That being said, since we didn't reveal the happy news until week 12, I thought it would be good to go back and do a quick recap of the first trimester, again more for my family history on this blog than for a good story, so feel free to stop reading if at any time you get bored.
First off, since some of you have asked, yes, we did plan for this baby. In late April 2010, the prescription for my birth control pills ran out, and we decided not to refill it. We were ready to grow our family and decided to leave the exact timing up to God. That, it turns out, is a lot easier said than done. Though we agreed this was the right next step for our family, I immediately had doubts that we were ready for this crucial new stage. I think the Lord took the next several months to work on my heart, cause me to trust him, diminish my fears, and gradually grow a stronger desire for a baby and to be parents.
In his perfect timing, it was about a month or two after I became more trusting and excited about the potential pregnancy, letting go of my worries and fears about our ability to handle (i.e., control) this new situation, that we conceived in early October.
On Sunday, October 24, I woke and started getting ready for church. I knew I needed to take a pregnancy test since I was late, but my cycles had been pretty irregular since going off the birth control pill and I had already had a few negative pregnancy tests, so I wasn't really expecting anything new this time. Looking back I think I was trying to manage my expectations and minimize my disappointment since by this point I was actually longing to be pregnant, but had begun to struggle with some fears over our ability to conceive.
It's funny how quickly feelings change when, three minutes later, you look down and see two little lines on a pregnancy test, do a double take, and suddenly have this very unreal feeling like life if moving in slow motion. I remember taking a shower in a very numb, shocked state of mind trying to let the news sink in. Even after telling Robert, it still didn't quite feel real. We decided to wait another week, take a pregnancy test again then, and if it was still positive call the doctor. That Sunday we had some family portraits made with my family. I remember thinking then that they were true family portraits.
The following Sunday we had another positive pregnancy test (no, duh) so I called my OB at UAB to schedule an appointment. I'm under the care of Dr. Debra Kimberlin, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at UAB's new Women & Infants Center. Basically, she's a doc who handles high-risk pregnancies. When I was 12 I was diagnosed with a mild case of lupus. Since then, my symptoms have lessened and are mild at best and fortunately very controlled.
My rheumatologist refers to my current condition as an undifferentiated connective tissue disease. However, back when I had my pre-conception counseling, we together made the decision to have me under the care of a maternal fetal medicine specialist during pregnancy. For all practical purposes, they are monitoring me as closely as they would a mom with a severe case of lupus, and many of the more frequent and more intense tests I have and will receive are similar to those they give diabetic moms, mothers of multiples, older moms, and other high-risk cases.
So far, I have to say that my "high-risk" status/experience has a blessing rather than a burden. Our first appointment and ultrasound was very early in the pregnancy at six and a half weeks, and we've had ultrasounds at every other appointment but one. By the time I reach 20 weeks, I will have had four total ultrasounds.
Though I had no idea what I was seeing on the screen for the first dating ultrasound at 6.5 weeks, it was comforting to know: 1) baby was alive and well, and 2) there was only one baby in there. This is what Baby A looked like at 6.5 weeks. I actually thought I was about seven weeks along, but Baby measured/dated a little smaller.
It was truly was like that episode of Friends where Ross (in this case Robert) can see everything the ultrasound tech is pointing out and Rachel is right there making "oohs" and "ahhs" like she gets it only to burst into tears later and admit she sees nothing but big black blobs. (Never seen that episode? No worries. I'll post it for your viewing pleasure. Hilarious.) I didn't cry like Rachel, but I sure couldn't make out a baby in that picture. While doing that ultrasound, they noticed a cyst on my right ovary. Since it hadn't been painful, they said it would likely go away unnoticed.
A week later, the day before Thanksgiving, I noticed it. I had gotten up that morning to get ready for work and realized my lower stomach on my right side was hurting. Within about five minutes the pain had me laid out on the bed. I remember grabbing my "What to Expect When You're Expecting Book" to confirm I could take some Tylenol, reading about the possibility of the pain being caused by a rupture of the cyst, and eventually calling the doctor after I realized it was some of the worse pain I had experienced in my life and didn't appear to be lessening. Given the situation and the holiday, I was told to come on in to UAB's Maternity Evaluation Unit. I called Robert who returned home from work (he probably barely got his computer booted up before I called) to take me. At that point I was still pretty much laid out on the bed, on the verge of vomiting, and struggling to breath through the pain. Luckily it began to lesson on the ride to the hospital and eventually dissipated.
We were immediately checked in, seen by a resident, seen by another resident (this time a female) who did a vaginal exam, and then an ultrasound to confirm baby was okay, and after a few more hours saw the high risk doctor on call. She explained that they had ruled out more dangerous causes of the pain like appendicitis and that most likely the cyst had burst. She told me to return immediately if the pain started again that day. It was about lunch time when we rolled out of the parking lot and through the Chick-fil-a drive in for lunch and decided to officially start our Thanksgiving vacation. We were very pleased with that emergency room experience, and especially with the way the baby's health and safety was almost immediately confirmed.
Four weeks later in mid December I returned for my second appointment, was thrilled to learn I was getting another ultrasound (it's easy to get addicted to those pictures), and even more amazed at how much Baby A had grown and developed in four short weeks. I could definitely see a baby this time, complete with arms, legs, feet, and a big, round head.
Robert was in Virginia for work and I texted him the photo of our baby (now clearly a baby and not a blurry black fuzzy thing) they printed out and gave me. It's the one that I posted to the blog when we first announced our pregnancy if you want to look at the "And Baby Makes Three" post from early January 2011. I like to call it the dummy version since the ultrasound tech labeled in all caps "Arm" and "Feet" next to the limbs so I would be sure not to miss them.
I did have a brief, fleeting worry that our baby had three legs because the umbilical cord was right between the two legs in one of the pictures and from that angle appeared to be the same length as the other legs. When the tech didn't say anything, I figured we probably had nothing to worry about and I should keep my day job since I obviously have no future in reading ultrasounds.
All in all, the first trimester progressed without much fanfare. In comparison to the women and horror stories I have heard, I had it pretty easy. Yes, for a period of about four weeks (weeks six to 10) I did feel terrible, extremely tired and nauseous, and had other not-so -fun symptoms. But I never got sick and with the help of some nausea meds was able to power through on to better days full of second trimester energy.
I will, however, post my personal "pregnancy journal" from those first weeks when I felt so badly. It's easy to lose perspective in the midst of the rough weeks, so I'm sure my take on how I was feeling will be quite different than what I mentioned above.
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