10/12/16: Third Trimester Update!

We made it! Last Thursday marked the official start of our third trimester with this pregnancy (28 weeks). It feels like time is flying and at the same time 3 months seems like a looooong time to have to wait to meet this little guy...oh yeah, it's a boy! We never really got around to doing an official announcement for some reason on Facebook about the sex, but we found out around week 14 or something ridiculously early like that so we've known for a while now and we couldn't be more excited :). Dave was convinced it would be a girl, but I had a feeling it was going to be a boy. I'm surrounded by boys in this house--Dave, Remus, and even though we call Pepper a girl, we're pretty sure she's actually a boy, hahaha. So we'll add this little munchkin and it'll just be me to represent the female gender in the house! So different from how I grew up--5 girls, 1 boy! But I was surprised to feel pure excitement and love when we got the ultrasound telling us the sex. I worried I might feel a tiny bit disappointed if it was a boy, but I didn't at all! Maybe because I had mentally prepared for that. Now I only get a little sad when I see baby girls with their darling headbands and bows...but boys have some pretty darling outfits too, so I'm not too worried :)

I'm feeling really really grateful to be past 28 weeks and into the third trimester. I never really got that "second trimester boost" that some moms talk about with pregnancy where the second trimester just gives them energy and they don't feel sick and they feel like they're glowing. For me it was filled with lots of painful and intense contractions, a bladder infection, severe back pain (the combination of both, I think), and residual sporadic nausea and vomiting. The third trimester has already felt a little better for me because I FINALLY got a doctor to listen to me about the contractions (the fact that they aren't normal, I mean) so they tested me for infections and once I took antibiotics, they became significantly less painful, which has been such a relief.

I still contract every day sometimes up to 10 times in an hour and I have to stop and breathe through them or do my relaxation techniques to manage the pressure and discomfort, and they're getting more intense as the weeks go on, but at least now I know what's going on so there's less emotional anxiety around it. I have what they call an irritable uterus, haha. Yes, you read that right--an irritable uterus. Our birth class instructor thinks I should reframe it in my mind to "ambitious" or "eager" uterus just so I can enjoy them instead of dreading them, but I don't know, "irritable" seems to capture the sensation best. It just feels like my uterus is mad at me so it's going to put me through labor pains for 7 months instead of just 1. During the second trimester I was anxious all the time about going into premature labor because everything online said that if I was contracting more than 4 times in an hour (please...more like, when have I NOT contracted 4 times in an hour), if it was causing back pain, and if it was regular and didn't go away with lying down it was probably changing my cervix. So that's the difference between an irritable uterus and normal Braxton-Hicks, apparently. The irritable uterus contractions feel a LOT like active labor, and you can't do anything to slow them down really, but they don't affect your cervix (thank goodness), whereas Braxton-Hicks are usually a different, slightly more comfortable sensation than active labor contractions, and they'll generally calm down if you change positions, while still not affecting your cervix.

We still check my cervix and everything at every appt. just to be sure it's closed and not headed for labor and we've done the test to be sure my membranes are still in-tact a few times, which has helped my anxiety disappear almost completely, but every once in a while when I have a night where I'm waking up every hour or so with strong contractions I get nervous again that I could be going into labor. But I never do, I just contract and contract and contract, so at this point, I guess we'll just wait until I feel the urge to push or my water breaks before we head to the hospital! Apparently a lot of women with irritable uterus' accidentally don't make it to the hospital just because they can't tell the difference between their contractions and it's not until they're basically pushing that they realize they've been actively laboring in the last day or so. I'm hoping that's not the case for me, but I could see how that could happen really easily...luckily our hospital is literally 5 minutes away if something like that were to happen. And also luckily, anyone who knows me knows I'm incredibly hyperaware of any and all new symptoms (understatement of the century) so I really doubt I'll miss the signs of active labor with my first baby...

I have been really grateful for the hypnobirthing prep we've been doing, though, because, I've needed to use the meditations and relaxations to get through these contractions (sorry..."expansion waves"...) already and it's helped me understand physiologically what's going on inside of me a lot better, which always lowers my anxiety. We finished our last class last night and Dave and I are both feeling really excited to try an unmedicated birth at the hospital. I've loved how much the class involved the birth partners and worked on what you can do as a couple to cope with the long labor process together and the inevitable bumps in the road. We found an amazing instructor who is very Type A personality, very pro modern medicine, and all about empowerment in the birth process rather than having to birth a certain way or avoiding certain interventions. So we've left feeling that it would be awesome if we could do it totally unmedicated, and if we decide that that's not the right thing for me in the moment, then that's awesome I have other pain relief options I can choose to use, but I do know that unmedicated birthers tend to recover significantly faster and that's important to me as school starts about a week after this little guy is supposed to make his arrival...so wish us luck please!

I think the only other thing of note about the pregnancy is that I failed my first gestational diabetes test so I had to do the 3-hour fasting one at the office yesterday and should get my results tomorrow. I'm praying I don't have it and the first test was just messed up because I had eaten something sugary beforehand (my bad...won't do that next time). But honestly, if I do have it, that would probably be the best thing to ever happen to this baby because I'd be forced to cut back on indulging my candy cravings and start eating mostly vegetables, protein, and some fruit. That would only do good things for both of us I'm sure, I just would rather not feel forced into that diet if I didn't have to be.

