Hi friends,
Here with the bump date….
I’m pregnant!
Officially out of the first trimester, I’m SO EXCITED to share this news with you!
Were you trying or was it a surprise?
How long were you trying?
These are the first two questions I’ve been asked.
The first one is easier to answer – Yes, I was trying! But, I honestly didn’t expect it to work, so although I was trying, it was still a surprise 🎉
The second question is a bit trickier as it depends on how you define “trying”.
I’d like to take a moment to recognize and bring compassion and sensitivity to my friends on here who have been trying to conceive. I know many couples try for years and undergo fertility treatment after fertility treatment. A few of my friends have graciously and bravely shared their stories: read Abby’s story here, Rachel’s here, and watch Hannah’s here. Each one different, but really powerful and raw.
Sharing my experiences – including my anxiety, fear, and plethora of emotions – is not meant to discount anyone’s struggle to conceive, or their experiences with fertility. I note this early, as I am sharing my story with a level of detail that may be uncomfortable or triggering for those trying to conceive, or those who have struggled with fertility. While I am grateful for your support, I ask that you check in with yourself while reading this blog and ensure you’re practicing self-care. <3
MY STORY
For some backstory, we always knew we wanted to wait until (all of) Evan’s fellowships were over. While many fellows, even residents, start their families before “officially” beginning their careers, we felt more comfortable waiting for Evan’s job to be more normal (lol, plot twist, his hours are STILL not normal and likely never will be).
In March, the pandemic hit, and we evaluated how much time until his new job starts. With it starting just 6 months away, we were ready to begin the process of trying – casually that is.
I had been off the pill for 2+ years by then, so other than not using protection , we made no other REAL concerted effort.
Growing up the biggest fear is unintentionally getting pregnant. We learn how to NOT have babies but never HOW TO have babies.
I knew nothing about my cycle – from how many days my cycle averaged, to when I ovulate, to how long this window of opportunity even is.
While I was in no rush to *actually get pregnant*, I was shocked when my period didn’t come around April/May of 2020.
During this “false alarm”, I had noticed a little blood before my expected period. While I was not pregnant, I mention this because it was the reason I knew of an early pregnancy symptom called “implantation bleeding”. This will be relevant later on.
According to the internet, implantation bleeding is usually very light blood that happens when the embryo makes its way into the uterus, which may cause little blood vessels to burst. When I saw that blood, I thought it was my first clue that it had miraculously (and effortlessly!) worked! Note: according to everything online, implantation bleeding looks very different than a period, however, it is the reason some women think they got their period and therefore don’t realize they’re pregnant until much later.
When my usually on-time period didn’t come a few days later, I was convinced that I was pregnant.
I took over 100 tests — all negative – and I even saw a doctor. That was during the time a doctor told me that I was not pregnant, and this missed period was likely from “weight changes” – you can read about that here. She ruled out pregnancy immediately due to no HCG in my blood. I don’t know what that missed period with some bleeding was about, but it did give me a taste of the excitement (!) – and confusion – that surrounds (possible) pregnancy.
As we moved back home that summer, I checked in with myself — and all of a sudden, I felt I wasn’t ready.
I didn’t want to “try” anymore –even casually–or even put that pressure on myself. I communicated this to Evan and he was totally fine with putting family planning on hold.
When my best friend Jaclyn shared the news that she was pregnant, something inside me shifted. I wanted to be too, or at least start up the process again as I assumed it wouldn’t be so easy.
It was time to “REALLY TRY” – or at least get to know my cycle and ovulation window!
LEARNING YOUR CYCLE DAYS, AND TRACKING OVULATION
To test ovulation, I recommend the PREMOM app and Easy at Home Testing Strips. This is what my best friend Jaclyn used, and I too found it wayyy more helpful and easy to understand than the Clearblue Ovulation Tests and some of the fancier more expensive tests like the Daysy that tracks temperature. This was the best $17 Amazon purchase I have made this year! I’ll mention that since I had the ClearBlue one as well, I used it to make sure that my ovulation peak was matching up.
With Premom and the Easy at Home Testing Strips, you urinate on the stick daily after your period ends and take a picture of the results. The app interprets the results and creates a simple chart. This made it easy to understand the “LH surge” that represents ovulation. I actually recommend you pee in a cup, and dip the stick in there for greater precision vs. soaking the whole sick (unless you have better aim than me, lol).
Evan found my bathroom pee cup quite humorous over these past few months to which I always replied, “I DON’T SEE YOU DOING THE WORK!!”
For a few months, I tracked my symptoms in relation to what “cycle day” I was on and found it FASCINATING and empowering to understand my body in this new, deep way. I think everyone should start to get to know their cycle days, even if they don’t want children or perhaps that’s farther down the line.
