Everyone says all you have to do is make it past the first trimester and everything gets better from there. Luckily for me, that was true, even if there were several occasions where I didn’t think I could go on. But I am getting ahead of myself, the beginning of the story starts with a positive pregnancy test, well…kind of!

When I got what I thought was a positive pregnancy test, I knew I had to plan some cute pregnancy surprise for my husband, Dylan. Yeah, that didn’t workout. See, I just couldn’t tell if it was positive or not! I could see the faintest of a line that would make it positive. I took THREE just to try to get a clearer result, and nothing! Each one leaving me more confused than the last. The test was just a true confirmation because at that point I was pretty sure that I was pregnant, I just wanted the test to be 100% certain. So in all the frustration of not being able to tell, I call Dylan and tell him that I need him to check something and tell me what he sees. Turns out he doesn’t know how to read a pregnancy test, and rather than getting clarity I ended up just more confused (frustrated, actually). We waited a couple days and tried a completely different test (the digital one), and this one very quickly told us we were pregnant. After a couple of stressful days, we finally had our special moment! We took a couple of moments to process and then called both of our parents.

We called my parents and told them first, my mom was SUPER excited, my dad just says “Hahaha April fools” (a couple of years ago Dylan played an April fools joke on our parents and told them we were pregnant, clearly my dad had not gotten over the betrayal).  Once we finally convinced him that it was real, he was over the moon excited! Dylan’s parents were equally as excited. Dylan’s mom was at the grocery store when we called her and she wanted to scream but couldn’t so she started whispering instead. We decided to keep it a secret from everyone else in the family for a little while, but for Christmas we shared with all of our siblings. We took a cute announcement picture just for our families. It was a lot of fun to share the news with our families, whether it be the first grandchild (my parents) or the 9th grandchild (Dylan’s parents), a new member to the family is always exciting!

Going back to the first trimester, we all hear things about pregnancy and how everyone is different but a general rule is that the first trimester is always the toughest. I had a hard time with being nauseous and throwing up on a DAILY basis. I have lived my life avoiding throwing up, to quote Ted from How I Met Your Mother; “vomit free since ‘93”. Try as hard as I could, it still happened. It was absolutely horrible! I cried for about an hour the first time it happened, I also called my mom and cried to her about it. At first, salteen crackers, plain Cheerios and ginger-ale were my best friends, but that just led to food problems…the other part that was a true struggle. Certain foods that I would eat normally, suddenly I couldn’t. The mere smell of them would have me gagging. Luckily we quickly figured out what the triggers were and avoided them like the plague. For me it was mainly any protein outside of chicken…I ate so much chicken! 

In the end, it really wasn’t too terrible. Yes, I was extra tired. Yes, I was extra emotional. Yes, I was sick a majority of the time, but I wouldn’t change it for the world! With the first trimester over and well into my second, I can say I am much more energetic and healthy. I am sure some of you may have questions just about pregnancy in general, so ask away! But the one advice I will give is when you find out you are pregnant, as it progresses, KINDLY let your significant other, boyfriend, spouse etc. know what you are going through, and what you would like/want/need from them. You’re creating a human, so you deserve the extra attention, but it doesn’t mean you have to be a monster! With that said, ask me anything you would like to know (within reason, eh?)!