Pregnancy Thoughts

I am 10 weeks pregnant.

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Let me start off by saying my husband and I have been pregnancy-minded for a while. We have constantly gotten the rudest question of all time: When are you having kids? My response was always, “When God gives us one,” – an answer that I thought said VERY clearly to others, “You know, it’s not easy for some of us. Please shut up.” -But you’d be surprised how many morons blatantly missed that clue and kept asking over and over. I didn’t know that my reproductive health was going to be questioned like we were in the dang middle ages, but it got to a point where I heard this question on a near weekly basis… It was not a fun time. I know many people that are struggling in some capacity or another with this, and have been for much much longer… All our stories are different. I don’t understand God’s plan. I dont know if I can ever blog about that topic, as my reasons are very personal.

Here is the beginning story of my walk through pregnancy.

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I found out I was pregnant on Monday, December 2nd, 2019. At 7 AM I took a test because my period was late. It’s been late before, so I really didn’t think I’d get a positive…

But there it was.

Right before heading out the door for work, I was faced with an existential crisis. LOL

My drive to work was very odd that morning. Just felt weird. I didn’t ‘feel’ like a mom. and the IDEA of being a mother at that very moment made me feel so foreign. Like an alien looking into the rest of the world now. -and because my husband didn’t know yet, I couldn’t let anyone at work know either, so I worked as if I knew nothing. It was so close to Christmas, I had to hold out.

I was in some shock, so I arranged a 2nd test at our local pregnancy center where I could have some guidance processing everything in my mind. It was again, positive, and the director there helped me sort through all my brain fog. I told her I felt like I wouldn’t be a good mom, or that something bad was going to happen to the baby… We talked about me telling my family, etc… It was a lot to dig through. We talked some about ‘pregnancy guilt’ I was experiencing… But I left feeling better. That drive home was different. I came to accept it.

I’m a mom.

I told my husband on December 22nd because I was puking everywhere and he told me I was going to urgent care, and I defied him and told him I wasn’t going. LOL. I gave him an early Christmas present instead. It was a onesie that said, “Santa Claus isn’t the only one coming to town.” He was eating an order of Pizza Hut breadsticks at the time. He held up the onesie, his eyes welled up with tears… and then he continued eating the breadsticks.

Not what I imagined, but okay. Lol

He took me to get my bloodwork done the following day (12/23/19). Then we went to the first ultrasound. I measured at 7 weeks and baby was in the right place. Heartbeat was visible and just pounding away! It was hard to get a good picture because we found out my uterus is retroverted (facing backward), but I was relieved that everything was going okay. That first ultrasound was very strange. I can’t describe it. It was like having that ‘visual confirmation’ set it finally in stone. This is happening.

We told our parents on Christmas day…

then our siblings, nieces & nephew, and my grandparents on January 4th.

The morning sickness REALLY set in for me on December 20th. From then to January 10th, I struggled EXTREMELY. The doctor gave me some different nausea medication recently, and now I am eating and drinking normally finally.

Random thoughts:

• It is SO AWESOME to let my belly hang out now. I’m not even showing but I don’t care! LOL. People thought I was pregnant for years because my body is shaped like a bumpy potato and I’ve always had a 1st trimester belly, but without any good reason before.
• I’m getting all kinds of good advice, and all kinds of stupid, unsolicited advice also. Really. It’s Appalachain voodoo mess like, “Hold your breath for a minute a day make it a boy.” LOL. Ridiculous!
• The pregnancy apps they have now are pretty cool. I can see that my baby this week finally sorta looks like me and not like a dinosaur.
• Maternity pants… why didn’t I wear these years ago? Seriously.
• People are constantly asking me if i know what it is. No. I don’t. We’re not finding out until March. My baby’s gender is not a big deal to me. I’m also not interested in saying it’s one gender or another before I actually know. People are even telling me what I should have, which comes off to me as ill-mannered. Lol I dont mind the guessing though, or doing old wives tale things… that’s all in good fun.

• It feels VERY weird being pregnant. Even at 10 weeks. I feel like my stomach is ‘hard’ now… and I feel a tugging in the muscles around the bottom of it. I feel like I’m ‘carrying’ something that’s significant in terms of WEIGHT, even though I’m not, and I’ve actually lost weight. It’s a very strange feeling. I cant really explain it. I hate to keep using terms like weird and strange… but I cant think of anything different! It truly feels that way for me.
• The best thing I can say about Brian during this time, is what Mary said to her baby while on their journey to Bethlehem in the Nativity Story movie. “You will have a good and decent man to raise you. One who gives of himself before anyone else.” I am proud to say that this is Brian. 100%.
• I’ve decided to do cloth-diapering due to its cost effectiveness. I’ve been afraid to come out with this information, just because it’s so highly judged.
• My anxiety problem is still very much in my life. Yeah, babies dont alleviate that issue. Lol. I really am worried about a lot of things I’ve never been concerned about before, but I am hanging in there. And praying HARD that our baby wont inherit it’s mothers issue.
• The best advice I think I’ve received about kids sofar is actually from years back, and this advice has really helped ease my mind about the fears of being a mom once the baby makes it’s grand entry to Earth. Lol. One piece was, “You cringe hearing a kid have a fit in a store, but when it’s your own kid, somehow it’s not as cringe-y as you thought it would be. It’s different.” Another piece that’s helped me is this: “They don’t come out a teenager. Everything happens in small stages. One at a time. No one stage lasts forever. It’s not as overwhelming when you think of raising a child in stages.”

I’ve had a lot swirling through my head the last month or so… I have always, my whole life, fought back feelings of not ever being a good mother for anyone, just because of my lack of maturity and lack of mental stability. I can own it. I have a chip on my shoulder that everyone seems to see… I’ve mentioned this to my therapist many months ago, before I even conceived, and they challenged me to think of my personality instead, of being one thats flawed, to being one that will contribute to being a very ‘fun mom’ instead.

That redirect has really helped me now.

A fun mom.

Maybe I could be that.