I’M PREGNANT! Matt and I are expecting our first baby towards the end of August 2021. If you’ve been around The Relatable Red, you may have read my blog post from almost a year ago. It gave a run down on having babies and all my feelings about it. Essentially, Matt and I wanted kids sooner than later but at the time, a ton of things had to fall into place. Many of which felt out of our control. I shared things that were important for us to consider before trying and publicly worked through my own personal concerns. Needless to say, things worked out just the way I prayed they would. As always, I wanted to share our experience with trying to conceive in the hopes it may help someone else.
Full disclosure: We got pregnant on our third month of trying. There isn’t a day that goes by that I am not abundantly thankful that our “journey” was smooth and quick. In only three months, I could easily see how quickly this experience can wear on your heart. If you’re struggling to conceive, if things in your world haven’t aligned for you to be able to try yet, or if you can’t have children of your own, my heart is with you. This may or may not be the blog post for you and I completely understand if it’s not.
Some backstory…
If you read my blog post from last year, you’ll know some key components needed to be in place before we felt comfortable trying. For us, 2020 was God’s work. Things were so wildly unpredictable and yet they fell in to place just right. It made the journey to this new little life even sweeter. We had hoped we would be able to start trying after our New Orleans trip in early October. Of course, for most of the year, we were unsure if that trip would even be able to happen.
Between our wedding in March 2020 and October 2020, our honeymoon was canceled, Matt quit his job without much of a plan for a new one, and we were in the peak of a global pandemic that lead to some uncertainty about my job. Matt decided to pursue an entirely new career. He got certified to become a teacher, we put a deposit down on a new construction home (closing date still TBD), got health insurance through his new job and all around became a stronger couple. Whew…. whirlwind right? And our 2020 was calm compared to most. Over the course of those 6 months or so, my desire to be a mom became unavoidable. It became all I could think about despite the fact that my ideal timeline could very well not happen.
October 2020: 1st month trying to conceive
We had been planning this trip to New Orleans with my sister and brother in law for over a year. We didn’t know at the time when we would want to start trying to conceive. However our plan was at least after this very boozy trip. The way luck would have it, I took my last birth control pill at the end of September and was “supposed” to be ovulating while on vacation. I couldn’t think of anything more perfect.
I was not naive to the fact that being on hormonal birth control for 10 years could make this experience a little unpredictable, but I was hopeful. Over the summer I had full intentions of pulling the goalie and letting God do the work. But as we got closer to October, I realized I wanted more information and more control over the timing. So, I got ovulation tests. I knew that being on birth control for so long could keep me from ovulating at all, therefore I didn’t want to be hopeful every month if we weren’t even in the ball park.
I used the premom app and ovulation tests to get an idea of the timing but as expected, I did not ovulate on vacation. However, I did about a week after we got back! I was super thankful to see my body regulating relatively quickly. We did what we could in the timing we had and hoped for the best.
Logically I knew the chances of getting it on your first try are about 38% but I couldn’t help but be hopeful that maybe I’d be one of the lucky ones. I tried not to get myself too excited for the chance and failed miserably. My period came 4 days early and I was more crushed than I am proud to admit.
Only a couple of people knew we were trying. It’s something I never expected but it is so hard to be trying to figure out cycles and timing, feeling hopeful and being let down, all while putting a smile on and going about your regular life. Even the people that did know, I didn’t want to share my disappointment because I knew we had only just started trying. Despite a great support system and getting lucky on the 3rd try, it was more isolating in those 2.5 months that I could have anticipated.
This (amongst so many other reasons) is why you don’t ask people when they’re going to have a baby. In their mind, they’re screaming I’M TRYING. I was never angry or upset with people that asked but I was bummed a time or two. Had our journey taken longer, I would have had to say something. I wouldn’t have been able to handle it much longer.
In our case, Halloween and Thanksgiving were marked with a twinge of disappointment that we wouldn’t be able to share the news with family. As each holiday approaches, you can’t help but dream up ways to tell them if you get so lucky. If you’re trying to conceive journey starts towards the end of the year like mine, be prepared for that.
November 2020: 2nd month trying to conceive
I started taking the best prenatal vitamins I could find in August or September in preparation for trying to conceive. Up until this point, I didn’t otherwise change my lifestyle. In November, after following some prenatal nutritionist accounts on Instagram, I worked on adding in more fruits and vegetables in my diet. I also started taking fish oil, my husband started a multivitamin, and I resigned to no more than 2-3 drinks in one sitting.
My goal was to eat 1-2 veggies every day and at least 2 fruits. I learned that miscarriages are often the result of poor egg quality and that diet plays a large factor in egg (& sperm) quality. I don’t say that to scare anyone. People get pregnant with healthy babies all the time without making any adjustments to their diet. But, these were easiest enough adjustments. They made me feel like I was doing everything I could to increase my chances.