While ovulation is only 2 days, the window of opportunity is longer. It’s argued how big this window is, but essentially you want to aim to try a few days before ovulation since sperm can live for up to 48 hours. That means an “older sperm” can meet your new egg once it drops during ovulation. As soon as I knew I was within this window of opportunity, I began to … uh, well, prioritize… the romance.
LOL. I feel like most people, if they’re honest at least, can be real about this: this method of “trying” can steal from – or entirely obliterate – the romance.
In the beginning, the “trying” is kind of fun and exciting! But by the end of the window, there’s pressure to make the most of the small window. I can only imagine how couples feel who have been trying for months and feel the clock ticking.
MY FIRST SYMPTOM
Two and a half weeks after one of the times we officially “tried”, I remember feeling VERY light-headed to the point I sat down and called my mother-in-law afraid I was going to faint (while home alone). I (now) consider this my first notable symptom.
When I felt stable, I got up and went to the bathroom, I found blood.
I knew that bleeding could be implantation bleeding so at first, I felt some excitement!
But within the next 24-48 hours, the bleeding got heavier and heavier – heavier than my normal periods.
If you Google “implantation bleeding” you’ll see tons of pictures of light pink smears on toilet paper — maybe streaks of red blood. This was not that. It felt and looked like a real period. The only difference was it was early.
By day 3 of bleeding, I was confident that I was not pregnant. I vividly remember saying to Evan, I am definitely, DEFINITELY not pregnant – and we didn’t speak of it again.
A POSITIVE PREGNANCY TEST
Before the bleeding happened, I had told myself that I could test for pregnancy at 4-5 days before my missed period, since the box of pregnancy sticks exclaims “TEST AS EARLY AS 5 DAYS BEFORE YOUR MISSED PERIOD!” (yes, in all caps).
I woke up super early on a Monday morning in December of 2020. At this point, I was three days into my “early period” and still bleeding. It was still dark out and I was barely coherent. For some reason, just for kicks, I decided to pee on that stick – even though I was certain I was not pregnant.
This wasn’t the type of test where I was counting down the seconds to see the results.
I knew them.
So, I carried on with my bathroom morning chores until they naturally carried me in the trajectory to walk past the test again. I had forgotten I even took the test when my eyes grabbed hold of the PLUS symbol staring back at me. The second line had never appeared before, and the words ‘WHAT THE F’ audibly came out of my mouth.
I WAS WIDE AWAKE NOW.
My heart raced as my back found its way to the wall next to the toilet and I slid down into a crouching position just staring at the 2 lines.
COULD THIS BE REAL!?!?!?
I was flooded with EXCITEMENT! Alone on my bathroom floor, I sat with a piece of information no one else knew but me.
I took another test to see if this was real. This time I used a digital test to make sure my (now watery) eyes couldn’t trick me. This time, I stared like a hawk at the screen for 5 minutes until the words “pregnant” appeared.
My insides screamed “YES!” until I remembered that I was still very much bleeding.
What if this is an active miscarriage? I worried, knowing virtually nothing about how miscarriages even work.
Fear and confusion displaced that original feeling of pure joy.
I took to Google, which is usually always a mistake when you’re anxious – but keep in mind, I had no one to talk to.
Every piece of advice said, “if you are pregnant and experience bleeding, contact your doctor.” So, that was the first thing I did. Surely they would be able to tell me what was going on!
The first available appointment was for 6pm that evening. It was THE LONGEST day of my entire life – and I had decided not to tell Evan until after the appointment, so I could share confirmed news, whether it was happy or sad news.
Lemme tell you, there has never been a harder day to concentrate. Was I pregnant!?!?! Was I not? I NEEDED to know one way or the other.
At the doctor’s, I peed in a cup, and they did a VERY EARLY sonogram too. Having never been pregnant before, I assumed the sonogram would provide some solid answers – is there a baby, or not?
The urine was positive at the doctor too, but apparently, that’s all they could tell me. Urine tests don’t tell you how positive you are or if that number is going up or down. Blood tests tell you the exact number of HCG – and if repeated, you can see a trend that can be helpful to know if the pregnancy is still active.
I told the doctor that I was here because I’m bleeding and possibly pregnant. She mentioned bleeding can be normal, but upon examination said, “Well, this definitely looks like a period!” sounding very unconvinced that this pregnancy was viable.
She did the sonogram even though she said at this stage (less than 4 weeks!) there really wouldn’t be anything visible just yet. There wasn’t. They also took my blood for additional testing.
I left with no answers — and instructions to repeat blood work in 2 days so they could see if the level were trending up or down.
In the first trimester, HCG doubles every 48 hours — or in some cases, decreases if a pregnancy is ending itself.
