10 weeks!

I passed the 10 week milestone yesterday.  For a comedic rendering of this week, see this blog. This week I've discovered some interesting things happening to my body.  The upper part of my abdomen has gotten hard (think abs of steel!) and rounded out a bit.  I was wondering why I'm looking pregnant already when baby is only the size of a kumquat, but then I read that by week 10 your uterus is about the size of a large grapefruit.  It shoves all your internal organs upwards to make room for baby.  So...hard abdomen=stomach being pushed into my ribs.  Lovely.

I also have strange 'indents' happening on the lower part of my belly.  It's almost like a vertical muffin top.  So weird.  And even with all of this, I've only gained 2 pounds.  Wahoo!  Although, overweight women such as myself are only supposed to gain 11-20 pounds the entire pregnancy (according to an online source).  Although I'll wait to talk to my OB to see what she says about that.

Another interesting thing related to weight gain is how people always say "you're eating for two now!".  It's actually false.  According to this article, you're eating for about 1.2 people.  Think of how small a baby is compared to you!  They don't need nearly as many calories.  It says that in the first trimester, you need NO additional calories to your diet.  You may feel hungrier, but you need to choose protein and fiber-rich foods to keep you feeling full (and for other reasons...).  In the second trimester, you're only supposed to add 300 calories a day and by the third trimester, add 450 calories/day.  That's about how many calories are in 4 chicken nuggets and a small fries at McDonald's.  Crazy!

So the pooch/belly may be here, but most of that is compressed innards and bloat.  Think about THAT the next time you ask to touch a pregnant lady's belly!  Haha!

How it All Began

Welcome to our blog!  We decided that we would create a pregnancy blog to let our friends and family keep track of how things are going for us.  In case you haven't heard, we're having a baby!  I'm officially 8 1/2 weeks along, and we're due sometime around the 9th of January 2014.

If you want some background information on Jon and I, please refer to this post from my other blog.  We met, we became friends, we dated, we fell in love, we got engaged, we got married, and now we're having a baby.  That pretty much sums it up.

Now, the deeper story.  8 months married may seem to some an early time to get pregnant, but here's how things went for us.  Back before we got married, I knew that I would have a contract for work for a year and we decided it would be best for me to go on birth control.  This was a little over a year ago.  I was on the pill for a month.  That was possibly one of the worst months of my life.  I was in pain every single day, my acne exploded, and I was severely depressed.  I had never felt so awful in my life.  So, Jon and I went to the temple and asked the Lord if this was really what was right for us.  The answer we got was to trust in the Lord's timing and that He would help us have children when the time was right, whenever that may be.  We just needed to trust Him and His timeline for us.

That was enough for us.  I stopped taking the pill and we decided to use other methods of birth control once we got married.  Well, 6 months came and went, and in January I had a vivid dream about being a mother.  It really stuck with me and I discussed it with Jon.  He wasn't quite on the same page yet, so we waited.  Two months later he was ready to start trying.  Around that time, I also came across this article, which really changed my perspective on motherhood as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  It struck me really hard and solidified in my mind that I needed to be a mother.

I always thought that testing to see when you're ovulating, counting the days, and checking your basal temperature etc. took all the romance out of things, so we decided to just let things happen and we'd get pregnant when the Lord's time was right.  Little did we know that the time would be right a little over a month after we started trying.

On May 9th I had been feeling funny all day.  I was tired and lethargic, even after I had napped.  So I wasn't sure what was wrong.  Then a little voice in my head said "maybe you're pregnant".  I figured there was no harm in taking a test, so I did.  And it was positive.  I started reeling!  How could it be?!  It happened so fast!  But 5 days and 6 positive pregnancy tests later, it finally started to sink in.

I just want to say that I feel great.  I'm able to manage my fatigue, I have zero morning sickness/queasiness, and my only real symptoms are some achy breasts and pelvis.  I feel healthy, and happy, and more excited about this than I've been about anything in a long time.  Jon is over the moon.  His current refrain is "I just want to meet our kid!".  We are happy to be parents and look forward to the future!