January 22, 2010

The order of Spreading the News – Not Always an Easy Task

I’m curious to hear how other people told their families and friends they were pregnant?  

I personally had a hard time with this. Not because it wasn’t wonderful news. It was fantastic news! I wanted to make the announcement special but at the same time avoid the possibility of news spreading like wild fire to other family members or friends before we had the chance to tell them ourselves.

Facebook played a large role in my concerns. I could only imagine seeing a big “congrats on your pregnancy” plastered on my “Wall” before my family was informed.

While I wanted to tell my parents first, we ended up sharing with close friends first because a) they know if I don’t have a glass of wine on a Friday night, something is up b) we see them often.

The family part wasn’t so easy. My husband and I don’t live in the same city as our families and because we wanted to tell them in person, we needed to plan to get together. This proved to be simple with the parents but the siblings were a little more difficult with us all living separate lives and all. The holidays were a month after we found out so we planned to tell them around then. But that meant waiting a month to spill the news!

Every time my husband spoke to his sister or I to my brothers on the phone, we had to hold back when they asked us what was new! And every time we tried to make plans and they fell through, we both cringed at the thought of having to wait even longer.

 Finally the holidays passed and we were able to tell the rest of our family in person (I know our parents were relieved after holding in such a secret as well!). We then told the rest of our friends. We found New Year’s Eve to be quite the appropriate time for this. Why else would I be sipping water instead of Champagne at midnight?

Now it’s not a secret and I’m free to scream to the world that I’m expecting. Such a great feeling! And yes, now my Facebook “wall” is filled with messages of congrats from people we’re close to and old acquaintances I haven’t heard from in ages.

January 21, 2010

The Pressure is on...My Bladder!

The day I found out I was pregnant, I felt great.  Even though I was five weeks pregnant, my mind wasn’t yet aware and so the symptoms hadn’t yet appeared (read how I found out in my first post). It’s like when you cut yourself shaving without realizing it. You feel no pain until you see blood. Suddenly, the pain appears (well for me anyway). My mind told me to feel something because I’m now conscious of it. The same thing with finding out I was pregnant. When that test confirmed I was expecting, I started feeling nauseous and making frequent trips to the bathroom, almost immediately!  

Now that I’m entering my second trimester, aren’t these symptoms supposed to go away? If I can’t control my growing belly can I at least control my bladder? Apparently not *sigh*.

While I admit that I’ve always had a small bladder, it now feels as though the baby has grown monster hands and is squeezing it so tight that I feel like I’m going to burst every half hour. It’s the worse at night when I get up to go to the bathroom five to eight times. I asked my doctor if this is normal and she said some women experience an overactive bladder in the first trimester due to hormones, increased blood flow and a growing uterus. I asked if there was any drug I could take to relieve myself (literally) and her answer was one I was unfortunately expecting, “No”.

So here I am in week 13 and have gone eight weeks with little sleep. This must be my body’s way of helping me prepare for when baby comes, when bathroom trips will be replaced by feeding trips.

January 19, 2010

First Comes Love Then Comes Marriage...
Am I Ready for the Baby Carriage?

When I found out I was pregnant, I wasn’t prepared to say the least.

While my husband and I weren’t taking measures to 99.9% prevent pregnancy, we also weren’t exactly trying to conceive. We thought we had some serious time to play with when I went off of the “pill” two months prior. Admittedly, these thoughts stemmed from little other than friends’ experiences and a couple of postings I read on pregnancy forums, but we were under the impression it would take six months to a year. So we decided to be “careful” but also play with fire thinking we had time on our side. Little did I know I had inherited my grandmother’s fertility (she was the mother of nine children!) and would conceive almost right away!

Yes, becoming pregnant was easier for us than anticipated, but the night we found out wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. All week I had a feeling something was different. I just felt like I might be pregnant.  Women’s intuition perhaps?

The evening I found out, my husband and I had plans to attend a party thrown by one of his co-workers and we had invited another couple over beforehand. Before I accepted a glass (or four) of wine at this party, I thought I should find out my pregnancy status. I purchased a home pregnancy test and twenty minutes before the other couple was due to arrive, I took it. After what seemed like mere seconds I got the results. Positive! Mommy hood was upon me whether I was ready or not!

I called out to my husband and let him in on the news. We just sat there, in shock and stared...then the doorbell rang. Pulling ourselves together and pretending our lives weren’t about to change forever was difficult but we pulled it off.

That night went by and so did the next eight weeks. Positive blood results and two ultrasounds later, I’m 13 weeks pregnant today. And while I’m over the shock, I’m not over the symptoms:

• Morning sickness...still going strong.
• Food aversions...garlic and steak (gag me!)
• Exhaustion...feeling like I have jet lag without the fun trip.
• Overactive bladder...bathroom trips up to 8 times a night!

The next few months are going to be quite the journey (or should I say marathon?). But it’s the end result that will be the ultimate prize. Holding my beautiful baby in my arms and officially becoming a mom.

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