Week 5 was a journey. It's interesting to me that we prayed so long and hard for a pregnancy, and then the Lord blew us away by showing us just how good He really is, and then there's this baby. And your life has changed instantly, and this life is growing rapidly inside of you, changing everything you thought you knew and cherished. Except you don't really think about that on the day to day basis. You find yourself thinking about everything that could go wrong, or stress about the aches and pulls going on inside of you, or some days I just laid in the bed, because I knew that as soon as I got up, the bottom would cave, and this dream come true would come crashing down. To all of my friends that are beginning or are preparing for your first child (because there is OBVIOUSLY something in the water right now,) you're not crazy. I'm typically pretty "glass half full," but the first few weeks of pregnancy are the worst. I cried and cried and prepared for the bitter end, and it was just hormones. Your body is truly not your own during those first few months, and you're really just there to house the life growing inside of you. I can look back and see that now, but in that moment, all I could fathom was that something couldn't be right, because I felt so horrible, all of the time. Prepare yourself. It's not fun.
Week 6 was Thanksgiving week. This baby has been fairly kind to me when it comes to the whole morning sickness bit. I battled nausea pretty frequently, but as for my entrails becoming my extrails, it was not a common event. It mostly came around in the evenings when I got comfortable in the bed, and it usually only stuck around for about 30 minutes. I am blessed and thankful for that. My biggest issue with food thus far has been food aversions. I'm not a fan of eating. It's actually been kind of nice, because I've lost a lot of the weight that I needed to before I added an additional forty pounds. Of course, I was a former food addict, so I feel that my body is responding the way it would if I was starving, so I have a few bad days a week, but I anxiously await the day when food is appealing to me again. If someone told me that eating would be a chore instead of a joy while pregnant, I really would have laughed. That's something you never hear about. But it happened to me, eating was the burden of my day, and it really still is most of the time.
Week 7 was a breath of fresh air. I had almost hit my breaking point, I was a ball of emotion, on the verge of bi-polar disorder, and preparing to spend the next 7 months in my bed. Then it was time for our dating ultra-sound.And it took a total of about 4 seconds for that baby to pop up on the screen. And while it looked like a peanut and had no distinguishing features, that baby was ours. The nurse warned us that it might be difficult to find a heartbeat, but our baby is obviously stronger than the average bear, and the sound of a heartbeat that wasn't my own filled the room almost instantly. And in that moment, that very second, the world stopped turning. I was in awe of the Lord, and how creative he is, and how wonderfully blessed we were to hear the heartbeat of this tiny life, created, designed, and knit together inside of me. We sing a song at church called "Made Us Alive," and as the sonogram tech started rambling about what we could expect in the coming weeks, all I could do was think about the lyrics. "God being rich in Mercy, and full of love, has made us alive..." And I began to get EXCITED about this baby. I pictured the enormous eyes it is sure to have, the bone structure I pray it inherits from Cody, and the hands that I'll hold everyday the Lord allows. All 123 beats per minute took our breath away, and we knew that despite my doubts, this baby was here to stay... and that's when things started looking up for me.
Week 8 was a bit of a milestone for me. I don't know what it is, but I stalked the pregnancy forums and apps to make sure that I was "normal." Sometimes this was comforting for me, sometimes it made me nervous, but it passed time and allowed me to get out of my head. Fortunately, one common link in all of the books and forums was that 8 weeks kind of pulled you out of a crucial "risk period." Of course, 14 weeks is still the biggest and most intense milestone, but I was still excited to be out of part of the woods. My big brother blessed us beyond all comprehension and bought us every last bit of our nursery furniture, so while we were overwhelmed, things just kept falling into place, and the excitement over our baby was just about more than we could bear. When our pregnancy began, we both agreed that we would wait to learn the sex of the baby, because we really didn't want to receive all clothes at the shower, and because we thought that it would just be that much cooler at delivery. As things progress, I don't think Cody and I are going to make it. At the present, we call the baby "Duck," and at the moment, I really don't remember why... but as much as we love our Duck, we are excited to call our baby by name. And pray for our baby by name. So, we'll see.
One of my favorite friends told me when all of this started that this would be the shortest and the longest 9 months of my life. I seriously doubted her claim, because the first 2 months DRAG on slower than any metaphor I can use. But looking back now, I see that it does ring true. Some days, I can't remember a time before I got pregnant. Other days, I see how far we've come already, and it makes me excited to meet this tiny Duck growing so rapidly inside of me. The Lord is faithful. Every moment, Every doubt, and Every breath, we breathe in His grace... and I am so thankful to be aware of it.
Tell me that isn't the sweetest, most precious blob you've ever seen. We're a little bit obsessed.
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