First Trimester of Pregnancy

 Woohoo! I am officially out of the first trimester and have all my energy back and feel great!

Totally kidding.

I am out of the first trimester and have the tiniest bit of energy back, but I'm still exhausted 98% of the time. Still going to be around 8 every night and spending most of my days lounging around. I am so grateful to be working from home during this time. 

Today I want to share a bit about my first trimester of pregnancy because this has been totally different than I imagined as someone struggling with infertility. Let's start from the beginning...

December 21st- December 24th...

On December 21st I took a pregnancy test because I had been taking Clomid during December and thought we had a good chance of getting pregnant. I only had the cheapo Amazon tests in the house so I took one and had the tiniest, faintest line. When Tim woke up I told him that I thought I might be pregnant, but I wasn't entirely sure. He told me he wasn't going to get too excited yet because the line was so faint. Over the next few days I bought some more substantial tests and the lines kept getting darker and darker.

I finally believed it when I took a Clearblue test and it clearly read "pregnant"

My moral support while waiting for the tests to complete.

I received a call from my doctors office letting me know that my levels looked great as far as clomid was concerned and I excitedly told them I was pregnant. They told me they would call back to schedule all my appointments.

We can't keep a secret...so on Christmas Eve told my parents when we stopped by their house in the afternoon. We told a few of Tim's family members on Christmas Eve and then managed to get his parents together to tell them on Christmas Day. We also told a few friends on Christmas Day as well.

In January I got to go for my first ultrasound!

Due to Covid I had to go in by myself and Tim wasn't able to come inside with me. I was thrilled when the ultrasound tech told me we were having twins. I skipped out to the car and told a completely shocked Tim. 

We were over the moon about having two babies. For two weeks I planned and hoped for my two babies to stay healthy. I wanted them both.

We unfortunately lost baby B which was very traumatic. I went in for my first OBGYN appointment and my doctor tried the in-room doppler to find the heartbeats and couldn't find baby B. This was on a Thursday and I unfortunately had to wait until the following Monday to get another ultrasound. The ultrasound tech tried abdominally and couldn't find a heartbeat. She then tried transvaginally and still couldn't find a heartbeat. Then a second tech came in to confirm. That appointment was so emotionally trying. I am tearing up thinking about it now. I broke down sobbing, Luckily Tim was waiting in the car for me but I still wish he had been in the appointment with me. 

I have more to say about vanishing twin but I will save that for a separate post. It is so difficult to grieve one baby and still be happy for the healthy one. 

At that appointment they did take pictures of baby A for me and did offer to take a picture of baby B but I declined that. I know that baby B had stopped growing around 7 weeks and didn't want to see the difference between my babies forever.

A couple of weeks ago I had another ultrasound for nuchal translucency. It was difficult to go back into the ultrasound suite (luckily it was a different room than my previous one), but watching baby A bounce around inside of me, wave at me, and kick their little legs gave me so much hope. I couldn't believe how much my little baby was moving and although I wish with all my heart I could've seen two little babies in there, my heart was happy to see my healthy little nugget.

I am officially 13 weeks pregnant as of last Friday and am due September 3rd. 

So besides the technical stuff, what has this pregnancy been like?

Symptoms: 

• Severe exhaustion. Literally I'm in bed by 8PM every night and am pretty much a sloth during the day. 
• Nausea. I haven't thrown up, but I think that's only from sheer force of will. Luckily the nausea has eased a bit, but at points I was feeling nauseous all day long.
• Aversions to meat and many other foods. I honestly couldn't stand the smell, sight or taste of meat- any meat. I was able to eat steak tips on Saturday night which was an improvement. I also didn't want any vegetables but I was able to eat a salad on Saturday as well, so things are definitely looking up.
• Beige foods. All things beige- mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, cereal, muffins, teddy grahams, ritz crackers, pretzels. Everything needed to be starchy and very plain in order for me to eat it. While I love all those types of foods it's hard to survive off of them.

Boy/ Girl Guesses?

I honestly have no idea at this point! Tim keeps switching back and forth with what he tells me he thinks. I have gotten a couple of boy guesses, solely because Tim's family is filled with boys. His brother has two boys and his sister is currently pregnant with a boy and due in June. I did submit our ultrasound pictures on Facebook and two people guessed girl, so we shall see. 

Future Appointments

I have an appointment this Thursday to see my OBGYN but I don't know what more I'll find out. I did do NIPT blood work but with the crazy weather in Texas my blood got delayed in the mail and didn't make it to the lab in time. I just redid my blood draw on Thursday so I'm hoping I will hear on that soon because it should include the gender. We will find out for sure at our 20 week anatomy scan appointment, but we will have a good idea after the blood work.

Our situation is somewhat different because NIPT predicts the gender through blood work but because I am technically still carrying two babies (until baby B gets reabsorbed) if either baby is a boy the blood work will tell us that the baby is a boy, even if only one is/was. If it says girl that means that both babies are/were girls. I am not counting on knowing for sure and am not planning on sharing the gender until after the anatomy scan when we are 100% certain. 

Overall we are getting excited to start planning the nursery and knowing who our little baby is! I think that pretty much catches you up. I am planning on writing up a post about vanishing twin syndrome because it was something I had honestly thought wasn't as common as it is. I will keep updating you through the pregnancy, maybe on a month basis? I also am going to try to update the blog more often. I haven't shared so many things that are happening and definitely need to do so!

Have a great day everyone!