pregnancy: week 5

Week 5

1 set of brand new parents who couldn’t wait another second to tell the brand new grandparents their news (we waited 6 days. Ha!)

2 adorable onesies ordered & delivered

3 Skype phone calls to show off said onesies to the grandparents and an uncle

1 check online to find the source of mysterious back pains

 5 moments of nausea

425 trips to the bathroom

7 days of general discomfort and icky feelings

1 workout on the Wii fit because it was cold & rainy outside

0 bananas eaten

5 times Joel has joked about there being two (or three!) babies inside of me

pregnancy: week 4 stats

Week 4

2 positive pregnancy tests

3 squealing, laughing, hugs of disbelief

96 trips to the bathroom

7 prenatal vitamins taken

0 caffeinated drinks consumed

10 days till we tell our parents

4 weeks until our first prenatal checkup

2 days of bloating, fatigue, and general discomfort

356+ moments of shock, joy, fear, and overall gratitude for this precious gift

FAQs

How far along are you?

14 weeks as of this past weekend! Hello, second trimester!

My calculations perfectly matched with the size and heartbeat we saw at a 6 week ultrasound. At my 8 week checkup, the doctor said the “size of my uterus” showed 8 weeks, too. Man, I’m good. That makes our due date around January 26^th, but we are not holding loosely to it… I’ll be happy if we get to meet the baby by early February… I was over three weeks “late” to be born, so that trend may continue with the next generation. 

How are you feeling?

Depends on the minute! Amazingly, I felt better last week in Spain than I’ve felt in a while. When we first found out I was pregnant, I was feeling nauseous OFTEN. I quickly figured out that nausea strikes me at any time of the day (“morning” sickness is a LIE!), but it’s the worst when my stomach is empty. I’ve started eating less at meals, but having small snacks every couple of hours. 

I like taking naps now and need a lot more sleep than ever before. I have some general achiness, but overall I have been very blessed with good health so far. 

Is it a boy or a girl?

Ha! Everyone in Spain asked us this question. We won’t be able to find out until late August or early September, but we do plan to find out. We are planners and want to know if our blue-ish purple guest baby room will be accented with gray and green or more feminine colors. We truly don’t have a preference for boy or girl, but Joel seems to think it’s a girl… father’s intuition, as he says. 

But what about your new teaching job?

Another big question. We were so so so surprised that I got the teaching job just 3 weeks after finding out we are expecting a baby. I was like, “Seriously, God?! I’ve been asking all year for a baby or a teaching job… I really would have been happy with one and now you’ve given me both within the span of a month!!”

I am beyond thrilled to be pregnant and to have a full-time teaching job. Figuring out childcare for the end of the school year will be a challenge, but we are surrendering our fears to God and asking him to care for us in this particular way. We trust in his goodness. 

Where are you going to have the baby?

This hasn't been completely set in stone yet, but we are leaning towards delivering at Valley Birth Place.   I'll do at least one, but probably many more posts on this particular topic. 

What other bloggers are you following during your pregnancy?
Okay, really, nobody has asked this question... BUT reading blogs is one of my favorite past-times and my absolute favorite bloggers have been great resources so far. Here are a few of the best:

Meg, of Kent Park. (Meg is my dear friend and has documented her pregnancy so far. She's due soon- early September- so I'm basically following her lead on a lot of things baby-related!)
Melissa, of Dear Baby Blog.   (Back when she was pregnant and raising newborns, she wrote a lot about choices in childbirth and the challenges of raising great kids while working full-time. Great stuff!)
Rachael, of Kincaid Parade. (She JUST gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. I'll reference this blog in a later post about childbirth and labor/delivery.)
Joanna, of Cup of Jo. (Joanna also just had a new baby, and I love reading her thoughtful words on motherhood and parenting in NYC.)
Eric & Kelsey, of Words of Williams. (I was lucky enough to be a guest blogger for these guys last year and I check their blog every day. They write great stuff about money and faith, but my favorite posts are about raising their cute young daughter. Kelsey also has a style blog which has helped me as I begin to navigate maternity clothes. Zoiks!)

First trimester: nausea and my arsenal

Now that we are safely into the second trimester of pregnancy, I've decided it's a good time to share some of how the first trimester went down.

Almost immediately upon finding out about the baby, way back in May, I was hit by nausea. Though I'm luckier than others in terms of sickness, I had many days of icky, achy exhaustion. Joel was super patient during the hardest weeks, which actually ended around the time we went to Granada. Here are some other things that got me through:

1. Sleep!!!! I went to bed much earlier than usual and as soon as school was done, I started taking naps a lot and slept in if possible. I am seriously blessed to be pregnant in the summer when I don't have to work. Praise God!

2. Small meals and snacks all day long. My hardest times are when my stomach is even close to empty. I have start carrying almonds, cheese sticks, Kind bars, and trail mix EVERYWHERE. I read that small meals really help and it's totally been true for me.

3. Staying hydrated. My stomach was really upset at first and I blame it mostly on the heat and my lack of water intake while subbing. I drank a bunch of ginger ale, some fruit juice, lots of water, and an occasional iced coffee so far this pregnancy. Just now at the grocery store I was dreaming up drinks with little or no sugar. Here's what I came up with for tonight: naturally flavored Polar seltzer water with a little bit of cranberry-raspberry juice. The juice has sugar, but not tons, and I only put in a little bit. We'll see how this goes.

Some other random things that helped were a microwaveable heating pad (that I used for my minor aches the first few weeks), staying cool, walking daily, and avoiding any foods that didn't look good. I KNOW healthy eating is important in pregnancy, but my general philosophy was that if something made me hurl it wasn't going to do the baby a lick of good. Hopefully we are on the upswing in terms of nausea so I will be able to focus on intentional, healthy eating from here on.

a new blog for a new chapter in life

With the big baby announcement over and done with, let's move on to some nitty gritty details!

I've created this new blog to be more baby-focused. It will chronicle our journey to that first positive test, week-by-week stats as the pregnancy progresses, issues and questions we consider, baby registry ideas, and so much more. In these early stages of the new blog and in pregnancy, I will attempt to write chronologically, but it won't be perfect. Show me some grace, wont ya? :)

My desires for this space are three-fold:

1. That I can look back here and remember how I felt, the way my bump grew, what I feared, and lessons I learned.
2. That Baby 'Berts can someday look at these photos and read these words and know how much he/she is loved.
3. That readers will have a glimpse into my heart and my faith; that I will point to Jesus who is my Lord.