Those lips and cheeks😍
We weren't exactly trying to have a baby, but we weren't really not trying either. Patrick spent the summer of 2016 in New York for an internship and I was still in Boston working. I would visit every other weekend or so throughout the summer, so we didn't really think we had a great shot of getting pregnant over the summer, which was fine by me. I thought December would be a good time to get pregnant and that's what I prepared myself for mentally.
Well Patrick's internship came to and end and I had my mandatory two week leave from work that I had to take so we decided to spend the first week of it up in Canada going to Quebec City and Montreal (more on that in another post...possibly.) The first two days of the trip were great, but I started getting all the signs of having a period: bloating, slight irritability, etc and I was so tired. I didn't think much of it at first because I knew that I was supposed to start my period at any minute. But the week went on and I never started. Patrick and I would go back and forth with each other "I think your pregnant", "No way, my body is just still adjusting from getting my IUD out."... "Oh my gosh what if I'm pregnant?" On the Friday we drove home, we were both pretty convinced that I was pregnant while simultaneously convincing ourselves that I wasn't.
When we got home I took a pregnancy test almost immediately. I still had one from when I thought I was pregnant a moth or so before (spoiler, I wasn't). Well I peed on that little stick, set it onto of that pink box and then Patrick and I sat on our couch for the allotted 3-5 minutes waiting for the results. Right before I went to go check Patrick looked me in the eye and with this bemused half grin on his face said, "I think you're totally pregnant." I started laughing, slightly hysterically, and just kept up my halting laughter as I walked into the bathroom. It turned into full blown hysterical laughter when I saw the positive results, and the laughter quick turned into sobs as I walked out to show Patrick. Needless to say, I was slightly overwhelmed. Patrick of course was cool as a cucumber and so excited.
I've have a really easy pregnancy so far. The first two weeks I felt pretty gross and sick, but after that I would have some nausea due to certain smells, but nothing terrible. Thankfully, I never got morning sickness. I've had pretty great energy my entire pregnancy and have been able to stay pretty consistent with working out about 4-5 times a week.
Around 12 weeks, the doctor did draw blood for some routine blood work and I had extremely low levels of hemoglobin and hematocrit. In layman's terms, I was severely anemic. This wasn't a surprise to me as I've been chronically anemic my whole life due to having what's called Hereditary Spherocytocis. It's a complicated way to say that a portion of my red blood cells are produced missing a protein which makes them spherical rather than oblong and concave. Because of this, my body doesn't recognize these blood cells and when they go through my spleen they burst, causing my the ratio of red blood cells (compared to plasma and water) in my blood to decrease (also known as hematocrit). This is turn causes by hemoglobin, or the level of oxygen in my blood, to decrease.
I've never had any issues but my levels were so low, to the point that most of the doctors couldn't believe that I looked perfectly healthy and were acting like a totally normal healthy person. They were concerned about the baby though, and making sure the fetus was getting enough blood and oxygen to support it's growth. Long story short, after an ER trip, a lengthy and obnoxious stay in the hospital, two blood transfusion, and a prescription for a high dose of folic acid, I am totally fine. I have to meet with a hematologist regularly to check my hemoglobin and hematocrit levels, but so far everything is high (for me) and holding steady.
So here we are: February 27th, 31 weeks 2 days and feeling generally good. A little tired, a little less coordinated, a little chubby. We are getting more and more excited to meet our little boy!
Super classy work bathroom selfie. This was 30 weeks.
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