Anxiety and Early Pregnancy

Note: This post was written midway through week 5. I am currently nearing week 13 and feeling much more peace about this topic, but still struggle with anxiety about our pregnancy and the baby's health. Thank you for your prayers, we should be caught up and posting "real-time" in a couple weeks!

This is a bit of a serious post. Sometimes I struggle with serious anxiety. It used to be a lot more often when my life was frequently changing back in college, but the DNA still remains. I tend to enjoy predictability and knowing when to zig and when to zag. I am also an incredibly fearful soul. I hate germs for fear of illness, standing too far in the middle of the grocery aisle for fear of making someone upset, or confronting almost any ailing personal relationship (aside from my marriage) for fear of starting a fight, just to name a few. I often polarize situations to be "the best thing ever" or "the worst thing ever." I'm not much of an in-between gal.

Clearly this can make things tough, because life isn't exactly a straight and narrow path. So you can imagine how early pregnancy might be rocking my "always steady" world. I woke up out of a dead sleep last night at 3am in a sheer panic attack. I'm talking shortness of breath, head spinning, sweating, no way I'm going back to sleep type panic. I know what it was about, too. It was about everything that could (and in my mind, would) go wrong with our pregnancy and baby. I have read and heard way too much at this point about miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, signs of miscarriage, stories of women miscarrying, etc, etc.

All I can think about is miscarriage. It's consuming me and stealing my joy. I have to be honest, so many of the miscarriage stories I've heard are from the handful of people we've already confided in about being pregnant. Note to everyone out there: Please do not talk about miscarriage and tell detailed stories about all the women you know who have miscarried at all stages of their pregnancy to a new mom going through her first pregnancy. I dearly love all my confidants, but it literally, multiple times, has looked like me telling someone how scared of miscarriage I am and them proceeding to tell me a story about all the women they know who have miscarried. Not helpful.

I know it's not their fault and they're just trying to relate, but all this miscarriage talk has got me so wound up. I also feel like there are a bajillion friends, coworkers, and randoms who are pregnant in front of me right now, most of them at least 8 weeks ahead of me. I've found myself telling Arthur over and over again how I wish I was them. How awful is that? God absolutely does not want that for me. The only reason I wish I was someone else right now is so I can be further along, and in theory, in a much "safer" point in this pregnancy. I have heard that right now we are basically at anywhere from a 25–70% (who knows what's actually correct!) chance of miscarriage until we hear the baby's heartbeat, when it then drops to somewhere between 2–4%. Our first prenatal appointment isn't until week 9...3.5 weeks from now. Crap that's a long time to have to wait to see if your baby is okay. And even then, we simply might not be able to hear the heartbeat just yet. Crazy. Town.

Enjoying the fruits of patience last summer

So where does this put me? I can't stay terrified forever. It's not healthy for me or the baby...or my husband! In an effort to give my heart back to God, I opened up my bible amidst my 3am panic. I found Psalm 19:7–14, which says:

"The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer."

What I get out of this is that God is perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, true, righteous, finer than gold and sweeter than honey. I'm really struggling with viewing him this way. He has revealed to me over the past few months that I have a really distorted picture of him and his nature. You see, I often lift up God's wrath, power, control, and having fear of the Lord above his other traits. I struggle with seeing God as loving, period. In my mixed up mind—even as I write this—I believe that God would allow this baby to die to draw me closer to him.

I tell Arthur these thoughts all the time and he does the best he can to constantly remind me that while, yes, God could very well do that, he doesn't just do it for "fun". I find myself angry at God knowing that he could do this. And then I start to panic thinking that my sinful thoughts are going to cause God to want to do this even more because "clearly I'm not focused on him and coveting the baby inside me that isn't even ours".  This baby is God's and I finally gave that up this morning in my desperate early morning prayer. I can't say I am fully believing this truth yet, but I'm praying the Lord would impress this deeply onto my heart. My sweet husband keeps reminding me that this is going to be a lifelong task, praying for our child. It's never going to end so I better get on board.

