The First Trimester

Baby #3 took us about five months to bring forth.  Not a terribly long time by any means, but longer than our other two took to conceive.  I wasn't super anxious every month because we actually started to try a little before I had expected.  We knew we wanted some good spacing between #2 and #3 but not as much as between #1 and #2.  With #2 I decided I wanted a winter baby, and I got Jackson born January 25th.  This time around I decided I wanted a Fall baby to give me variety to my birthday party planning (yes, a super sophisticated system for family planning I know).  I decided that an August or September baby would be perfect for #3.  So I actually didn't really want to get pregnant right away.  And what did I end up with.  An August 12th due date.  Man, I'm a lucky girl.  I have never gotten super anxious to take pregnancy tests.  I really don't like to get my hopes up and I really hate negative tests.  So I basically wait till I am almost positive that the results are going to be, well, positive.  This time around I was just about certain that I knew.  I was growing increasingly irritable and sensitive (i.e. balling during Frozen in the theaters). 

I took this goofy picture of myself right after I found out the good news, but boy can you see the joy all over my face. 

I got the positive test results around five weeks and felt good for another couple weeks until the symptoms hit.  Very different this time around so I already started to get my hopes up that perhaps a girl was a brewing.  Both my first and second pregnancies I had true morning sickness.  Felt sick in the morning, throw up, and feel good for most the rest of the day, besides the major lack of energy.  This time I just had a constant stomach ache for almost a month.  I would throw up occasionally but mostly just felt slightly sick to my stomach or really crampy.  I felt a definite lack of energy but couldn't always sleep very well.  Luckily this all occurred end of December/beginning January where it feels pretty natural to hibernate and be lazy.  Because that's exactly what we did.  Way too much TV was watched.  But we survived.  And honestly I have really great pregnancies (knock on wood) and feel super blessed.  I have one girlfriend who is really struggling with a whole gammut of symptoms and another friend has been on complete bed rest since about twenty-two weeks (my worst nightmare- I couldn't imagine being out of commission for my boys).  I was also lucky to pull through the first trimester about two weeks ahead of schedule and felt great by ten weeks.  We decided to re join a health club we used to belong to and I got back in the gym at that point and haven't turned back (more on working out this time around later).  My first trimester ended with an ultrasound where I was told that "it looks like a girl."  The area was flat but male parts could have still sprouted so the chances it was a girl were about 80%.  I tried not to think about it too much at first but then decided those odds are pretty dang good and began the shopping, nursery planning, and day dreaming about a sweet girl in our home.  Thank goodness my gamble paid off.  You just can't return custom headbands and personalized leggings you know.  : )

Baby's first photo. Love that pretty profile.