First Trimester Blog

There are some terms in this journal that you'll need pregnancy definitions for, so I've provided them below:

Increased appetite: a need to eat every two hours otherwise you transform from a functioning human to a withered husk barely able to drag yourself to the pantry in about three minutes

Fatigue: your battery is so low that it manifests in weakness and dizziness (and increased appetite)

Cravings: While—for me—pregnancy cravings feel the same as non-pregnancy cravings, when they're SATISFIED? It feels like a drink of water when you were seconds from dying of thirst (or probably your first sip of blood as a vampire). When a craving is satisfied, it feels like consuming the one and only thing your body was created to consume.

A note about progress photos: Endometriosis means that I can look 4+ months pregnant at nearly ANY time ALL the time. I'm not even kidding. The bloating (or whatever goes on inside of me) is unbelievable. So, in order to have a consistent baseline for tracking progress photos, I've been doing transverse abdominal contractions during photos (the healthy, muscle-based cousin of "sucking in"). I'll know the baby is taking up real space when I do a TVA contraction and there's still a bump :)

Weeks 0–4

Symptoms: Absolutely nothing? Vivid dreams?
Cravings: "Tea cakes." I didn't really even know what that was, but as I sat on the couch reading Rebecca, they kept talking about tea and suddenly I NEEDED a crumbly, mildly sweet, very understated pastry thing. I have baked probably seven times in my whole life, but I Googled "tea cakes" and made myself some. They hit.

Typo below: *thing
Inside reference below: "the Eunice." Maybe I'll explain eventually XD



Week 5
Symptoms: some soreness and bigness in the chest region, increased appetite, trouble sleeping
Cravings: none

Week 6
Symptoms: fatigue, continued chest soreness and bigness, increased appetite, trouble sleeping. Google says you don't need any extra calories in the first trimester. My body gives that the finger with f l o u r i s h.
Cravings: Harley Gordon's baked beans (shoutout to her for talking me through her recipe when I texted DEVASTATED that plain canned baked beans didn't taste right), mint chocolate chip ice cream

Over the last couple of years especially, I've been tracking my cycle in every way, from knowing when my period or ovulation are coming to knowing that I'll have more social energy on Week X or be too tired to lift heavy at the gym during Week Y. My food, workouts, social events, sleep needs, eyebrow waxes (pain tolerance is higher around ovulation), and work tasks have been planned with an eye on my cycle. Suddenly being cycle-less feels like being blind and being unchained at the same time. What do I...do? The road map to my body has evaporated.

Week 7
Symptoms: less fatigued, less fatally hungry, less trouble sleeping, aversions to lots of food (especially protein)
Cravings: strawberry ice cream, tomato soup, mac and cheese





I keep saying to Gabe, "Ugh, I just don't know what's WRONG with me!" whenever I don't want to eat something or don't have the energy to clean the whole house in one day or feel kind of nauseous.

Gabe:


Week 8




I wore the ring Nana gave me and Paw Paw's memorial necklace so that they could be with us too when we told my parents the good news :)

Symptoms: insane evening bloating, food aversions continue
Cravings: frozen blueberry waffles with mini chocolate chips, KitKats, chocolate cake, Mentos



Week 9
Symptoms: nausea, headaches, insane evening bloating, food aversions continue
Cravings: spaghetti with lots of red sauce, elephant-sized portions of veggies (?!), biscuits and gravy. Gabe made biscuits and gravy three nights in a row.





Shoutout to Daniel Griffin for not actually asking XD

Week 10
Symptoms: trouble sleeping, food aversions continue. Aversions are by far the worst part of pregnancy so far.
Cravings: frozen orange juice, citrus in general

Not being in debilitating pain for days every month is the biggest gift of all. Every single pregnancy symptom combined doesn't even come CLOSE to equaling the horror of periods with endometriosis. Can I just keep getting pregnant back to back for the rest of my life? XD

Week 11
Symptoms: nausea, trouble sleeping, food aversions continue
Cravings: nothing new

Week 12


Symptoms: trouble sleeping, food aversions continue
Cravings: nothing new



Week 13

Symptoms: trouble sleeping, ulcers on my gums, my clothes don't fit right, food aversions continue. Every meal is annoying XD When will this stop.
Cravings: nothing

At my most recent scan, I learned that I have an anterior placenta, which just means it'll be later (probably Weeks 22–24) before I can feel the baby kick, because the placenta is positioned between the baby and the outside.

Even though I can't feel anything yet, seeing the baby do a bunch of wiggles on the ultrasound monitor was WILD. I couldn't believe that all that was going on inside of me and yet I wasn't feeling anything?! It feels like the baby and I exist in separate universes, on separate planes of existence, and seeing the ultrasound screen is like peering through a portal.

I also saw the baby's face last time. Spitting image of ET.

