"You are barely pregnant...."
This is what my OBGYN told me after taking the blood work at the office to confirm that I was pregnant. As you could imagine this left me perplexed. As far as I knew, you were or you weren't pregnant- there really wasn't any in between. She went on to explain that I had low hCG levels ( I later found out that it stood for Human Chorionic Gonadotropin a hormone only found when you are pregnant and should double every 48 to 72 hours). I asked her if I should be concerned and she assured me that I shouldn't be, we could have just caught the pregnancy on the earliest date possible. She did want me to come in for another blood test to make sure my numbers were increasing at a normal rate.
After I got off the phone, I made a rookie pregnancy mistake- I googled. The little reassurance I got from my doctor was quickly replaced with anxiety and fear produced by reading story after story of the faceless internet mob. Reading the comments from various sites made me feel that having low hCG levels was a very bad thing indeed and was a sure sign of a failed pregnancy. Of course this is not really the case, every person is different; every pregnancy is different. There have been plenty of healthy babies who have been born after originally starting with low numbers. But the damage was done and doubt entered the picture. We had a rough week of taking more tests and then waiting on the results, but after much stress and worry- we were given the all clear. We in fact were pregnant!
We decided to wait to tell family until the Christmas holiday which happened to be the first day the baby's heart beat. We were visiting the Korb's in Jacksonville and worked our baby reveal into a gift exchange we were doing on Christmas Eve. Luckily, I pulled Susan's name out of the hat and so was able to give her a number of small gifts, leaving a framed picture of the pregnancy test, for the last one. Her reaction was priceless! In fact, all three (Andy and Drew were there too) were great fun to watch as the information soaked in! Needless to say it was all that was talked about the rest of the weekend. We were also able to tell my mom/John, Dad/Peggy and Holly over the weekend. It was so much fun sharing our news with the people we care most about!
By far the 1st trimester seemed to linger on and on. First, after that initial scare, I couldn't wait to get through the first 12 weeks which is the time frame most people have miscarriages. Second, being social people, it was really hard to not hang out with friends as much as we normally would (It would have been obvious when I didn't order a beer while out and about). Luckily, we did have a lot going on to get us through those first months (school, work, etc.). I was also training for the Disney Princess half-marathon taking place in February.
Overall I felt great throughout the first trimester. I didn't get morning sickness or really any other typical early pregnancy symptom. I did however keep getting sick which I am sure could be tied to both going back to school with all those germy college students and also nannying with the Andrew and Anna who also liked to share their colds with me!
Baby milestones in this trimester included:
-Seeing the heart fluttering.
We thought that based on the picture below she might have been a boy.
-Seeing her develop into a mini-person.
-Hearing the heartbeat for the first time
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