An Early Present...

PREGNANT.

Yes, there is a little something in my belly, which is just beyond crazy! I’ve finally made it to 20 weeks and to think I am halfway there boggles my mind. For those of you wondering, no, we aren’t finding out the gender! There are only a few surprises in life (the beetus being one of them...), so we are waiting until the big day -- April 22, 2020. Place your guesses now!

It hasn’t been easy. Pregnancy is tough. It’s such a fragile thing - still is such a fragile thing. And as if pregnancy isn’t fragile enough, with Type 1, I am classified as “high risk”, which only makes me more concerned about everything. There isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not scared, or nervous, or worried that I may hurt it or even lose it...but I’ve decided that now is as good of a time as any to celebrate this very happy and exciting news.

20 weeks pregnant! Mark and I found out back in August, and that’s a story in itself! I had been having beyond horrible stomach pains. Nightly Mark would get up and find me on the bathroom floor crying in pain because it really was just on another level. There were quite a few instances where Mark almost had to take me to the hospital. What I figured was that it was just cramps. The reason I had gone on birth control in the first place was because I had debilitating cramps -- to the point where I would actually go to the ER. I had gone off my birth control in June, so I thought this was just my cramps back in SERIOUS action to spite me since I had been without these demons for, man, 15 years or so? Turns out, it was not cramps...

I was a few days late, and I knew this because I was loosely tracking my cycle. Mark and I had started trying, and as I had just gone off birth control the month prior, I figured my body was just attempting to get back to it’s own “natural” cycle. I had been complaining to my coworker about my pains (who just had a beautiful baby last week!) and she ran to the store to purchase a pregnancy test for me - a set of two, just in case. I said thank you, but never thought I would use them. That night, I went to dinner with one of my best friends, shared a bottle of wine, and when I got home said, “why not just see”, and peed on that damn stick. There was no “waiting 5 minutes” for the results to appear -- it came almost immediately -- two lines = pregnant.

I walked out of the bathroom in shock and said, “Mark, it must be wrong. It must be the wine. I think I peed too much on it” -- never having taken a pregnancy test before, I didn’t really know what to expect! Mark laughed, though also in shock and said, “Let’s do the second one in the morning - just to be sure”. The next morning I woke up, and sure enough, almost immediately yet again those two lines. I guess I’m pregnant.

We were beyond excited, but also a bit cautious. Again, I had been having these serious stomach pains -- what if something was wrong with the baby. I called my OB’s office to ask for a blood test, and I mentioned that I had been having these pains. After hearing this, the nurse put me on hold for a few minutes and when she returned, she stated that I needed to go to the emergency room. Stomach pains, like the ones I was describing, are a sign of an ectopic pregnancy which is life threatening. This is when the egg plants itself outside of the uterus, like in the fallopian tube, where it cannot develop. So even with this possible good pregnancy news, the news that I now had to go to the ER was something I was not expecting. Luckily, after a few hours in the hospital with a bunch of tests and a sonogram, we got the final good news that yes, we were definitely expecting, and the egg (which at that early stage really was just a tiny embryo) was in the right place.

The stomach pains did finally go away, which only led into the new fun of morning sickness, or all day sickness as it should be called. They say that usually ends after the first trimester, but mine decided to linger. I thought it was gone for good last week -- that was until I woke up this morning and had a "happy 20 weeks pregnant" sick session... :) It’s been an emotional roller coaster so far, but as of now, all doctors visits have been all good news, which we only hope continues.

I plan to share more of my Type 1 pregnancy with you all through the second half! I’m looking forward to all that’s to come :)