That night I decided I’d tell Evan, despite not knowing anything new.
It was around Christmas, so I wrapped a positive test and put it under the tree. I didn’t know if it was a good pregnancy, but I still wanted the way I tell him to be a little fun — even if I had to put a huge disclaimer after to not be excited JUST YET.
I spent that WHOLE DAY (which felt like an eternity) with this secret welled up inside me. I even lied to Evan earlier as to where I was going when I went to the doctor. I never lie to him. When he came home he saw the blood test Band-Aid on my arm. Sht, I forgot to take it off!! “Why do you have that?!?!” he wanted to know.
I was sure he knew what was going on.
He didn’t.
I told him about the positive pregnancy test, and that I went to get a blood test.
While I didn’t get to give him the gift and film his shocked reaction, I did privately get to see the 3 seconds where his eyebrows SCRAMBLED into a million directions as he tried to make sense of it. Eventually, his eyebrows softened, and he smiled a REAL BIG CHEESY smile.
“Really?” he asked.
I have this private memory etched into my heart forever.
I warned him of all the uncertainty – but in true Evan fashion, he was just encouraging and hopeful, which was a helpful balance to my completely frazzled and FEAR-INDUCED body.
Two days later I got bloodwork again — and by the end of that week, I exhaled for the first time. The HCG had doubled. Even so, the doctor was cautious. She said it’s far too early to really know anything. Most women don’t even come in until 10 weeks since “chemical pregnancies” (as they call them) are quite common. That means, pregnancies are lost all the time in the first few weeks — women not tracking or trying or testing, may not even realize that this is happening. I was happy to accept a bit of good news. She told me to come back still so we could see if there was more development – and there was! – but again, still no more certainty. There was a gestational sac, but nothing to see inside the sac just yet.
Per Google, sometimes pregnancies fail at this stage, which means although it’s a positive sign, we still weren’t in the clear.
As for the bleeding, it lessened at the normal rate a period would. The doctor did not fully explain what this was. But, I was starting to feel some other symptoms of pregnancy — more dizziness, some shortness of breath after speaking for a while (I was giving hour-long webinars on emotional eating for work this week), body odor, and just overall – weird. No nausea or “typical” symptoms as of yet, but I was feeling really connected to something inside of me. Keep in mind, I was only 4 weeks pregnant (which is just 2 weeks post-conception).
A few days later, the bleeding was back — this time scaring me even more as I had really embraced that I could be having a viable pregnancy.
Again, I rushed back to the doctor in search of some answers, and again they had no answers as to why this was happening. Upon sonogram, there was a dot within the sac. A YOLK SAC!
This was a really good sign that something was growing inside. The yolk sac is the first structure you can see in the sac. It provides the early embryo with nourishment. As long as that stayed and the “fetal pole” could be identified next, we were doing okay. Again, none of the doctors gave me any reason to be excited- if anything they didn’t want to get me excited, which I understand. However, this put me in a very paralyzing state where I didn’t know what to do, and every second of every day felt like an eternity.
As for the bleeding, it stopped after that-but they still do not know why I had so much and repeated episodes. I guess this can just happen!
My next appointment would be in 2 lonnnnnng weeks. My doctor looked at me and said, “This is going to be a very long pregnancy.” Most women don’t make it to the doctor before the 8th week and I had already been back there as a nervous wreck 3 times.
In many ways, I was very lucky to see all this growth in stages as many women do not, especially looking back as everything has been okay thus far. I enjoyed learning about the process of EARLY EARLY EARLY development — even if it caused a lot of fear.
The problem is, the fear lingered for quite a while and I had a hard time shifting out of fear into excitement.
As lucky and fortunate as I have been (TRULY NO COMPLAINTS and my utmost sensitivity for those TTC), this was not the way I ever expected it to go.
I always thought pregnancy was definite – you’re pregnant, or you’re not – and thus, I assumed, you’re really happy unless told otherwise. Black and white stuff.
Instead, for me, a positive test meant fear, and suddenly my life was not just mine. And as much as I wanted this to be REAL, I started to lose myself as my energy shifted away from how it normally is, and into lots of worries.
I had one job: to protect myself emotionally and protect the little something inside me.
Even within those crazy 2-3 weeks, this baby taught me the number one lesson in becoming a parent: you’re never not worrying about your child.
Next up, I’ll share all aboutttt Morning Sickness – because trust me, it’s not what you think! I’m serving up THE TRUTH ABOUT THE FIRST TRIMESTER- that I so wish I knew.
Thanks for being along for this journey. I know many of you have been here a LONG time– others “newer” and stepping into this new life phase with your support means the world!
Love,
Lisa and Baby S (oh! and Evan, I guess!)
