First Trimester Summary

Since I'm beginning this blog basically at the beginning of my second trimester, I'll just summarize quickly what's happened so far...

Since we chart, we knew there was a huge chance we'd conceived. I took a home pregnancy test on the day before Good Friday in April, 8 days past ovulation, and it was negative. I was pretty sure it would be, that's usually too early to tell! Easter Monday I took another test, and this one was positive! DH (dear husband) and I couldn't believe it! We knew it had probably happened, but there's something very real about seeing the positive sign on a test instead of the negative we'd gotten before. That vertical line changed our lives!

The next big step was to make an appointment with our doctor. We went on May 11, several weeks later, and she did an internal sonogram and WOW. That was 50 times more real than a positive home test! As the doctor pointed out the blinking dot on the screen that was maybe the size of the tip of a pencil, we realized that was the heart pumping, already. At about 4 and 1/2 weeks past conception. The heart was beating. (Gosh and who in their right mind calls this baby a blob of tissue??? Another story...) She changed my due date (since she *incorrectly* estimated Dec. 15 according to the LMP rule) to December 26, a little closer to the date I calculated as December 29. So we tell people we're due right after Christmas! A Christmas baby!

Other odds and ends:
1. I've thrown up once, and only once. My sincere apologies go out to the poor witnesses, my DH, dad, and brother. Those poor guys.

2. I've had major food aversions- basically all food in general has been so incredibly disgusting. DH did the majority of cooking for several weeks, and for that I love him!

3. Fatigue is something real, I always thought it was just laziness. But when you fall asleep after putting your head on your desk for 3 seconds, you know you're pregnant.

4. Acne during pregnancy is *different* from acne during puberty. For me, it's been those painful, under-the-skin mountains that won't pop but hurt like heck.

5. It's scary to tell some people who you think might not be so happy for you that you're pregnant. But in the end, your excitement is contagious and people really *do* care! And people don't wait to start offering you their opinions about maternity clothes and breastfeeding and carseats and excercise and alcohol, they don't wait one minute!

6. Pregnancy has strengthened this relationship between husband and wife. We're going somewhere together that we've never been before, and it's incredibly exciting!

7. Breath Right nose strips are worth the money.

8. A community of support is very important- you need someone whom to ask random questions and to hear similar experiences about pregnancy and its trappings.

9. Grandparents rock!

10. Prenatal vitamins suck and praying is difficult when you're exhausted, but both are extremely important to the development of your baby. :-)