock.  We weren’t trying, and had actually planned our life for the next month around not being pregnant.  Instead, I was pregnant again before even having another period.  God works in funny ways, doesn’t He?

This is why I waited until the end of my first trimester to tell you about my pregnancy.  There were so many times I wished I could just tell you, but I was scared to jinx it.

The First Trimester

Given my history, I was able to get into the doctor right away.  I was nervous about our upcoming trip to Jamaica.  The last thing I wanted was to miscarry while I was on vacation.  The doctor ordered tests and said the best we could do was look at the hormone levels and an ultrasound and see if the pregnancy looked viable, but he couldn’t predict the future.

So we had an ultrasound and the baby, although tiny at just 5 weeks 6 days, looked good.  We were able to detect the heartbeat.  They tested my hormones and they doubled in 24 hours–a good sign.  We ended up going to Jamaica and everything was fine.  It was a perfect time to relax and reflect on all that had happened in the past month.

I spent a lot of my first trimester scared.  Any time I had a good day where I felt less sick than normal, I panicked that something was wrong.  Hearing the heartbeat via doppler at 9 weeks eased the anxiety a little, but I was never fully relaxed, and am still not, really.  This pregnancy has been different than my first with Meghan, so it’s been hard to gauge what is “normal” or not.

Here are the major symptoms I dealt with during my first trimester (and continue to deal with) :

• Nausea:  this has been and on and off thing.  Some days I feel it all day, other days it comes and goes.  It helps if I never let myself get too hungry.  Right when I think it’s going away, it comes back, but I do think it’s tapering off.
• Vomiting:  I’ve vomited about 3-4 times a week.  It almost always happens at night, between 9-11 pm, but occasionally during the day.  The days that I wasn’t vomiting, I was usually just dry heaving.  I’m not sure which is worse.  It has been almost a week since the last time I threw up, so maybe this is tapering off, too!
• Acne: Ugh.  I didn’t have this issue with Meghan’s pregnancy.  It’s been awful, but I think it is starting to get better.  Hormones!
• Exhaustion:  I have been much, much more tired with this pregnancy than I remember being with my first.  I nap nearly every single day when Meghan naps.  Every day I tell myself that I’m not going to nap; I’m going to tackle my to-do list during nap time. Then I collapse on the bed after putting Meghan down.  So far, this doesn’t seem to be getting better.  Soon, I hope!

13 Weeks

Now I’m at 13 weeks and cautiously optimistic.  I know that anything can happen at anytime during pregnancy, but feel better that the risk of miscarrying is much lower after 12 weeks.  I think I am slowly transitioning into the “honeymoon phase” (aka the second trimester), but I’m not quite there yet.

I am in an in-between stage right now.  I’m still wearing regular clothes, but can feel my body expanding and know it won’t be long until I need maternity clothes.  I pulled out some of my old ones and was amazed at how giant they looked!  Soon enough, I’m going to be that big again.  I can’t wait, actually, because that means I have a little baby that just keeps growing inside me.