WE’RE PREGNANT! First off, we both want to thank everyone who congratulated us and sent us sweet messages. We are SO thankful and feel SO blessed. I feel like I’ve dreamt of this my whole life and we cannot wait to meet our sweet baby!
I’m currently 18 weeks and I’m going to answer some common asked questions about the first trimester and share what helped us throughout our journey 🙂
Q: Were you guys trying? Did you do anything extra to conceive?
Yes, we were trying. I was tracking my LH surge using these ovulation sticks from Amazon. They also have an app that is super helpful called “Premom” where you upload photos of the strips and it helps you keep track. Plus the kit comes with 20 pregnancy tests!
The month we conceived I started taking this multivitamin supplement. It’s a powder (completely unflavored) that you mix in your water each day. I stopped taking this right after I got my first positive pregnancy test.
Q: How did you find out?
Well, since I had a ton of the cheap Amazon tests… I was a POAS (pee on a stick) fanatic. So the morning I got a positive I wasn’t expecting to get a positive AT ALL. It was VERY early to be taking a test anyways but I thought well let me just see. So my first one had the FAINTEST second line. My heart dropped and I literally couldn’t believe it. So naturally I took about 3 more lol. They all had that super faint line! I had heard of evap lines, indents, and tests lines not getting darker the next day, so I decided not to tell my husband just yet. IT ABSOLUTELY KILLED ME. I still don’t know how I did that. I ordered this onsie and decided I would take more tests tomorrow and if the lines were darker then I would tell him. I knew he probably wouldn’t believe it if it wasn’t two bold lines lol.
So the next day I opted to take the digital pregnancy test because theres no questioning the words “pregnant” lol. I was super nervous because I’ve heard if it’s too early then usually it won’t be able to detect it yet. (I was only 3 weeks and a few days pregnant at this point.) But I watched it load and the words “pregnant” popped up. I’ll never forget that feeling and how many emotions I felt. God is SO good and I remember just thanking him over and over.
But now it was time to surprise my husband! My plan was to have him open a box of some sort with the onsie and the digital test… but the onsie was taking FOREVER to be delivered. I had to wait that entire day to tell him. He went to the store and It couldn’t have been timed worse cause the Amazon truck pulled up RIGHT as he pulled in the driveway.. lol. So I hurried and grabbed it off the front porch and put it all in a box. I ran it into the kitchen where he’d be dropping off groceries and said “what is that box?” He opened it and it was the best. Both so excited, thankful, all the emotions. We’re gonna be parents!! We couldn’t believe it!
Q: What were your symptoms?
I really didn’t have any symptoms before finding out probably because it was really early still. But I do remember feeling more tired than usual and I would get REALLY out of breath when doing simple tasks. I remember vacuuming one day (I think before I found out) and I literally like couldn’t breathe.
After finding out I didn’t have any major symptoms until 5 weeks.. when the nausea HIT. I couldn’t leave the bed for weeks. I wasn’t able to eat anything except chicken noodle soup, ginger ale, and crackers. It was pretty hard but all worth it. It lasted from week 5 until week 9.
The only things that helped me were forcing myself to eat small frequent meals (especially eating a cracker or two before getting up each morning), these peppermint nausea sweet candies, and motion sickness arm bands. They look and seem goofy but these seriously helped me so much.
Q: What has been the hardest part of your pregnancy?
Sadly, this one is easy. We had a big scare at around week 6-7. At our first ultrasound the doctor was concerned with our babies heart rate being very low. She tried to reassure us that it is probably too early and we could’ve caught baby at the wrong time. But also had to take certain precautions and warn us that if she didn’t see my beta levels going up that it typically means the pregnancy is coming to an end. So I did tons of lab work over a period of days and we waited for the results for about a week. This was the hardest thing we’ve ever gone through. We had to whole heartedly put all our faith in God at this time. There was nothing we could do but trust Him. Thankfully, we saw my levels go up. And let me tell you… at our next ultrasound, when we finally heard that sweet heart beat and it was totally normal.. it was the best thing in the world.
Q: What do you think the gender is?
Well, we know the gender now.. but in the beginning I was SET that it was for sure a boy. Then as time went on I started having a gut feeling it was a girl. So I really went back and forth. But mama was right first, ITS A BOY 🙂 Daddy thought girl the entire time until he saw the ultrasound at week 11 and immediately thought it was a boy! He was right 🙂
Q: Are you doing anything to prevent stretch marks?
It’s amazing what our bodies can do and I’m not too worried if I get them, I get them. But I do apply bio oil at nighttime. Tummy does feel tight sometimes as our little guy grows! I also just ran out of bio oil, so I ordered this Burts Bees Mama Belly Butter to try out. I’ve heard good things and I think I’ll like a more lotion type rather than oil.
Hopefully this was hopeful to someone and I can’t wait to share this journey with you all 🙂