I began journaling in November as well because I felt like I needed a space to get out all of thoughts and concerns, especially if this journey was going to be months or years long. Putting them on Matt felt selfish since there was no reason to actually be concerned yet. I was afraid the nerves and racing thoughts may also negatively affect our chances (ya know since everyone says to just relax— *eye roll*). I cannot recommend journaling enough if you’re trying to conceive. It really helped me to stop being so mentally consumed.
The 2nd month of trying I was definitely more cautious with my optimism. I ovulated “late” again this month but a little sooner than October. When you use the ovulation tests I linked above, you take the test and look for the test line to be as dark or darker than the control line. From there, you have the option to input the test result into an app that spits out a number. This number reports if your LH is low, high, or peaking. “Peaking” indicates you will ovulate at some point in the next 24ish hours.
This particular month, my lines looked dark but the app never generated a high result. I wasn’t convinced I was actually going to ovulate. However, it is just technology and my eyes could see the lines. It wasn’t a total missed opportunity, but the timing was not ideal this month.
I didn’t have high hopes and obviously, I was right. I got my period 2 days early. Not ideal but still a sign my body was regulating. I had friends come to town this particular month and the distraction made it sting a little less.
December 2020: Baby month!
This month my goal was to not drink at all after ovulation. Meaning two weeks of no alcohol while I waited to see if we were successful. Otherwise, everything else about my diet and exercise remained the same. I did end up drinking twice, both times being two drinks.
Everyone jokes about how the guy must feel so lucky they get to “practice” making a baby so much. In reality, all the planning and timing of it made it less enjoyable for both of us. It felt at times like a means to an end and that can be really hard on your emotions. It was an unexpected outcome of trying that we didn’t anticipate. I wouldn’t change a thing about the way we did things. However there are certainly pros and cons to timing everything and also just leaving it in fate’s hands. Just something to consider if you’re thinking about your timeline for trying to conceive.
I ovulated right “on time” according to my app. Because of that we had more opportunity to increase our chances because the timing was a little more predictable. I felt optimistic. So much so that I became really scared of how I would feel if the outcome was not pregnant.
Logically I knew you could do everything right and it still could not work but I had a consistent positive feeling about it. I tried really hard to suppress the optimism in fear of being let down again, especially before Christmas.
It wasn’t working. I was optimistic and terrified. I prayed more in the 3 months trying to conceive and the first 2-3 months of pregnancy than ever before. Prayers for a healthy pregnancy and baby and that if it wasn’t my time that God would shield me from some of the pain. I prayed that He would make me brave and strong to continue on for as long as it took.
One morning I was journaling and it hit me. The thing that carried me to the positive test and through those first scary 12 weeks. It is brave to be optimistic. It doesn’t make you naive or foolish to be hopeful. It’s brave to have faith. It’s brave to believe that you deserve and will receive the one thing you want so badly. Because even though it’ll hurt like hell for another month to pass, you will be stronger and more resilient each time.
December 9th 2020
I had planned to not take an at home pregnancy test until December 10th or 11th. I would be 10 or 11 days past ovulation respectively. In most cases that is the very earliest you can get a positive test. My expected period was December 14th so December 9th fell in that “6 days sooner” they promise you on early response tests.
On December 9th, I happened to go to the gym at 4:30am. While I was there I thought about how crazy it would be that one day I would go in there and not be pregnant and then the very next day I would be. Ironically enough, it would end up being that day.
I had no signs or symptoms at this point of course. When I got home from the gym I took one of the cheap strip pregnancy tests that come in the ovulation test boxes because I couldn’t resist. I was seconds away from tossing it in the garbage. That’s how faint the “line” was. But I caught a glimpse and my heart raced. It was way too faint to tell for sure but I carried that dang test around with me for hours looking at it in different lighting, taking pictures of it, and praying. I held my pee for 4 hours and went and bought a first response pregnancy test.
It was still very faint but undoubtedly there. 2 pink lines. I had about 1 minute of pure excitement before the fear set it. I just couldn’t believe it. Everything we wanted was right there and yet it was so early. I knew it could be taken away.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep the secret long enough to take another test so I told my husband Matt when he got home from work that day. It was one of the most special moments of my life. The following days were filled with more tests, tons of dreaming, and even more praying.
We only made it to December 12th before we told my sister, brother in law, his sister, and my best friend. We told the rest of family and friends over the next few weeks and even got some of their reactions on video. I’ll be sharing them over on my Instagram if you want to see. We were nervous. My husband is a really cautious soul but I told him, whether we let ourselves get excited or not, if something goes wrong it’ll be devastating regardless so we might as well be optimistic.
And now here we are, 14.5 weeks pregnant and feeling more blessed than ever. To all of my online and real life friends that have joined in our excitement since our announcement, thank you. I am someone who loves to celebrate and you all joining in to celebrate and be excited with us has meant the world to me. By the time this is posted…. we should know if baby Bennett is a boy or girl! Stay tuned 🙂
