surprise! we’re pregnant – 20 week update

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Pregnancy may feel less like excitement and more like anxiousness, especially after a miscarriage. During my first pregnancy, I shared the news with everyone because it was new and we knew nothing! And you know what? I’m happy that we told our friends and family “early” because I would not want to go through the heartbreak of a miscarriage without the support of my people. The experience can already feel lonely, no need to isolate yourself even more so by keeping your struggle a secret. There is no shame and no fault, therefore there should be no burden. Please know, if you are reading this and have experienced the same loss, trust that your baby is coming. If there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s to trust the timing of life.

We waited a few months to try again, since I wasn’t emotionally ready (what if I miscarried again?) and Race started a new job that was taking us to a new city and we were buying our first house. Well, we got pregnant the first month post-move! I honestly was in shock and maybe in denial, too. I figured it’d take us at least until September to get pregnant again… But God’s got his own plan for us!

So, surprise! We are pregnant! The baby is due at the beginning of April, my little Aries, like his/her father.

The first trimester was hard, not from vomiting—thank God I only puked a handful of times—but from FATIGUE. Like I will admit, I get a lazy bone every now and then, but holy help me, it was hard to even lift my body out of bed to go to the bathroom most mornings. And of course, coffee is no help because technically, it is not recommended during pregnancy. One big cup or two small cups is fine, but when your body is that exhausted, you’re kinda past the point of helping it. So I’d struggle along for half the day, then once 5 pm rolled around, it was game over for me. If I didn’t go to sleep early with the grandmas, I got physically ill from being overly tired.

Side note: morning sickness is not a real thing. It’s more like all-day sickness. It comes and goes whenever it pleases, morning or evening, day or night.

One thing that was especially hard for me was being alone during the first trimester. Since we moved from Richmond to Savannah, we didn’t tell anyone except family and maybe a few friends because we weren’t around people. The move, along with the pandemic, made the beginning of the pregnancy strange to me. It was like we were holding a secret not because it was a fun game, but because we weren’t really around anyone, so it was easier to be sick and tired without needing to explain myself. Or maybe I was just too sick and tired to bother! Plus, due to the pandemic, Race was not allowed to join me for the first appointment, which was NOT easy for an emotional pregnant woman to be okay with. It was another addition to the sense of feeling alone.

Luckily, the restrictions at the hospital changed, and Race was permitted to the 13 week appointment for the end of the first trimester! We got lucky, too, that there was a resident-in-training for the ultrasound room, so we got an extra 20 minutes watching our nugget of a baby move around on the big screen.

So far, the second trimester has been easier than the first in every way, but now my body, which started changing the moment we found out that I’m pregnant, is completely different. I can no longer move the way I used to, I have to be careful not to get up too fast, I need to modify every yoga pose, and I find myself sleeping on my back every night when I know I’m supposed to be sleeping on my side. Plus, I’ve started to get hot flashes that make me sweat like a football player and feel like I’m going to pass out in the middle of Target…

Other than getting comfortable being uncomfortable, the last two months have been a nice change. I still have waves of doubt and anxiety, but what a relief it was for us to know that the baby is healthy and growing. The anatomy scan that’s typically done around 20 weeks was a welcome reassurance that I’m not experiencing all the crazy symptoms for nothing.

If baby is happy, then so am I.

According to the baby book (aka What to Expect When You’re Expecting—check with your insurance because mine offered to send me a free copy but I had already bought it, so they sent me the next book—What to Expect the First Year), this week baby is the size of a sweet potato. At the anatomy ultrasound, baby is now looking way less like a blob and way more like a human-alien, a perfect tiny thing with ten fingers and ten toes. The heart rate was measuring at 150 bpm in the morning and 159 bpm in the afternoon!

It’s not lost on me how lucky we are that my pregnancy has been fairly easy and that baby is as healthy as can be. It truly is a miracle to grow life, and even with the hormones, fatigue, nausea, and discomfort, it is a blessing.

P.S. Race and I are not finding out the gender! We want it to be a surprise! How many times in life are you truly surprised with such a blessing? We’re taking votes now — boy or girl?!