I think now is as good a time as any to revive my blog after a year and a half break! I used to use this blog as a place to keep our family journal and I was thinking about reviving it to keep track of our new baby's birth story and month milestones anyway. So let's play catch up on this year.
In February we learned that I was pregnant. It was unexpected! At that time I was a month away from running in my first 10k race. I'd been training for it for the last 4 months and was making tons of progress and feeling really great about it! I had even done a practice 10k and got in right at my goal time of an hour and twenty minutes. The race was scheduled for March 14th. After I learned I was pregnant early in February I was determined to continue training for my race.
Early pregnancy is a very hard time for me mentally and emotionally. I tend to have a lot of anxiety due to my miscarriage with my first pregnancy. I also had a few complications in my early pregnancy with Logan. It was extra stress inducing being with a new doctor and a new facility that didn't know my history. I really had to advocate for myself to get the attention, care and support I felt I needed in those first few weeks. I haven't been super impressed with Kaiser throughout this pregnancy but I will say that I really love my primary obgyn. Every conversation and interaction I have had with her has been positive and reassuring. I set up an appointment to meet with her at what I thought was around 7-8 weeks at the beginning of March. She did an ultrasound and we learned that I was actually only 5 weeks along.
This was our first glimpse at our little guy. He was too little to have an obvious heartbeat but we did see very small flutters. The doctor commented that she thought she was seeing the very first indicators of life.
Michael was able to come with me to this very first appointment. We had another one set up for two weeks later to continue tracking progress and make sure things were progressing as they were supposed to. However, as March progressed so did the spread of the Coronovirus. I had to go to my next appointment alone because of all of the precautions being put in place. I also learned at that time that one of the first reported Covid deaths in Sacramento county had just occurred at the Kaiser campus that my doctor is at. It was such a weird, uncertain time! But our little guy was growing and I did get to see and hear the heartbeat at that 7 week appointment.
Covid continued and things started shutting down. Our governor implemented a stay at home order and my race was cancelled. :( It was also around this time that my morning sickness started kicking in. I never throw up. I'm just nauseous all day every day. It's not great. I had no appetite but still had to feed my kids and family, so all around it was a hard situation. Plus the early pregnancy tiredness kicked in.
There was a lot of uncertainty at that time. Our family was lucky and we were very minimally impacted by the stay at home order. Nathan had been attending a science class through his charter school and that was cancelled. He was bummed. He loved his classes. Michael started working from home and we were told to have church services in our home instead of going to church. Since we already home schooled there weren't any major changes. It was weird to not have play dates and not be able to go to the park or take the kids to the store. Nathan's birthday was at the end of March so we had to change his party plans to zoom calls and fun at home.
There was a lot of uncertainty during my first trimester, mostly due to Covid spreading and no one seeming to know how to stop the spread and control it or how long everything was going to be shut down. It was so strange to go to the store and start seeing people wearing masks and putting shields up in the grocery stores to protect the cashiers, to have to wait in long lines just to get into the grocery store, then to see entire shelves empty and not know if I'd be able to find what I needed when I got to the store: eggs, milk, toilet paper, cleaner, etc. Several times I'd leave the store and just cry at how strange and scary the whole thing seemed. Throughout those uncertain times I felt really grateful to be pregnant. It was somehow grounding to know that with all the unknowns about the future there was one thing that I did know-I'd be having a baby in October. It has been a bright spot through a dark time.
Our little guy at 11 weeks! Still growing, good heartbeat! It's always amazing to me how much they grow in those first few weeks!
We told the kids about the baby after my 11 week appointment. Logan had been crying before we told him about an unrelated thing-he is actually very excited! Haha! I don't think they believed us when we told them!
After the first trimester things seemed to calm down a bit. We were still being told to stay home but there was less uncertainty about the baby and he was growing and thriving. I did some genetic testing and the results came back with no concerns. We also learned the gender from those tests. Another boy!
Our "gender reveal" cupcakes! We actually just told the kids and then made the cupcakes after. Haha!
The blue didn't come through as brightly after they were baked! The kids are very excited!
I had another appointment at 16 weeks. The hospitals and doctors offices were all still limiting appointments to phone calls or only the patient allowed in. It was a quick appointment. All still looked and sounded good.
These were some images from my 20 week ultrasound. That was a weird, disappointing appointment. Before Covid Michael would have been able to come with me and we would have gotten to see the baby together and see as they scanned and checked all of his parts, his bones, his organs, etc. I love seeing all of that. This appointment was not like that. Michael wasn't able to come and I was by myself in a dimly lit room where the ultrasound tech turned her screen so I couldn't see it at all. She didn't say a word to me for 45 minutes as she very roughly ran the ultrasound wand around on my belly. I asked several times what she was doing and if I could see but all she'd say was at the end she would show me. She did eventually show me that he is a boy and she showed me his face, hands, legs, feet and profile. I was able to do a Facetime call with Michael and the kids so they could see too. She wasn't able to get a good image of his spine because of how he was laying and he wouldn't move for her to get it. I was very disappointed in that experience overall. But I was able to go back the next day and that ultrasound was much more friendly and I could see her screen. The appointment was much shorter and she showed me a few things again. Everything looked good from the ultrasound.
In June things started opening back up slowly and it looked like we had been able to somewhat flatten the curve with the spread of the virus. I decided at that time to take the kids on a big road trip to visit friends in Utah and to visit grandparents in Colorado. I had finally been feeling better from morning sickness and had gotten some energy back. I'm going to do a separate post from our road trip.
So fast forward to the beginning of July. We were back from our trip but I was exhausted. I hadn't really slept very well while we were gone and there was tons of driving and days full of solo parenting and tons of fun. I got sick. My body was worn down. I was very tired, had a sore throat, and a cough. The cough was going on for about a week and not getting better. And, unfortunately, there were Covid spikes happening again everywhere! I didn't think I had caught the virus but we had been in a lot of different places with a lot of different people and coughing is one of the symptoms. So I talked to my doctor and she wanted me to get tested. So I did. It was terrible. I cried while the doctor was doing the swabs. I was anxious and feeling guilty about possibly exposing so many people, etc. My tests results took 5 days to come back. They were negative! Phew! It really was just a cold! This cold lasted throughout July and I have slowly been feeling better!
So that catches us up to today! I am 30 weeks and feeling okay. I am sleeping a little bit better but feeling very big. The baby has been kicking a lot and hard lately! The kids love feeling him move, although Katelyn will often try to squish him while she's feeling him . . . He seems to be a pretty social kid. Whenever one of the others sit and lay on me he'll swim over to wherever they are and I can feel him pressing up against them. We're all getting very excited to meet him. The kids often pray that he can be born "today".
This picture was taken at 28 weeks. Third Trimester!
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