~Stephanie

Apparently We CAN Get Pregante*

My period wasn't even late.

I was supposed to start on Monday or Tuesday, but by Sunday night I'd had zero PMS symptoms, which was unusual. I have endometriosis, and I'm usually in pain for at least couple of days before starting. This month, nothing.

That night, I had really vivid dreams. I woke up at 6:00am before my alarm, went to the bathroom in a smooth burst of spontaneous momentum, and took a pregnancy test. I didn't plan to do it. I didn't tell Gabe I was doing it. I don't even remember deciding to.

But this journey starts AT LEAST five days earlier on Wednesday when I had a chiropractor appointment. I usually go on Mondays, but I'd had to reschedule this time, and it was time for my three-month evaluation appointment. A lady named Stacey and I went into a little room together to discuss my progress and anything else I wanted to talk about.

Everyone at the chiropractor knew we'd been trying to get pregnant, so it's something that comes up in evaluations. This time, Stacey—whom I'd never had an evaluation with before—focused on our trying to conceive with more heart and compassion than I was anticipating. Everyone at Twin City Health** is phenomenal and compassionate and attentive, but there was something Different in the room with me and Stacey that day.

As the evaluation drew to a close, Stacey asked if she could pray for me, about getting pregnant specifically.

In all honesty, guys, I was just tired at this point. Gabe and I had both quietly given up hope without telling each other, and I didn't know what God was doing, but "getting me pregnant" wasn't it.

But, like the good, God-fearing ENFJ in the chiropractic office that plays Christian music 24/7, I said, "Sure, I'd love that."

"Do you mind—and this is totally up to you—if I lay hands on you?" Stacey asked.

"I—sure," I said—again, just tired but trying to keep up the act for her benefit. She was being really kind to me and I really did appreciate it.

Stacey prayed for me and laid hands on my stomach, and I tried to keep my mind in the prayer and believe. I've known people who have been healed. I've been around miracles. I already believed they could happen, but they also don't happen for a lot of people, so *shrug*. It occurred to me during the prayer that no one had actually laid hands on me about this before.

I texted Gabe after I left: "During my quarterly chiropractor paperwork check-in a lady prayed for us to get pregnant and laid her hands on my belly :) No one has ever done that for me. We'll see."

And that following Monday, I did see.

My heart actually wasn't pounding when my phone timer went off and I looked at the stick, because I was barely in the moment. Like I said, I hadn't really even meant to take the test, it was just that my dreams that night had felt Different.

There was no doubt about the second line in the little results window.

I went to get Gabe from the kitchen, because he would be leaving for work any minute and I didn't want to have to sit on this all day.

"I need you to come look at something," I told him.

I have no idea what my face or body language was communicating, but he cocked his head, suspicious and maybe distantly suspecting, and followed me back to the bathroom.

I think I just pointed.

"It's early," I think I said. "Obviously. But. I mean. It's there."

"It's there," Gabe breathed, keeping himself tightly in check for me. He knows I don't like to be disappointed, which too often means refusing to get excited in the first place. "It's there. Okay. Okay."

"Okay."

And that is where I sat with it for WEEKS. I made myself go two weeks before calling the doctor, and when we went in for the confirmation ultrasound, I was so convinced the tech was going to murmur, "Oh, I'm sorry" that I mentally missed the first half of the appointment. I clued in with a wand inside of me, my hand inside Gabe's, and the tech saying, "Mmm, see that flutter? That's the heartbeat."

"You mean it's okay?" I said, feeling like I must've glitched into an alternate universe.

"Riiiiiight on schedule for growth," she said.

"Oh." I looked at Gabe, who was radiating quiet joy so big I could practically see an aura.

This is a God thing, 100%. No could could figure out why we weren't getting pregnant, and no one but God knows why we are now.

Except, I feel like I do?

There are a million tiny and not-so-tiny things that God has aligned lately, and I know he's been listening to the prayers of dozens of people lifting us up.

This all feels like a giant exercise in trusting God, which is probably why this post sounds more wary and fearful than joyful and excited. I am joyful and I am excited...but trusting and letting go of control are the two most difficult things in the world for me. They're horrifically uncomfortable physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

The baby isn't even born yet and God's already using it to teach me XD Gabe and I are about to be refined like never before—for the rest of our lives, I hear.

Please continue praying for the health of the baby, for wisdom for me and Gabe, and for me to believe that God wants good things for us.

~ Stephanie

* A reference to this video that makes me and Gabe laugh til we cry.

** I cannot recommend them highly enough. They have done more for me and my health (including interpreting bloodwork, suggesting that I might have endometriosis, explaining diagnoses I've received from doctors, etc.) than any doctor has ever even come CLOSE to doing. Everything that's broken about the medical system is whole at Twin City Health.