The First Half

The Big News:

We first found out that we were expecting on December 9, 2013.  Though I had taken a pregnancy test a few days prior, it appeared to come back negative.  I decided to wait a couple of days and try again, and it came back unmistakably positive! Jameson had left for Seattle for work that morning, so we had to celebrate over the phone, but oh well!  We were certainly excited, but I was shocked at how fast the worrying kicked in for me.  I became almost instantaneously concerned that something was going to go wrong, or that I would do something that would ruin everything.  I had always imagined that it would take us months or years of trying to get pregnant. When it didn't (really only a month or two), I found that while I was thrilled, I was also very very nervous.

Knowing that we had Christmas gatherings coming up and that it might be a difficult subject to avoid, we told our families just a couple of weeks later.  As it turned out, it was a good thing we did, as Christmas was right about the time the "morning" sickness kicked in.

Pregnancy Poisoning:

I do not know who came up with the term "morning" sickness, or what they were smoking at the time, but the title is extremely deceptive.  I prefer the title: pregnancy poisoning.  It was raging full-force by week 7, which for me meant puking uncontrollably ALL DAY LONG.  I could not keep down a single thing - not water, not crackers, nada.  I appreciate all of the people who attempted to give me advice on how to deal with the nausea, but it was not at a controllable level.  Jameson ended up taking me to the emergency room where they gifted me with my new best friend, Zofran.  However, even with the Zofran, I was still throwing up multiple times a day until I could get the medicine to stay down.  After that, it was relegated to the constant queasiness that it sounds like most people with morning sickness deal with, without the unending vomiting.  At 13 weeks I discovered that taking the Zofran at night meant that I could finally keep my breakfast down in the morning and helped launch a much happier time in my pregnancy.  I was still nauseated and still puking, but much less frequently.  And thus it has continued.  I am writing this at the beginning of my third trimester and have not yet been able to stop taking the Zofran without getting super sick again, but as it is so well controlled on the meds, I can manage.   Honestly, I don't know what I would have done this whole time without this magical medicine.

The Most Exciting Moment of the First Trimester:

We got to see our little peanut for the first time at our 11 week appointment on base.  While what we were looking at on the ultrasound monitor only barely resembled a baby at this point (more like a jelly bean), at least it was proof that there really was something there!  The nurse/midwife did a dating scan in order to determine our due date (August 11, 2014), and we got to hear the fast little heartbeat.  After weeks of constant worry about whether things were going smoothly, this day was SUCH a blessing.  

Since this appointment confirmed that things were going well so far, we decided to go ahead and announce the news to the world (aka Facebook)!

The Beginning of the Second Trimester:

The first few weeks of our second trimester was a period of smooth-sailing.  Everything seemed to be going well with our little one, I had figured out a Zofran regimen that kept my nausea pretty well under control, and at around 16 weeks I started to feel the little bumps and nudges of our wiggle-worm moving around!  I started to have a fun time researching baby products and starting registries (even though it was absurdly early), and we transformed our circus-striped office into a much more neutral (and thusly, pleasant) space for our future arrival!  These weeks zoomed by compared to the first trimester, and a part of me wishes I could remember them better, as it was as calm an experience as we were going to have...