I know this is deep and maybe a bit too intense for everyone, but this is how I'm really dealing right now and I am certain I'm not alone. And honestly, this is why I'm blogging through all of this. I have found so much inspiration and courage from a few key women (many are not helpful or only make it seem like unicorns and rainbows follow them everywhere) who have blogged through their pregnancies. I hope I can pass something helpful along to the next overly anxious first-timer. Please don't hesitate to email or comment with a prayer request or if you just want an understanding shoulder to cry on. Our husbands are superheroes, but they don't always know what to say.


Need to catch up?

Pregnancy Posts:
We're Having a Baby!
How We Found Out

Weekly Updates:
Pregnancy: Week 5

Pregnancy: Week 5

This week has been crazy exciting. The reality of being pregnant is starting to sink in for both of us—we are over-the-moon! It's really hard not to tell everyone I see on the street, but I'm holding back. We made our first appointment to interview the Swedish Ballard Midwifery, which went really well. We both felt so comfortable there and are pretty sure this is where we will go for our prenatal care and delivery. It was nice to be face to face with a midwife and began to feel a lot more "real" while we were there—pregnant women everywhere!

Week 4: Baby K is the size of a poppyseed! 

While we were there, we made our 9 week appointment (I definitely had a bit of a breakdown when I realized how far away that was) to get the first ultrasound and hopefully hear the baby's heartbeat. We are moving in a couple weeks, so I'm hoping that the packing will keep my mind off of the long wait. It's hard once you've already been tainted with a million miscarriage stories and read about almost everything that can go wrong. It really is a test of my patience and dependence on the Lord. I need to be reminded right now that this is the Lord's baby, not ours.


What's Up With the Baby

This week the baby is the size of a sesame seed and “growing furiously!” What sweet words to a new mama’s ears. The baby is looking a bit like a tadpole right now (which is WAY better than the poppy seed sized “ball of dust” our Pampers iPad app showed us for last week!) and is starting to form major organs (heart, kidney, liver, stomach) and systems (nervous, circulatory, digestive). The brain is also starting to develop. It’s nuts to think all this is happening inside me right now!

How I’m feeling

My “morning sickness” has kicked in early. By the end of the week I was feeling pretty nauseous and had very little appetite. I was finding that I woke up feeling pretty crampy and then the nausea would set in. It would stick around until late afternoon and then dissipate a bit by dinner/workout time. Then yesterday, at my 5 week mark, I felt completely fine with an almost normal appetite. It seems like the nausea is constantly fluctuating.

I continue to feel crampy, which has been around since way before I even knew I was pregnant (I originally thought they were period cramps since they feel exactly the same!). The cramping usually lasts for just a few seconds and can be really mild or moderately painful. I have read that this is completely normal and just my uterus stretching to make room for the baby. The worst part is that it wakes me up really early in the morning (between 5–6am) and is pretty persistent in the a.m. hours. I find it’s worse if I lay on my side.

Perhaps the strangest symptom of pregnancy I’ve been dealing with since before I knew is a drippy nose. Around week 3 I got a cold that I thought was allergies, which ended up being just a weird pregnancy cold afterall. Since then I’ve had a constant drippy nose, which I’ve heard many other women deal with throughout the whole pregnancy. My boobs are a bit sore as well, but not unbearable.


What I’m Eating

I already have a fairly balanced diet that is 100% vegetarian, so I thankfully don’t need to make too many diet changes. I don’t, however, get nearly enough protein, so I’ve taken this on as my mission for the time being. I try to eat vegan as often as I can, which means no dairy or animal proteins, but I know that protein is so important to me and the baby right now that I've decided to bring more into my pregnancy diet. I have also read that protein can be a huge help in keeping sickness at bay.

