In case you missed my first pregnancy announcement post, Ryan and I are expecting our first baby in January of next year! Click here to check it out.
I hosted a Q&A on my Instagram stories Monday and have been so many questions about my pregnancy and about Baby. I included all of those responses here as well as other questions I received in my DM’s and in person! If you have more questions, leave them in the comments below and I will answer those.
Q: Were you trying to get pregnant or was this baby a surprise?
A: YES, Baby was planned! I am very, very thankful and fortunate that we did not have to try for long. Infertility has been the biggest fear of mine, and my heart goes out to everyone facing it.
Q: When did you find out you were pregnant?
A: I stopped taking my hormonal birth control pills two months before my wedding, around the middle/end of March. I felt like my anxiety kept getting worse and thought it could be from being on birth control so long. Also, Ryan and I knew we wanted to start trying to conceive soon anyway, so I decided to just stop taking the birth control. I immediately started taking prenatal vitamins and scheduled my annual check up with my primary care doctor (the earliest I could get in was two days before my wedding) and a pre conception visit with my OBGYN. I wanted to get in ASAP to make sure all my lab work looked okay and I was doing everything I needed to before we really started trying.
Right after I stopped taking the pill, I got what I call my “birth control period” – essentially, my period while on birth control. My birth control periods were so different than my periods before birth control – lighter, with essentially no other symptoms. Initially I was not tracking my ovulation or anything, and Ryan and I were so busy with wedding planning we were not focused on TTC. About one month later, on April 14th, I got what I thought was my “normal period.” I bled for 4 days, had all normal period symptoms like sore breasts, moodiness, etc. When the bleeding stopped so did the symptoms. So naturally I thought I got my period.
This is around the time I had even worse baby fever and was like, I want a baby, NOW. I downloaded three fertility apps to track my periods and ovulation. However, even thought I had no reason to believe I would struggle with infertility, the thought still scared me and I worried it could end up taking me months or years to conceive. Even with our wedding and honeymoon in the near future, I felt like I was ready. I told myself that if I were to get pregnant before the wedding, I would be happy because it would mean I did not struggle to get pregnant.
According to the fertility apps, my fertile window was the last week of April with April 30th being my peak ovulation day, so I thought there was a possibility this would be the day.
Then the next month (May) comes around. Around May 12th I notice that my breasts are sore, and according to the fertility apps my period should be coming on the 14th. I knew this symptom either meant my period was coming within the next two days or I was pregnant. Then when my period didn’t come I knew I was pregnant. I was SURE I got pregnant on April 30th since that was our peak ovulation day according to all the apps, which would put me at 2 weeks. I told Ryan. I never took an at home pregnancy test since I knew I had my Dr. appt on the 18th, two days before my wedding. I figured I would use get my blood drawn when I went to the appt. I got the results back at home alter that day and my doctor called me the next day to congratulate me. The HCG (pregnancy hormone) level even corresponded with what I thought was my gestational age.
It’s funny because it actually turns out I was completely wrong about the gestation, which I’ll get into in the next question!
Q: How far along were you when you got your ultrasounds?
A: When I went to my first OBGYN appt, my Dr. told me he had an abdominal ultrasound machine in his office but he wasn’t sure how much we would be able to see since it sounded like I was still pretty early. He still decided to try it anyway, just to be nice, and Baby looked BIG for 9 weeks. We both agreed I might be further along, lol! He wrote for me to get a vaginal ultrasound to confirm gestation, which I couldn’t get until a week later. It turns out I was 2.5 weeks further along that I thought I was, which would put my date of conception at April 12th, two days before what I thought was my last period. I guess looking back it was just implantation bleeding with pregnancy symptoms, but I thought it was weird they went away when the bleeding stopped. However I know everyone’s body is different and I feel like anything can happen. I definitely trusted the ultrasound though because Baby looked even bigger and I know that the ultrasounds are very accurate.
Q: how did you tell Ryan?
A: Ryan and I found out at the same time that I was pregnant. I told him ahead of time that I was going to get tested at my doctor’s appointment. My appointment was in the morning and it took a few hours for the results of the bloodwork to come back. It was probably the longest couple hours of my life! Luckily maybe 30 minutes after Ryan came home, I saw I had a new test result on the myChart app and we opened it together. I was so certain I was pregnant so I wasn’t surprised, but I was still super excited! I would have been really confused if it came back negative. I think Ryan was in shock for a bit, even thought I warned him, haha!
Q: Will you find out the gender?
A: Yes! We actually know the gender already. (Don’t worry – I will share soon!) I knew even before I got pregnant that I would want to know everything – the gender ASAP and all the genetic tests.
