Surprise! Finding out we’re PREGNANT!

For as long as I can remember I have always wanted to be a mom. However, one thing I failed to think about is *when* in life I would actually want to start a family. I thought I would be an established adult (whatever TF that means) before having children and I knew I wanted to be married. Besides that I had never really given it more thought. It wasn’t until I met my husband that the idea of having my own kids became a real possibility for me. He told me 2 weeks into knowing me that he was 100% sure I was going to have his kids one day and I thought he was crazy…we weren’t even officially dating and he was already talking about children? yeah, sure. Welpppp. Here we are, 5 years later and I’m typing this while watching our 3 month old take his first nap of the day. Funny how life works.

TRIGGER WARNING: I want to take a moment to acknowledge that my pregnancy experience is not universal. In fact, 1 in 8 couples (or 12% of married women) will have trouble getting pregnant or sustaining a pregnancy, 7.4 million women (11.9%), will receive infertility services in their lifetime, and 10-20% of all pregnancies will end in miscarriage (2006-2010 National Survey of Family Growth, CDC). This journey is not easy and is completely unique to every person. If you or a loved one is struggling with infertility, understand you are not alone. I encourage you to look into a community and resources (such as RESOLVE) to help support you on your journey to creating a family.

Getting Pregnant: When Damien and I got married in Italy we made a pact to try and make it out of the country ever year (preferably during our anniversary since his birthday is 7 days later). To celebrate our first wedding anniversary, we planned a trip to Barcelona and the island of Mallorca (Read all about our gorgeous trip HERE). We would be spending our anniversary in Barcelona and a week later spending a week in Mallorca for Damiens Birthday. We had talked about kids obviously but were not actively trying to get pregnant. I, however, at the suggestion of my doctor 6 months prior had stopped taking birth control. I have always tracked my period and its been pretty consistent and regular (unless I’m stressed out – then she likes to wait to stress me out more than pop up like GOTCHA as if its some sort of sick joke…). I wasn’t as mindful, however, to when I was ovulating. I was happy because I knew my period would end a day or two before we left for our trip, not thinking about the fact that I would be ovulating during not only our anniversary but also my husbands birthday. The perfect storm. I had always joked about how glam it would be to say that I got pregnant in another country and blah, blah, blah…I was joking but apparently the jokes on me. I literally spoke it into existence. Fast forward to a month later…

Finding out: I have always had IBS- which is a fancy way of saying that I feel sick sometimes and want to Vom.com but my doctor has never actually been able to pinpoint why. When I have a really bad IBS episode, I sometimes get nauseous and dry heave (but won’t actually throw up). Overall I just feel a bit off. I woke up one morning (July 9th 2019 to be exact) and felt off and just assumed I was having my typical IBS bout. I did all my usual tricks to calm my stomach and curb my nausea but nothing worked. Without warning I remember that I had the overwhelming sensation to throw up. I ran to the bathroom and sat on the floor puking. I thought to myself “well this is unusual” and decided I should probably take a test just to start my typical process of ruling everything out. I told my husband and he ran downstairs to the market to grab me a test. To be completely honest, I didn’t think I was pregnant. I just wanted to take a test to confirm that, as usual, I was right and my period was only late because I kept wondering/stressing about where it was… Damien gave me the test and hopped in the shower. I kept puking for a while until he got out. I decided to go ahead and take the test cause NBD, right? laughing at myself as I write this cause damn was I in for a surprise. I took the test and that second line popped up in SECONDS – I stood there shook AF to say the least. I screamed and told Damien to look at it immediately cause I thought maybe I was a little crazy…His response? “Don’t worry babe, it’s only been like 30 seconds, it says you should wait 2-3 minutes”…. THATS NOT HOW THIS WORKS BRUH. I started crying. I freaked out. I told Damien that the line usually doesn’t come up that fast and the 2-3 minutes was to wait to see if a line would show up in the first place. We already had a line. That shit wasn’t about to just disappear. SHOOKETH. Since we had taken tests before and nothing had ever come of it except peace of mind, Damien had only bought one test. He assured me it may have just been a fluke…A false positive.

We should test again just to be sure, but right then we didn’t have time. He had a scheduled workout to get to and I went along cause I wasn’t about to just sit there at home alone and torture myself with all the possibilities that could now be. I dropped him off at his workout and went to CVS. I got 2 boxes of digital tests cause ain’t nobody got time to be interpreting these types of life changing results. My intention was to take them when I got home with Damien but as soon as the cashier handed me the three foot long receipt I asked where their bathroom was. I couldn’t wait. I wanted to know what was happening to me. I went in and took all four tests. One time, many years prior, I used the restroom in CVS with my mom and she remarked on how she felt sad for whatever girl had come in and throw away her positive pregnancy test away in the trash (it was face up right on the top). She said she felt bad that anyone would have to be alone, finding out their results, and feeling ashamed enough to throw their test away. How she wished she could be there for that girl. WELP, here I was doing the exact same thing except my situation didn’t feel sad at all. This was a do what you got to do type of moment. I didn’t need anyone to hold my hand or be there for me, I needed info and I needed it NOW. I took all the test one after the other…they all blinked in random succession and I wrapped them in a paper towel, shoved them back into one of the boxes, and walked to do the rest of my 3 minutes in my car. I climbed in the driver seat and took a second to breathe. This was gonna give me clear as day definite results. I gave myself a pause to collect my wits then pulled the used tests from the box. All of them had finished blinking, and all of them said the same thing, PREGNANT.

WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. F*CK.

All the feels. All the emotions. All the thoughts.
I was immediately flooded by my senses. and now I had to tell my husband.

When I awoke from my initial state of shock, I decided to go to target to buy a onesie for Damien. If I was gonna tell him, I was at least gonna make it cute. I went in to the baby section and was overcome with the strangest mix of emotions. Fear, excitement, confusion. There was so much stuff and I didn’t know what half of it was even for. I tried to focus on just a cute onesie and a card. I got my stuff and was in and out as quickly as possible. I don’t think i had really fully processed what was happening. After Damiens Workout I picked him up and gave his new daddy present. He was overjoyed. I have never seen my husband as relaxed and excited as he was that day. Me on the other hand, I was a bundle of anxiousness. What happens next? Who do we tell? what do we do? Its one thing to take a test and tell your partner, it another to have it confirmed and come up with a game plan. We told only one other couple (because they had a kid so obvi they would know the deal) and they referred us to a pregnancy clinic. I didn’t realize before that even if you have a pregnancy test confirm you are pregnant there are still chances the pregnancy may not be viable. My friend explained to me what would happen and that I should go in as soon as possible to get information on my next course of action and to confirm my pregnancy. I was new to San Diego so I didn’t have a standing OBGYN otherwise I probably would have just made and appointment and gone there. This was some of the best advice tho. So, If you don’t have a regular OBGYN (you should get one) but you are in need of pregnancy help- the clinic was awesome. It was clean, the staff were super friendly and informative, it cost me absolutely nothing, and they did a urinalysis and ultrasound to confirm my pregnancy was viable. The staff were really excited that Damien had come along with me because they said most of their patients were single mothers so it was refreshing to have a dad there that was so excited to be a part of the process. I was EXACTLY 6 weeks to the day and that was the absolute earliest they will attempt to even do an ultrasound to confirm the pregnancy. When they took us back to do our ultrasound I didn’t know what to expect. I laid there and they started the ultrasound and the tech explained that we were looking for what she called “a diamond ring”. She explained how if this was a viable pregnancy we should see a yolk sac that would look like a ring and a tiny white spot – the diamond- that would be the baby. so she said there was a good chance we wouldn’t see a heartbeat yet because it may be hard to detect and if so I would need a follow up appointment in 2 weeks to try again. She moved around to try and find a diamond and finally I saw it. The ring was bright white and there was a little white cluster near one of the edges. It was flickering. “oh wow” she said, “look at that, baby has a heartbeat, congrats you guys everything looks perfect”. I sobbed. I didn’t realize up until then I had been emotionally holding my breath. I had been holding myself back from getting to excited or feeling too deeply in the off chance that all of this would be ripped away from me. I had been in self preservation mode and didn’t even realize it. That flicker, though, that tiny flicker, it broke me. I felt it all. I let go. I broke down in the most beautiful way. That flicker. That was my baby. This was real. Her voice brought me back to reality, “We’ve measure the heart rate, everything looks great, your timing is amazing cause according to the BPM the heart started beating in the last couple days. Any earlier and we wouldn’t have been able to see it”. That little flicker. It sang to me. It was meant for me. It started beating at exactly the right time so that mama could see it. That little flicker.

I left feeling like life was surreal. Nothing could touch the high I had experienced in that room. I ran my fingers of the ultrasound print outs over and over. Mesmerized. This was happening. that sweet little flicker. This was real.

What To Do: If you find yourself pregnant and don’t know where to start in your journey here is my advice:
1. Stay calm – no matter what is going on in life or what situation you are in everything will work itself out. Panicking and stressing doesn’t help.
2. Go to a free clinic or your OBGYN to confirm your pregnancy before telling people – if you don’t want to potentially go back and tell people about a loss, then wait to have it confirmed. there was a girl I knew who told EVERYONE she was pregnant as soon as she go the test. She went to the OB a couple weeks later and they confirmed it was an ectopic pregnancy. It wasn’t viable and she was going to miscarry. The pain of having people asking her about her baby and wanting to send her gifts and what not was a lot. She had to grieve her baby publicly and it made it way more painful for her. If being open about loss is not something you would be comfortable with then wait until after the first trimester (when miscarriage statistics drop dramatically) before you go around parading your positive pee sticks on social media.
3. Start taking a prenatal immediately. Shit, take a prenatal if you are even thinking about getting pregnant. I had my baby 3 months ago and I still take prenatal vitamins. They’re like magic. Just take them. If you can’t afford them, the clinic will give you a bottle for free.
4. Cut the toxic shit from your life as soon as you can. Just do it. Don’t try to rationalize, don’t try to reason, theres no “just 3 more times then I’m done” – thats a slippery slope. It’s not about you anymore. Cut it out as quick as you can.
5. CELEBRATE. Congrats! This is a huge milestone in life. You should celebrate it and soak in every moment possible. It goes by so fast (and soooo slow) so learn to appreciate where you are at and celebrate what is to come.