String cheese has been my go-to for the past week. With 8g of protein per stick, I can scarf down 2-3 and get almost 1/3 of the protein I need for the day (about 70 grams in full). Lunch has been the fun one. The only thing that sounds good is Trader Joes frozen arugula, cheese and tomato pizza. So this has been my lunch for almost a week straight. Our freezer is packed with them. I figure there aren’t too many times where I will allow myself to eat pizza every day, so I’m trying to live it up! I don’t even reheat it at lunch, I just eat it cold :)

I have also been taking in my prenatal, fish oil, Vitamin D, extra Vitamin B to help with sickness and lots of gingery things. I love ginger beer, so I’ve been filling one of my water bottles with a bit of ginger beer to sip on (along with water) throughout the day. I also found some ginger Altoids, which actually are pretty gingery and somewhat helpful to take my mind off of things. Interestingly enough, even when I feel sick there are a few healthy foods that I keep thinking about...like avocados, tomatoes (like salsa), and kale salad! I've also been craving eggs occasionally, which I hardly ever do.

What We've Bought

I am beginning to feel a bit bloated in my stomach, and really have been for the past week. So I decided last weekend to get a Be Band (belly band) from Target. It's basically just a circle of elastic fabric that holds your pants up so you don't have to button them. I ordered another one from Amazon in black that arrived today. The brand is Baby Be Mine and it is a lot taller/longer than the Be Band from Target, which is great for my tall frame and soon to be bigger belly. The Be Band works great for now though and looks just like a tank top when it pokes out from under my shirt.

We also purchased a scale to track my weight. I had no idea how much I weighed, so this will be interesting to track my growth. I know I'm not really supposed to be gaining that much weight right now anyways, 1–5 pounds in the first trimester and then 1 pound per week from there out, but I wanted to have a true starting weight to work from.

We also had planned hosting a wine party long ago this week with our friends. While I was feeling pretty tired, it was so much fun even though I couldn't really drink. I ended up just having a small sip of each wine and skipping some of the food pairings that weren't safe. I even made Frickles (fried pickles) for our food pair!

Need to catch up?

Pregnancy Posts:

We're Having a Baby!

How We Found Out

Declaration of Blogging Intent

I feel inclined to be up front with my intentions of this blog. So here I am.

I understand that many of you may be trying, struggling with infertility, waiting patiently, waiting not so patiently, or just generally anxious about others having babies. I really do get this.

I understand that some of you don't understand blogging. "Why does this girl feel the need to over share about her life?"

I understand that most of us loathe the braggers or over-sharers that constantly show up in our Facebook news feeds.

I understand that some of you just don't care to read this blog.

I get it.


Here is my intent with this blog

I am here to document my pregnancy and stories about our life in a way that is practical and meaningful to me and my husband. This blog is first and foremost a journal for our memories.

I have learned so much and found such encouragement in other bloggers pregnancy journeys (and beyond). It's a big and scary unfamiliar change that comes with enough worries and questions to make a girl go crazy. I hope to give back in a similar way through my blog, even if it only reaches one young and unsuspecting new mama.

I have an awful memory and need to write and take photos in order to retain these memories.

My husband has a lot of affection for me and the blog. He encourages me in this endeavor as an outlet for my creativity.


Here is what I have to say 

Welcome! Stay if you'd like. I hope this can be a place of encouragement and discussion for us both. It won't always be pregnancy or baby related. You are free to peep anonymously, or introduce yourself. I would love to know who you are. For the rest of you, don't worry about it. You don't have to read. This blog is optional. I give you permission to close the window and go about your business. No hard feelings. 

We (Papa K and I) will be posting about our pregnancy to the blog only, but sharing the link on Facebook. This way if you want to look you can, and if you don't, you're not forced to. If you don't want to look, but you do anyways (so something I would do), well, that's your issue. I jest! You are also more than welcome to add me to your feed, reader, or whatever you use to manage your blog roll.

How We Found Out

You might have already heard the blessed news, but we're having a baby! We are little over 12 weeks now and look forward to catching up with everything that has been happening. I have lots of posts ready to go, and we should hopefully be posting "real-time" in a couple weeks. 

I was so nervous going to sleep Wednesday night. I maybe slept an hour total all night. I felt like I just laid awake the whole time waiting for the clock to tick by to a late enough time to temp and test. I did wake up at one point though drenched in sweat. I don't know if it was the anxiety of testing or a pregnancy symptom. I haven't had this happen again since. Anyways, I was wide awake at 5 am and knew I wasn't going back to sleep. I decided I would at least temp.

