Since I have been pregnant, I have thought about a million things that I want to document on this blog. Unfortunately, I am so freaking tired every day of my life that I never actually have the energy to write about those things. I am going to attempt to summarize the first few months in one long post. To start things off, back when I was six weeks along (around the end of February), I took sort of a "before" belly picture so I have something to compare against when things get out of control in that department. Here it is...
The rest of February and March were pretty uneventful in the pregnancy department. I never had a single minute of morning sickness, never threw up, no nausea, etc. Although I am VERY thankful for all of this, it also gave me a lot of anxiety. I never had anything other than a positive pregnancy test to actually make me "feel" pregnant. It seems like miscarriages are so common and I am a glass half-empty type of person so I definitely expected the worst. Thankfully, on March 26, at 9.5 weeks, we had our first ultrasound. I was a nervous wreck the night before and all morning before the appointment. Luckily, the ultrasound was the first part of the appointment. As soon as the ultrasound was all set up, this is what we saw:
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Yes, I know that all ultrasound pictures pretty much look the same and yes, I know you can't see a whole lot.. BUT... seeing this was hands down the biggest relief of my life. The tears were definitely flowing when we saw our little one in there for the first time. We also heard the heart beat, which was a booming 189! After those two things, the rest of the appointment really didn't matter to me. We did the rest of the exam, bloodwork, etc. and then we finally got to leave with the peace of mind that everything really is okay in there.
As soon as I got home, I decided to show Carter the very first pictures of his brother or sister. He was VERY interested...
This is everyone's favorite picture right now. I would give anything to know exactly what he is thinking.
So, needless to say, the ultrasound and hearing the heartbeat definitely made everything feel much more real to me. I know I will probably regret saying this someday but even though I had a super easy first trimester, being pregnant really stresses me out. I think most of it has to do with being a hard-headed control freak, but I have a really hard time with all the rules of what you can and cannot do. I feel like I read something new everyday that is considered taboo during pregnancy and it is always something I would have never thought of... like various ingredients in certain granola bars, and certain facial cleansers, and even certain fabrics?? I honestly think you could google any single thing in the entire world along with the word pregnant and you would find a horror story. So the moral of the story is... pregnancy and Google do not mix.
I never really had too many cravings during the first trimester either. On any given day, I can tell you exactly what I do NOT want to eat. Like certain things sound horrible on certain days and then great the next. That makes grocery shopping tons of fun. The only things I ever found myself wanting over and over were fruit-flavored things (like fruit-flavored popsicles, candy, fruit juice) and those "Handi Snacks" cracker and cheese things with the stick. Super random.
Overall, my first trimester was great. A lot of my pregnant friends and mom friends give me dirty looks when I tell them that I still haven't thrown up. Fingers crossed that I will still be saying that 6 months from now!
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