My First Pregnancy Experience

The Serenity Household recently announced that we will be gaining a new edition! With this being the third edition and not our first rodeo, we thought it could be interesting to look back on our previous pregnancy and labor experiences. A lot has changed in the world since that first baby and how we do things in this house has definitely changed as well. We are intentionally still learning and evolving around here every day. Some of those changes may have influenced the way we have babies! We hope you enjoy this little series of Look-Back Blogs starting with our first pregnancy experience.

The First Trimester

The first trimester of the first pregnancy was certainly an experience. After spending the previous year getting in shape and working on my health, I knew my body. I knew what to eat to keep myself feeling energized and clear headed throughout the day. I knew that when I worked out four times a week, I slept better. If anything in my body went wrong, whether it was a headache or fatigue, I knew what I had done to cause it and how to solve it. Pregnancy changed all of that. As someone who had not been sick often in her life or dealt with much discomfort of any kind, pregnancy was quite the shock to my nervous system. I felt sick from the moment I woke up until precisely five in the evening every day from week six until the end of week thirteen. I did not actually throw up during that time period, but feeling nauseous and dizzy with no relief was zero fun. On the bright side my skin did look amazing and that was also new.

Unfortunately, around week eight or nine, a family member was admitted to the hospital. In the midst of this, I stayed at the hospital and ended up delaying calling the doctor for a little bit. Whether it was wise or not, I am not sure, but we announced our pregnancy on Facebook before I had even seen a physician. (Photos above, by Abby Andrews Photography.) At twelve weeks pregnant, I left from my family member’s hospital room to go to that first appointment. This appointment was very short, but went well overall. That is until they pulled out the needle. I hate needles. I have been unable to take a blood draw or an IV without tears ever since a dental surgeon’s assistant decided to use my arm as a pin cushion. Embarrassingly enough, I cried before they stuck me but this phlebotomist was good at her job. Thankfully, I did not feel anything, besides feeling like a big baby.

The Second & Third Trimester

Somewhere in the second trimester is when you usually start to feel the baby kick and that was hands down my favorite part of that first pregnancy. Other than that, the second trimester was mostly uneventful besides our fifteen hour drive to Canada and the heartburn that attacked me in a movie theater. I am someone who is prone to motion sickness on a normal day, but when I am pregnant it is nearly guaranteed to rear its ugly head. Pair this fact with a fifteen hour car ride and you have a heck of a good time, let me tell you! Niagara Falls and Ontario were amazing though! However, I will save that for another blog. My first experience with heartburn was in a movie theater late one night. I thought I was possibly dying… Spoiler alert, I was not dying. However, if I had been dying, my friends and husband would have discovered this after the movie was over. Coming from the “rub some dirt in it” type of household that I do, I was not making a fuss and ruining everyone else’s good time unless it was absolutely necessary. I was going to leave that to my corpse.

Finally, we made it to the third trimester where those small, lovely butterfly kicks turned into full on karate kicks. I carried my first baby relatively high, but also the child never stopped moving. The combination of these things sure did a number on my back. As the inside of my stomach became a punching bag, I was seriously afraid that we would be reenacting that famous scene from the Alien movie with Sigourney Weaver. You know the one. The one at the table, you know. Yeah… that one!! I was sore all over by the end. My back, joints, and stomach were all in consistent pain. Then, along with week thirty six came the Braxton Hicks Contractions. Once those started, I thought we must not have much longer to go. I was at thirty-six weeks and it is usually safe to give birth by week thirty-seven. If I’m having any type of contractions, this should be happening soon, right? Wrong! Three weeks later, I was still pregnant and still having contractions. I was also still in the previously mentioned pain and being beaten alive from the inside. My patience with this current situation was wearing rather thin. At thirty-nine weeks, I sat atop a table laced with crinkling paper and asked my doctor about something I never thought I would… An induction.

Photos by: Abby Andrews Photography