First Trimester

Our first 13 weeks with this little one have been an adventure. The day after I found out I was pregnant I was getting my blood drawn, then getting in drawn again and again and again. We wanted to make sure my HcG levels were rising appropriately, which would mean this pregnancy was viable. And they were! But my progesterone levels were low, so I started taking oral progesterone to support the baby until the placenta was mature enough to take over on its own. We scheduled an ultrasound because we had no idea when I'd gotten pregnant and how far along I was. It was at 6 weeks when Robbie and I were able to see our baby and hear his or her heartbeat for the very first time. Words cannot describe that feeling. We had to stop a few minutes into the ultrasound because I started crying and couldn't keep my stomach still.


Our baby's very first photo!

At about 8 weeks as I was going to bed one night, I started bleeding. A LOT. Similar to my miscarriage kind of bleeding. Our hearts just sunk. How could this happen? We'd heard our baby's heartbeat! Once a heartbeat is determined there's a 95% chance of a successful pregnancy. 95%! What was happening? I called my midwife on call and she said if I was miscarrying there wouldn't be anything we could do to stop it. She also said that it would probably happen that night, and if it didn't to come on in in the morning and we'd do another ultrasound to see what was going on. Thankfully, it didn't happen. But that didn't change how completely terrified I was for that ultrasound. But our baby was still there! Again, words cannot express. But still, I was bleeding. The cause of the bleeding was found to be a Subchorionic Hemorrhage. Not a pretty term. A piece of our baby's brand new placenta had detached, and I was just bleeding out through it. One of two things would happen. I would either have a miscarriage, or it would reattach. I was put on bed-rest for 1 week to see if that would help. Thank heaven, it did :) I bled for a few weeks, but I haven't had any more bleeding since about 10ish weeks. Here's our baby during that ultrasound!

That was definitely the most eventful part of our first trimester! Here's a few other highlights:

-Foods I Couldn't Get Enough Of: hamburger, steak, green vegetables (so weird), and yellow squash (totally random!)

-Foods I Couldn't Stand: Harvest Cheddar SunChips (so weird, I usually love those!), yogurt (although I did my best to eat it anyway)

-How much weight I gained: 5 lbs

-When I started showing: about 10.5 weeks

-Pregnancy symptoms: Peeing around the clock, hungry even after I just finished eating, boobs hurt like crazy, exhausted constantly, some others that no one wants to know about, some mild nausea, and at about 12 weeks my hips started hurting- I swear I can actually feel them moving.

How I'm feeling now: Relieved that the first trimester is over and the risk of a miscarriage is now so low; EXCITED!