Sorry this was just all details on the pregnancy--most of this is just for me so I remember what's happening right now, but if you got to the end, congratulations, thanks for reading! Hopefully I'll write another post soon about our actual lives outside of pregnancy since there's been a lot going on there too! But for now...here's a bump picture to enjoy :)

28 weeks!

7/12/16: Pregnancy Details...

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Winter semester got a little crazy, and then I got pregnant, but I didn't know that was what was happening at first, I just knew I felt nauseous and exhausted all the time. Once we found out (relatively quickly, working with a fertility doctor) the nausea was full-blown and I was basically couch-ridden for a month there in the first trimester. Not sure why it was so intense, but all I know is I was immensely grateful it was Spring semester and I could take the time I needed to just rest and recover every day.

I keep trying to think about what else to write about first, but I'm struggling because it just feels like being pregnant is dominating our lives and thoughts right now. So I guess I'll just stick with the pregnancy strain for now until something else comes up. And I'm sorry I'm not writing about how the recent news events are impacting me. It just feels a little overwhelming to try to dedicate a post to articulating all the feelings right now, but that's definitely never far from my mind right now either.

So...pregnancy. Since I haven't blogged since we found out, I wanted to document how it's been for us. It's been wildly different from the miscarriage last year, in a great way, yet I've been surprised how quickly complaints fall out of my mouth about the physical effects of pregnancy on my body even in the aftermath of the pain of infertility struggles. I have so many friends struggling with fertility and who would give anything to feel as sick as I did, so I try not to complain publicly at the very least, but Dave has definitely gotten earfuls about the seemingly endless vomiting, the peeing every 5 seconds, and the general fatigue that's making it difficult to function. As frustrating as these symptoms have been, though, I haven't stopped feeling overwhelmingly grateful and humbled for the opportunity to grow and eventually raise a healthy baby with Dave.

Last year when we saw the positive pregnancy test, I was filled with fear and trepidation immediately. I was afraid of a miscarriage happening, yes, but mostly I was overwhelmed by the idea of becoming a mom. I didn't feel ready at all to be raising a little one, and I didn't feel like I had worked through enough of my emotional stuff to not pass on some pretty intensely unhealthy patterns I had developed (Remember, I was finishing a master's program that had taken it upon itself to point out to me all of my flaws and weaknesses). I felt like I was doomed to fail as a parent and that I would inevitably raise a broken child who would struggle to succeed in life. Sounds a little dramatic, I know, but when I finally processed what the negative feelings surrounding the pregnancy were about, those were the fears that surfaced.

I don't know when that all shifted exactly, but over last year I've been able to work through the fears by honing in on who I really want to be, how I want to treat people, what's important to me and what's not, and learning how to truly unconditionally love and be loved. I feel like I'm in such a different place in my life than I was a year ago. I feel centered, strong, capable, kind, compassionate, empathetic, and loving. I feel like it's okay that I'll make mistakes parenting and I'll accidentally hurt my children sometimes--because I know how to say sorry, I know how to repair a relationship, and I know how to acknowledge that I'm not perfect and address it when I need to. Not that any of this is coming easily to me yet, but I have a really amazing husband encouraging me along the way and helping me recenter when I feel like I'm losing those pieces of myself. I've surrounded myself with friends who know what we call "Core Erin" and love her and support her when she chooses the harder right. And I feel like I've really got some amazing people who love me and want me to succeed. That brings a whole new level of confidence about this whole mothering thing I've never felt before.

So this time, when we saw the positive pregnancy test, I felt a little bit of fear that I might be miscarrying because I was spotting like last time, but as soon as we confirmed that things were normal and healthy, I didn't feel any more fear--just excitement and love for our little bean!! It's been entirely different this time around and I honestly can NOT wait to meet this little babe in December.  I wish it was December right now (and not just because I'd be one semester closer to graduating...)!! I never thought I'd be this unabashedly excited without the nerves when I was pregnant, but I really feel like, we can do this, and if it's too hard, we'll find help, and we'll survive.

Now, that's how I'm feeling emotionally. Logically, on the other hand, I definitely struggle when I think about the logistics of birthing a child and returning to school about a week later full swing with the hardest semester of my program yet. It's a little scary trying to predict how much my arms will be able to take of holding, nursing, bathing, rocking, and loving a baby, when right now just cutting out pictures for our Sunbeam lessons on Saturday nights have me icing my arms and wrists every Sunday...But we're trying to figure out carriers and find the lightest version of everything possible to help make the transition as easy as possible on my arms. And we know that during school we just might need some outside help because physically I may not be able to do it all. Also, it's always an option to delay a semester of my program, but I really would rather not do that if I can help it. Any delay of graduation makes it all the more likely that graduation will never happen, haha. I'm not the first, and I won't be the last MFT PhD student to have a baby during school, so I know it can be done, and I have some great friends helping me along the way already with it all.

So overall, I'm almost at week 16, the second trimester has been significantly better than the first, but I still have some random rough days, and I'm just getting more and more excited about meeting this little one!!

10, 14, and 15 weeks! And I LOVE maternity clothes already. :)