When I was pregnant with Lea I remember that the first trimester was by far the hardest one for me, and I was looking high and low for stories about other women’s experiences from these first few weeks. But as most people don’t announce their pregnancies until the second trimester, it’s hard to find much about the first trimester. This is why I wanted to make sure I included the first trimester in my story. So here we go. Prepare your heart, because this will be a long one!
Weeks 1 – 6
I found out that I was pregnant in week 3. However, when I went to the doctor the first time she measured the baby and put me back about 5 days. So technically it must have been in the very first days of week 3. I don’t know how that is possible.. Anyways, I found out early.
I remember that one of my first thoughts was, “oh I better start cooking and stock up on prepared meals as I won’t be able to cook for months”. This was all based on how sick I was in my first pregnancy. However, it was just a couple days later that I started to feel weird about the fact that I had felt no morning sickness. And this was before I should have even really started to feel it. But I just had a feeling I guess..
.. Because. I never really got any morning sickness. The weeks went on, and I was more and more convinced that this could NOT be real as I was feeling just fine.
In my previous pregnancy I struggled a LOT with anxiety. I had a lot of anxiety since I was bleeding every few weeks throughout the whole pregnancy, and I had a miscarriage right before that pregnancy. This time I did expect some bleeding as well, and I remember telling Andy to let me know if he noticed that I started being too anxious – so that I could act on it early. No matter how prepared I was for bleeding to occur, it turned out it still triggered my anxiety when it happened. I did start bleeding like a week after I found out that I was pregnant, and I was just as anxious as the last pregnancy. Almost even more so this time, as I had no obvious pregnancy symptoms like morning sickness to comfort my anxiety.
I’ve been intentionally writing a pregnancy journal this time, to be able to go back and see what was going on in my mind at each stage. And as I went back to this time, I found these lines :
‘I hate that my past miscarriage has robbed me of my ability to feel happy about a pregnancy. I cannot start to believe a pregnancy will last until I see a heartbeat. And I can’t get myself to look forward to having a baby until I feel it’s “safe”.
I think of people who celebrate as soon as they get a positive pregnancy test. I can not do that. I get happy but I also get filled with doubt and anxiety.
It’s unfair. I want to be happy. And I want to feel hopeful.”
At 6 weeks I had a first appointment at the doctors because I wanted them to check if I was in fact pregnant. The doctor did say that I measured about 5 days behind, but we saw a heartbeat and everything looked normal at that point. This gave me a bit of relief as the miscarriage I experienced a couple years earlier had happened before it even got a heartbeat. A small victory on the long road ahead!
Weeks 7-9
Three days after the 6 week appointment where I saw the heartbeat, I started to bleed again. Of course. At that moment I just knew that the 2.5 weeks until the next appointment would be really rough on my mind. And it really was.
I tried to soothe myself with the constant reminder that I was bleeding when pregnant with Lea and everything was fine. But it didn’t really convince me. Some days I felt better than others, and the good days where usually when I was able to remember that even if the worst were to happen, everything would be alright. I knew that all miscarriages happen for a reason, and those pregnancies would not lead to healthy babies – which is all we really want. But my main struggle was NOT KNOWING. I hate not knowing.
A few lines from my pregnancy journal from this phase :
‘I read it so beautifully, from someone who was pregnant after a miscarriage. ‘This pregnancy is a dance on the fine line between fear and joy.’ It is so very true. And the fear of feeling joy. Fear of things not going well, and joy of experiencing this again. It just hurts me that fear has the upper hand.’
Sometime during these weeks I had 3 days of morning sickness. But it went away as suddenly as it had appeared. This really messed with my mind. When I started to feel sick I felt a lot of comfort in the fact that I had some symptoms, but as it disappeared – of course I started worrying.
If you haven’t figured this out by now, my mind is hard at work with no rest when I’m pregnant. And this is the absolute HARDEST part about being pregnant for me.
Time somehow went by even though it felt like it stood absolutely still. And at 9 weeks to the day, I had my second doctor’s appointment. I was SO nervous. I saw the same doctor as the previous appointment and she was happy to be able to follow up with me. We did the ultrasound right away and while my heart was beating out of my chest, she checked on the baby. She turned the screen so that I could see, and right away I thought ‘shit, there’s no baby there..’. But within seconds she said “yep, everything looks great! See there’s the heartbeat”. And all that left my mouth was “really!?”.
That very SECOND I felt like the weight of the world on my shoulders just dropped and I could stand up a little taller again.
Weeks 10 – 13
By now I had already been starting to grow out of my jeans. I was and still am shocked by how fast my waist is growing this time. Last time I remember that I started wearing maternity leggings early, but that was mainly because my stomach was so achy. This time I was literally growing out of them. I had to use an elastic band to be able to wear my jeans. I asked Andy when it’s OK to start wearing Maternity clothes, and he said ‘now, because you don’t fit in those pants anymore’. I felt like I had to hide my stomach until we announced this pregnancy, otherwise it would be self announced, lol. So I was walking around in Andy’s oversize t’shirts and big sweaters.
I didn’t want to announce anything until after the nuchal translucency scan, which was scheduled for when I would be 13 weeks. I was still feeling anxious about losing this baby, since I was bleeding literally all the time. I didn’t feel too worried when seeing the blood anymore, but everything just felt very uncertain because of it. I was hoping that after that scan I would be able to start embracing this pregnancy.
I don’t know how many times I googled and read that after seeing the heartbeat at 8 weeks, the risk of miscarrying is around 3%. Meaning that the chance of having a baby is BIG. This means that most likely I will have this baby. It’s just like my brain sees the 3% and translates it to a 50% chance. And I’m fully aware that it’s absolute nonsense.
As the days and weeks went by, I kept spotting and getting more and more anxious by the day. One evening at 12 weeks, I went to the bathroom, and there was a gush of blood. Nothing like the spotting I had been seeing for the last 4 weeks. So I freaked out and told Andy that I’m going to the ER. With the increasing anxiety from 4 weeks of constant spotting I just absolutely freaked out by this.
I was in the ER for over 6 hours that night as they were super busy. I had some cramping as well and things just did not feel good. When I finally got in, they did an ultrasound. The tech was not allowed to tell me the results, but she was so sweet and turned the screen toward me at the end so that I could see the heartbeat of the baby. The ultrasound took a very long time because the baby was moving so much, so she wanted me to not worry that anything was wrong because of how long it took. That was probably the sweetest thing anyone could have done to me at that moment. That lady knew what I needed.
After seeing that the baby was doing well after all this bleeding, much of my anxiety calmed down. The last few days until the nuchal translucency scan were so much easier on my mind than the weeks before. Without constantly worrying about whether or not the baby was ok I was able to enjoy life, almost like normal, again.
The day of the nuchal translucency scan finally arrived. Andy and Lea came with me to the appointment. Andy really wanted to come and Lea didn’t have school, so she got to come along as well. She was so cute and fascinated. We got a little video when she kept saying “I see the doctor, I see baby brother over there!”, pointing to the ultrasound screen. Everything looked good and it was SUCH a relief.
We went to the mall immediately after this appointment. I wanted to buy the baby a first outfit, to sort of tell myself that this is the point where I am going to embrace this pregnancy and start believing that it will go well. This is the point where it all has to shift!
