Thank you so much for sharing the excitement with me over our big news! I have been feeling the love from you guys since making our pregnancy announcement. I appreciate all of your comments, Instagram messages and Facebook messages. Y’all are the best!
There is so much that I want to tell you about this journey so far so I’m going to dive in today with a little backstory on how we found out and my first trimester experience. I also just wanted to say that I have no plans of making this blog baby, baby, baby but since it’s a huge thing I’m going through, I will be writing about pregnancy regularly but the essence of the blog will stay the same! Promise!
Some of my blogger friends have moved their pregnancy/baby content over to a separate section of the site so that the updates aren’t on the main page. I’m torn over whether that’s something that I want to do. Let me know if you guys have a strong preference one way or the other. You won’t hurt my feelings. 🙂
FINDING OUT
I found out I was pregnant on Saturday, August 26. It was about two days before my expected period. I actually took my first test on Thursday, August 24 and got the faintest line EVER. Don’t ask me what made me take a test that early because we weren’t really even trying at this point because we thought it was a lost cause without the surgery but I guess once you get in the habit…it’s hard to break!
The extremely faint line took like 10 minutes to show up and you had to hold it up to the light and squint to see it. I was like, “ehhh…I don’t know about this.” Finally, on Saturday morning I couldn’t take trying to read the lines any longer and decided to buy a digital test. I ran into Harris Teeter 10 minutes before I was scheduled to teach my 11:15 a.m. yoga class, rushed to the studio (they’re in the same shopping center), took the test and literally 60 seconds before walking in the door to teach, I got a positive result. I took a picture of it and showed it to Tanner on my way in. To say I was a little all over the place emotionally during that class is an understatement.
Right after class I called my mom and told her I was going to text her a picture and to call me when she got it. My poor mom was in the middle of Lowe’s when she received the picture of the test and called me in (happy!) tears asking, “Is this for real!?” She knew how long we had been trying and that we had the surgery scheduled so it was a shock for everyone.
I went on to take no fewer than 10 more tests. It was the only thing that reassured me that this WAS for real and baby was still with me. It was also comforting that with each passing day, the positive line got darker and showed up quickly. By the end it was basically turning positive as I was peeing on the stick. So for those of you trying, in summation, early tests can take 5-10 minutes for a faint line to show up but a line IS a line but it’s really best to wait until after your missed period where the test results can’t be argued with. 🙂
One more photo to share my level of CRAZY but I think it’s super helpful for anyone testing early. These tests were all taken within about a week of each other. The earliest test is at the far right and it was a super cheap Dollar General test and gave us the earliest positive line. The First Response and Clear Blue really didn’t show a line and I didn’t get my “confirmation” that I really believed until that digital test. You can see that even after the digital test, I got some that still were reading negative or extremely faint.
BE PATIENT! Says the girl who spent way too much money on tests. 🙂
HOW I FELT DURING THE FIRST TRIMESTER
I’ve been asked SO much about how I’m feeling and the answer is GOOD. I have been blessed by the pregnancy gods and haven’t experience morning sickness or food aversions. I think that I kept most of you in the dark because my eating and workout habits really haven’t changed that much. The only time I got really nauseous in my first trimester was if I got too hungry or ate too much.
I was really tired on and off during my first trimester but never to the point of going to bed at 7 p.m. or sleeping a lot during the day. I definitely had my fair share of weekends spent on the couch with lots of napping and TV but overall I maintained pretty normal activity levels. There were a few instances where I was literally in tears over having to go teach a class because I was SO tired but I almost always felt better after getting up and moving around.
The three symptoms that were probably most prevalent for me were sore/tender/bigger breasts, increased need to pee (seriously…alllllll the time from very early and it hasn’t slowed down) and mood swings.
THE MOST SURPRISING PART OF THE FIRST TRIMESTER
Anxiety. Ugh. I’m going to write a separate post about this – and I actually wrote a post around 6-7 weeks that I think I’ll publish for you guys – but I REALLY struggled with anxiety during the first trimester. Mostly over the risk of miscarriage and over missed miscarriage. It was really overwhelming. I felt slightly better after our 8 week ultrasound and seeing the baby and hearing the heartbeat but it wasn’t until our 12 week NT scan that I really was able to start to relax a little and enjoy the pregnancy.
You think that when you get pregnant that you’re going to be so happy and excited but then you learn about the risk of miscarriage and start hearing so many stories and it’s just terrifying, or at least it was for me.
And while I was SO grateful not to feel sick, it fueled my anxiety because all I read and heard was how sick others were at this point in their pregnancies and I felt like something was wrong with the baby or my body because I wasn’t sick.
My mom helped me so much by sharing she was never really sick with me or my brother and Tanner’s mom shared similar sentiments so maybe they just passed on good pregnancy genes. Who knows.
MY BODY IN THE FIRST TRIMESTER
I’m really looking forward to experiencing all of the changes in my body that pregnancy will bring. Tanner and I took weekly pictures during my first trimester starting at 4 weeks but I felt like the changes were SO slow. But now looking at 4 weeks versus 14 weeks, I can see so much more!
I’m still not really “showing” but I’ve definitely lost definition in my abs and there is the tiniest of bumps present when I wear fitted clothes and my students have started commenting excitedly about it over the last couple of weeks. (We told most people at the studio after our 12 week ultrasound!)
I have gained 5-6 pounds at this point but still fitting into my regular clothes. Luckily, most of my clothes are of the stretchy athleisure variety so hopefully I won’t have to buy too much maternity wear.
EATING IN MY FIRST TRIMESTER
Like I mentioned before, I’ve been fortunate not to experience food aversions in my pregnancy so far but I have DEFINITELY been loving some extra carbs and sweets.
I have been eating a ton of sourdough either with cashew butter, honey and banana or in grilled cheese form. I know some of y’all remember me eating the above snack on a Saturday night a few weeks ago AFTER eating dinner. Pizza has also been amazing during pregnancy.
I have also been having a moment with ice cream. Oh and chips, I’m eating a TON of chips – kettle chips, tortilla chips, pita chips, you name it. YUM!
I would say that this picture best shows where I am with food right now! Mostly trying to keep up healthy eating but listening to my body whenever I want extra carbs or fat.
THE PUPS AND PREGNANCY
So many people have asked if the pups know I’m pregnant. Arnie our 16 year old pug is deaf and blind so nothing has changed with him. Zoey is CLUELESS. She jumps up and puts her paws on my stomach all the time when I’m laying down just like normal to beg for pats or to bring me her ball.
My Sullie though, she most definitely knows what’s going on with her mamma and has since the early days. I snapped this picture of her propping her head on my stomach a few nights ago and it brings tears to my eyes.
COMING UP NEXT…
I’m going to answer your questions on things like workouts – how I’ve scaled them and how I’m fueling for them, core work, what I did in preparation for conceiving and more. I put a call out for first trimester questions on Instagram so let me know in the comments below if you have anything to add. I’m an open book so ask away. 🙂
Questions…
1- Pregnancy content…main page or separate page?
2- For those of you who are pregnant or have had children…
What was your first trimester like? Were you sick? What were your primary symptoms?
When did you start showing?
Do you think your dogs knew?
