A Life Update + Some News!

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P.S. My dress was a gift from Bliss (I’m wearing a size small), and it is one of the prettiest things I’ve ever worn.

I am SO excited to be sharing this news with you guys today…

I’m pregnant (in case you didn’t guess from the photos above ;))!

It’s so nice to finally let you in on the secret, because it has been hard to keep sharing as if things were “normal” when… they really, really weren’t.

But anyway! I’m 14 weeks as of yesterday, and due the end of September.

I thought I’d do a little pregnancy update today for you guys, and let you in on the last few months!

How we found out:

First of all, this pregnancy wasn’t totally planned. To be honest, I really struggled with making a decision on whether or not we should be done or try for another.

A lot of that had to do with Ella and Rosie… part of me wanted “one last chance” to have a normalish pregnancy and newborn experience (and also the chance to have another baby!), BUT a huge part of me was happy with our little family and wanted to be done.

David and I had been going back and forth on this for awhile, and I honestly don’t know if I ever would have really been able to come to a final decision. So we decided to just stop NOT trying (we have always done natural family planning so it was a pretty quick and easy decision to make).

This was at the end of December, and (ha!) I didn’t think anything was going to happen (or at least for awhile) so beginning of February when I started feeling super fatigued it didn’t immediately hit me that there might be a reason for it.

It finally dawned on me to take a pregnancy test, and yup! It was positive… and I was in complete shock. Even though we weren’t not trying, I just never thought I would get pregnant so quickly (and part of me thought we just wouldn’t, and that would be our answer). It was meant to be!

Symptoms:

I have resigned myself to the fact that I don’t do first trimesters well ha!

With that said, this pregnancy has actually been quite a bit different. With Kit I was SO nauseous and throwing up several times a day until about 17 weeks. With the twins it was the same except the nausea and throwing up never went away.

This time around, I’ve had waves of nausea here and there (week five, weeks 7-8, and this week has been bad), but I’ve only thrown up a couple of times. Overall, I haven’t really had that much morning sickness. I contribute it 100% to the fact that I no longer eat dairy. Obviously, every pregnancy is different, and it could be that it’s a boy, but I broke down one night and ate some lasagna (it had been staring at me in the fridge for several days, and my craving took over) and I was SOOO sick that night… it felt exactly like the morning sickness I had with my other pregnancies. So I’ve been super strict since then, and it has really helped.

BUT, while I haven’t had morning sickness, it seems like everything else has just been really bad. I’ve been so incredibly tired, and I’ve just kind of felt like I had the flu. Thankfully, everything seems to get really bad in the late afternoon/evening and so David has been able to take over (bless him) when he gets home from work.

This is also why I’ve been a little quieter around here lately. I usually create my posts when the girls are napping in the afternoon, and I’ve been feeling so crummy that I’ve only been able to do a few minutes a day. Hopefully this improves as I start to feel better, but I’m giving myself the grace to take it one week at a time…

which has been a huge switch for me this pregnancy. I think knowing that it’s my last, I’ve been giving myself permission to do what I need to do. With my other two pregnancies I tried to push through everything (I partly had to with the twins because we were selling our house and moving during the first 20 weeks). This time around I’ve been going to bed super early, taking naps, taking baths… whatever my body has needed.

Now that I’m 14 weeks, I’m hoping that energy comes back soon. I AM feeling a lot better as far as the flu like symptoms go, but unfortunately this week my headaches have started.

With my other pregnancies I’ve gone through a phase of terrible cluster migraines right after the first trimester symptoms start to abate. I think it’s probably due to the big hormonal switch that happens after the placenta takes over, and I also think it’s because my body isn’t getting the nutrients it needs after a few months of intense food aversions (food has always been a struggle for me in the first trimester… literally nothing sounds good to me consistently so I have to just force feed myself otherwise I wouldn’t eat).

The “migraine” stage of pregnancy is, hands down, the hardest part for me because not only do these migraines completely take me out, but I have to take pretty strong migraine medication for them otherwise I would be completely non functioning.

Side note here: Please don’t take medication without talking to your doctor. After spending two weeks completely bedridden, in intense pain, and unable to keep anything down (including water) due to the migraine induced nausea during my pregnancy with Kit, my doctor and I agreed that it was better for me to take my migraine medication vs. having my body be in such a high stress state. We basically had to choose the better of two evils.

So I deal with a lot of fear and stress during this stage of pregnancy. I’m hoping that with the dairy gone from my diet that it will be much more short lived this time, but if you think of it I’d appreciate your prayers as well!

Okay that was super long ha! But there was a lot to update you on. 🙂

We ARE going to find out the sex, and I have an ultrasound at 16 weeks so I’m hoping we’ll be able to find out then…

and that reminds me:

You know earlier when I said I wanted to have a normalish pregnancy? Yeah well, I’m learning that normal pregnancies just aren’t in the cards for me ha!

With Kit I had preeclampsia, and she was induced at 36.5 weeks. She had to spend a few days in the NICU due to preeclampsia induced low birthweight, and low glucose levels… and the twins… what WASN’T abnormal haha! Besides the constant ultrasounds, and ridiculous amount of doctor’s visits I ended up having gestational diabetes and they were born at 33 weeks and spent 3 weeks in the NICU.

SO. due to my… history, I’m considered pretty high risk (not to mention my ripe old age of 35). There’s going to be a lot of “preventative” measures taken this time around:

I’ll be getting more than the typical amount of ultrasounds (I’m not sure exactly how many yet) starting at 16 weeks, and then around 17 weeks I’ll be given a test to determine if I’m likely to get gestational diabetes again (in which case I’ll meet with a nutritionist to come up with a meal plan), and I’ll start taking a baby aspirin to help lower my risk of preeclampsia again.

Then at 20 weeks I’ll have to go in for weekly progesterone shots to try and keep baby in as long as possible.

So yeah… not exactly a normal pregnancy, but hopefully it will lead to a normal newborn experience. I’m REALLY hoping we can avoid the NICU this time around.

I think that’s everything I wanted to say! I’m going to try to do regular updates here for you guys… I kind of wish that I had done something like this with Kit and the twins so I could look back on it, so my goal is to do these updates somewhat regularly so I’ll have them for later.

Next week we’ll get back to some regular programming because I have a collaboration with Tradlands planned, and then I have a review of the new Everlane chinos that I’ve been meaning to get up for a few weeks now. Then we’ll kind of see how things go after that. I’d like to do some maternity style posts, and even though my daily outfits are now a lot more dressed down and comfy, I’d like to try to still share my weekly outfits with you guys.

Okay I’m officially talked out so I’ll sign off here.

Until next time,

Karin