I'm Pregnant!

Oct. 13^th- I have to keep the biggest secret of my life from everyone I know (other than my husband and my doctors) I’M PREGNANT!!!! I have a few months to keep it under my hat – I don’t know how women do it.

 

I am a science writer by hobby so I decided to do a little project. I plan to blog in secret from now until the three month mark and post the first few months once we tell our family and friends, as well as continue with new updates from there until the baby’s arrival. This will allow me to share all my initial thoughts along the way before we let the cat out of the bag.  Also since I’m a science blogger I want to research along the way-both from a newly pregnant gal's perspective (science geek or otherwise) and include the nitty-gritty about what’s going on in there. I feel like there is so much information about pregnancy on the internet already so instead of writing straight up informative articles like I do on my Hubpages page- this way I can add in random facts about developmental biology mixed in with my own thoughts and feelings about this crazy experience.

So let’s get started- first off, yes it is true I peed into a red solo cup today (and now of course I will have that horrible song in my head for the rest of the day). There were two options on the pregnancy test and I felt like the first option- peeing onto the stick for only 5 seconds was just not practical so I grabbed a RSC and went with option two. Even though I *knew* I was pregnant most of this week I really thought it was too good to be true so seeing that one little word pop up on the display (yes miss cheap-o splurged for the digital readout) was still an amazing surprise. The backstory on that is Chris and I celebrated our one month wedding anniversary right after our week away in Aruba for our honeymoon. (We didn’t go on our honeymoon immediately, went back to work for three weeks to decompress from the wedding then headed off to paradise). So pretty much we go pregnant on our honeymoon. I know I was ovulating then but still wasn’t sure it would happen. I read online that even though infertility seems to be all around us- 25% of couples get pregnant on their first try and 80% of couples get pregnancy within their first year of trying. But still, I’ll be 33 in December and Chris will be 38 in December so trust me we consider ourselves very lucky. Here’s hoping it takes!

Oct 14^th- Ok first off I realized that I have close to two months to keep this adorable secret since pregnancy is counted from the date of your first day of your last period, which for me Sept. 6th. Oh hello I’m neurotic, have we met? Yes I know the date because I did some research about a year ago and found out that it’s a good idea to go off your birth control medicine 6 months ahead of when you actually want to conceive (while then relying on other forms if you don’t want a surprise. Due to the fitted, white, rather expensive dress I was planning on wearing on August 24^th and the amount of alcohol I planned on imbibing on my bachelorette and wedding weekend I didn’t want the surprise) so I went off my BC and I started tracking my periods to see how regular they were. I recommend tracking because 6 months of periods is a good little chunk of data to calculate an estimate of how long your cycle is, which is helpful when putting in your info to the online calculators that help out predicting your period, ovulation etc. (although truth be told if you have all your data you can just do the math yourself). Also if you know your average cycle it will allow you to remain somewhat calm as you wait out the days of your missed period. So anyway I was initially thinking 3 months was a long time to keep a secret, but really I'm already a month or so along so I have to keep quiet for 2 months, somewhat more bearable.

So today I have only managed to convince myself twice that something bad is happening, immediately followed by re-assuring myself that everything is good to go, I’d say that is par for the course. Based on the internet boards (which are equal parts helpful and equal parts likely to convince you terrible things are going on inside of you) my low back pain is within the norm (even if it’s pretty bad) if you are a normal sufferer of chronic back pain, which I am. Also the dull cramps are normal as well for any newly pregnant woman.  Of course today is a holiday for most people (I worked today but was in the minority) so I wasn’t able to talk to my thyroid doc to up my thyroid dosage (I had my thyroid removed along with several toxic goiters a few years ago and solely rely on thyroid hormone medicine now) or to make an appointment to see an OBGYN.

Oct  15^th- Here’s the science geek in me talking- development biology is one of the most fascinating subjects to me- it blows my mind that one sperm and one egg develop into an entire organism. The ability to carry and give birth is actually one of my major reasons for being such a feminist- hello women can cultivate human beings in our bellies while outwardly doing everything men can do. Is that isn’t proof we are the dominate sex what is? Seriously it blows my mind people once thought menstrual cycles and giving birth were freaky things no one should talk about, to me it’s just the clear indicator we are in charge. I took developmental biology in grad school and it was fascinating since it was Anatomy: An origin story and anatomy (and physiology) were what made me get into science in the first place. I personally love all the nomenclature and the step-by-step pathways of what happens when. I’m going to go into embryonic development here and there, throughout this blog, but I will try not to geek out too much and overburden you with terminology and every little step, just the major points. I will give the disclaimer that I am not an expert in developmental biology but I do the best I can to present accurate information in any blog posts or articles I put forth.