Maybe it would have dropped and then I would just go back to sleep and move on. But maybe it would be high—maybe even higher than the day before—and I would slip out of bed and test by myself. Arthur had asked for us to test together the day before, but I really wanted to do it alone. I didn't want to see the disappointment on his face or for him to feel like he needed to comfort me. I just wanted it to be my pure emotion, unadulterated by anything else—me and God. So I rolled over and plopped the thermometer under my tongue. Beep...beep...beep...

My temp was high! Higher than the day before! I slipped out of bed, shaking, into the bathroom and tore open the test. Last month when we tested I would leave the bathroom and send Arthur in to look after 3 minutes. I anticipated him coming back screaming that we were pregnant and we would cuddle the day away (they were snow days—how magical, right?!). Well, that never happened and by the second and third days testing he would go into the bathroom and immediately brush his teeth...a clear indicator that the test was a big fat nay. I was so bummed. I didn't want that again. This time I was going to watch the test develop. I needed to face this head on, and I had a sense something might be different.

I took the test, set it on the counter and watched it. Quickly the control line started to faintly appear and then I saw it. It was barely there, but there was a second line, a God ordained second line. I burst into tears thanking God immediately. Holy cow, what the heck, oh my gosh we are pregnant. All the fears of infertility GONE. I didn't care at that moment whether this pregnancy lasted only a day. We could conceive, and that is God's mercy. You see, Arthur had a big accident when he was younger. He fell off of a cliff and shattered his pelvis. He was never told if this would impact his ability to conceive, but had always questioned it.

Just a few days prior we were gearing up to make an appointment at the reproductive medicine clinic to get him tested. We both agreed we didn't want to wait through months of trying only to find out he wasn't fertile. I was entirely convinced that we were not pregnant this month, not even the tiniest bit, so I encouraged him to just go in as soon as he could. I was cramping and feeling symptoms exactly as though my period was coming. It wasn't until my temps started to rise around day 26 after they had already dropped that I began to suspect something.

Even more, earlier in the month I thought I hadn't even ovulated! During that week I was praying to God that if he would at least allow me to ovulate I would praise him. My cycles are like clockwork and I have never experienced a month without ovulation, so this would have been crazy timing to not ovulate for the first time during a month we are trying to conceive. Looking back I can now see that there was an ovulation peak on my chart and that my temps must have stayed low afterward from conceiving, but more on my pregnancy chart another day. I praised God for ovulation during this sacred moment.

After soaking in God's love for me and his mercy on my life, I took a deep breath, grabbed the test and tip toed back to our bed. I just stood in the pitch-black doorway for a minute thinking about what to do next. I walked over and gently sat on Arthur's side of the bed, whispering, "Babe....Babe..." He woke up and asked me what was going on and if I was ready to test. I burst into tears and sobbed, "We're pregnant!"

He responded with a shrill of excitement, "Whhhhaaat?!" and immediately asked to turn the lights on so he could see the test. I plopped my head onto his chest and just laid there while he hugged my weeping, shaking body. We cuddled and laid in bed for the next hour soaking everything in, downloaded an iPad app that showed us what the baby looked like (it looked a lot like a ball of dust), and dreamed about what's to come.

 

I was hoping for us to dance around in excitement all morning, but Arthur was a bit more contemplative. It took him a few hours, but soon enough I could sense him getting really excited (as much as one can over Google chat) and we couldn't stop saying (typing) to each other "WE'RE PREGNANT!!!" It was strange being at work all day after such a big happening. I couldn't stop rubbing my belly every time I stood up. I think I was somewhat expecting it to grow huge or something ridiculous that day. I couldn't believe that there was a tiny little cute ball of dust inside of me that would, Lord willing, be snuggling in my arms as a full-grown baby in just 8 short months. Praise the Lord!

What a blessed day! This is the day the Lord has made! I am beyond excited. I am so scared. Arthur is now over-the-moon (plus some). God is good ALL THE TIME. Holy cow, we're pregnant.


Need to catch up?

Pregnancy Posts:
We're Having a Baby!