Q: will you do a gender reveal?
A: Ryan was totally against any kind of gender reveal, and I wasn’t thrilled about it either to be honest. I always wanted to be the first person to find out the gender of my own baby. Ryan wanted to know before everyone else too. The only gender reveal I would have considered doing would be if the two of us found out first and then hosted a party for our family and friends to find out together. Maybe next time!
Q: What (gender) do you think baby is?
A: I always told people if I HAD to guess, I would say girl. But I was not completely confident because I didn’t want to go weeks thinking for sure it was one gender and then find out it’s the opposite and be disappointed in myself I was wrong about my own child LOL! So I tried picturing myself with both and I felt happy thinking it could be either.
Q: do you want a boy or girl? If you could choose the gender what would you choose?
A: I feel like part of the experience is not being able to choose the gender of your children and I like that. Even if we had done IVF or had a surrogate – I know sometimes you CAN choose the gender – I probably still would have chosen to leave it to the universe to make that decision. I honestly would be super happy with either gender and would love to experience both!
Ryan really wants a boy, but I told him he has to accept the fact that it may be a girl, haha.
Q: How many kids do you want?
A: Ryan wants 4-5… I say let’s have 1 and re-evaluate, lol. But I think ideally, depending on finances and the health of our child or children, I would say 4.
Q: do you have names picked out and will you be sharing the name before baby is born?
A: We have a lot of girl names picked out, but can’t agree on even one boy name. When we finalize the name, we plan on keeping it between the two of us until Baby is born. I have always wanted to do it this way! I think it gives us something extra special to share together while Baby is still inside me.
Q: How are you feeling?
A: I am definitely feeling pregnant, haha! The two biggest symptoms I have are exhaustion and nausea/vomiting. When I get up early in the morning it’s always worse, especially when I worked day shift for a month. Now that I am back on nights and entering the second trimester I am feeling a little better. I’ll share a first trimester recap with all my symptoms etc in my next pregnancy blog post!
Q: did you get anything from the Nordstrom sale for baby?
A: Surprisingly, no. I plan on waiting until after our baby shower, whenever that may be, to buy everything else for Baby. When the NSale started, I didn’t know the gender yet either and was still early in my pregnancy. Even with the sale prices Nordstrom is still outrageously expensive for baby items so I probably won’t be doing a ton of shopping at Nordstrom for Baby.
Q: Are you guys going to stay in your current apartment?
A: We definitely cannot stay in our current apartment for long after Baby is here. We have a tiny one bedroom apartment in the city. Our lease ends Dec 30th and I am due January 17th. Our plan was always to buy a house before our lease ends, so our plans for our living situation rally have not changed. I’ll keep you guys updated on the moving process!
Q: was this a honeymoon baby?
A: I was two months pregnant on our honeymoon, so not quite! Haha.
Q: did you fake drink at your wedding?
A: Yes, I tried at least for a little bit. I drank two Shirley temples and told people they were dirty Shirleys, but then everyone was yelling at me for drinking “red juice” and that I was going to get it on my dress so then I just drank water the rest of the night.
Q: DO you want all your kids close together?
A: Ideally yes, I would love to have them all almost back to back. But obviously we haven’t even had one yet so we will see!
Q: do you want to be a SAHM? Or continue working as a nurse and put the baby in daycare?
A: I don’t ever see myself not being a nurse! If I could work 2 nights/week instead of 3 that would be ideal because I could stay up with the baby during the day and we wouldn’t have to pay for daycare. Daycare is so expensive and I would need a lot of help if I continued full time. I would prefer to stay at home as much as possible while still doing some nights at the hospital. My mom lives in FL but could come stay with us the first month or so I go back to work so I would try to stay full time as long as possible in the beginning. I’m trying to get Ryan on board with my plan so we will see. I’m thinking if I can supplement my income at home, whether it’s from my blog or another job I may try that but we will see!
Q: how does maternity leave work in the US?
A: This varies, but I think generally 8-12 weeks. I have to take short term disability.
Q: what do you do at the hospital?
Q: How has the heart rate been?
A: I have only gotten it checked once at my ultrasound appt but it was 160.
Q: did you not drink on your honeymoon?
A: Nope! I found out I was pregnant before I went on our honeymoon so I didn’t drink.
Q: how did you tell your mom?
A: My mom lives in FL, so I ended up just telling her over the phone because I didn’t want to wait! I couldn’t plan a visit because I wasn’t sure when I would get the ultrasound or the genetic testing and wanted to stay local to do those things. I did however make a cute card for Ryan’s mom!
going forward
I am SO EXCITED for this new adventure and I will be sure to take you all along!
