First Trimester Recap v2.0

Hiiiii there! I know it's been quite some time since I've been on here, but I was just feeling a much needed break from the internet this summer. I've sporadically posted to Instagram and have been 100% MIA from this blog, but for good reason. I've simply just been soaking up all the time possible with Kai and it really has been incredible. We had the most amazing summer and I'm so grateful for each and every day of it. However, I miss documenting our life and connecting with all of you on here! This pregnancy has had it's ups and downs, for sure, but I still am determined to document it because it's still all just so wonderful. I had all these posts planned out and just never got to them. But that's ok...you all are just going to have to bare with me through the next couple weeks of bump dates while I catch up! I did these with my pregnancy with Kai and they are something I still love to look back on. So let's rewind all the way back to May today...

HOW WE FOUND OUT ABOUT BABY #2
We found out back at the end of March...March 28th to be exact, that we were welcoming another baby in to our family! Back in the middle of March, I had officially stopped nursing Kai, so my periods were still all over the place. Per my Flo app though, I was a week late. The following day I was going to be heading to Nashville for a bachelorette party, so I figured the responsible thing to do was the take a pregnancy test, just to be sure it was ok for me to drink that weekend. I was about 50/50 on thinking I was pregnant. I'd taken some pregnancy tests on and off during Kai's first year due to late periods, but like I said, they were late thanks to breastfeeding. So I was kind of expecting it to be negative. On the flip side though, that week I had started having some really weird dreams. I never remember my dreams, but when I was pregnant with Kai, I remembered so many them. And they were all so strange! So because of that, I was a little dubious. Caleb, Kai, and I were laying in bed and it was dinner time. So Caleb got up and took Kai down to make dinner, and I told them I'd be right down because I was going to take a pregnancy test real quick. So I did the thing, waited the 3 minutes and went to check. I was honestly shocked...it was POSITIVE! I just silently walked downstairs with the stick still in my hand. Caleb looked at me with it and said, "wait, are you serious?!" He picked me up and kissed me a hundred times and was so excited. We told Kai he was going to be a big brother...not sure how he felt about it at the time per the photo above, ha! (Just kidding...that was taken at bedtime awhile after, so naturally he didn't want to do a photo session). We were so elated and surprised and went to bed that night on total cloud 9.

5 Weeks

10 Weeks

THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE UGLY
I had a wonderful time in Nashville after finding out I was pregnant...no seriously, I did. It was my last good weekend for awhile! The day after I got back from my trip, the nausea set it. I had entered the 6th week at that point, and wow it hit me hard. My entire first trimester I was nauseous and threw up in the mornings. The thing that always triggered me getting sick was brushing my teeth.

I had such low energy but I refused to take time away from Kai. I was also offered my new job the week after I found out I was pregnant, and started only a week after that. My stress and anxiety were through the roof. Before I got pregnant, I had decided to wean off my antidepressants since I was stopping our breastfeeding journey. I had been feeling great for awhile, so I decided it was time to get off of them. When finding out I was pregnant, I made the decision to continue to wean off of it. However, there were many moments of doubt in this decision thanks to all the anxiety and emotions that set in throughout my first trimester. I was a complete mess. I was never this emotional during my pregnancy with Kai and it honestly scared me. I almost went back on the medication but decided to try to ride it out and see what the 2nd trimester would bring. I would be so happy we were having another baby for days and then all of a sudden I would get sad and worried. I remember thinking, "how can I love another human as much as I love Kai?" I can't verbally explain the amount of love I have for Kai so to love another person that much was just unfathomable to me. I also felt like there was thinking ticking clock now of it just being Kai in our life. Like time was running out with him. Then there were, sad to say, the resentment thoughts. I was really hoping to have my body back to myself for awhile after breastfeeding Kai for 14 months. Then of course I would get upset with myself for feeling that way. So as you can see, I was just all over the place. Looking at all of it, it's completely normal, but that's never something you want to accept and be ok with no matter how normal it is. However, deep down I wanted this baby so bad and it made my heart so full to know we would be having two tiny humans in our life now.

The toughest part of my first trimester though, and I think the biggest contributing factor to all the hard stuff was after my confirmation appointment, we found out my progesterone was low. It was just barely low, but still not where it should be to sustain the pregnancy on its own. So I had to start taking progesterone pills on a nightly basis. This scared me to no end. While I was so sick, tired, and sad, the thought of losing our baby shattered my heart any time I thought about it. I would endure those days ten fold to keep this little one safe and sound inside of me. We saw the perfect little heartbeat on our first ultrasound at 7 weeks and I would do anything in the world to keep that heart going.

In total, I lost 8 lbs my first trimester but started showing around 9 weeks. It was probably mostly just bloat but I could tell a huge different in my belly growth this time around compared to my first pregnancy. I popped way sooner this time around. All in all, it was a rough first trimester but we made it out with a safe and healthy baby! No more progesterone after week 12 and things slowly started to turn around.

HOW WE TOLD OUR FAMILY + FRIENDS
We told our parents the night we found out that we were having Peanut...that's this baby's nickname. This is typically something I would prefer to do in person, but I wouldn't be seeing my mom that weekend due to my trip to Nashville. So we had to resort to the next best thing...FaceTime. We called her and told her that Kai was going to be a big brother followed by Caleb's mom and dad. Caleb and I have never been big grandiose announcement people and we're honestly too excited to wait and put something huge together. We prefer in the moment happiness and excitement, so telling our parents right away was just perfect for us. We told the rest of our family the big news at Easter, so right around the 9 week mark. We slowly started to tell our close friends all throughout my first trimester and the love and support we received was incredible.

I think that about sums it up...throwing up, crying, and sleeping were my first trimester in a nutshell...pretty textbook, huh? Oh and my show of choice this time around was Parks and Rec...I think I made it through the series twice during that time, ha!