There's a baby in my belly.
A mini McKarns if you will.
A mini FEMALE McKarns.
Pretty soon I'm going to be one of those mommy bloggers that posts cute pics of her kiddo and only talks about her kiddo. Which I'm sure you don't really believe because with my track record after this post goes up it will be a year and a half before another one shows up. I wouldn't believe me either. I guess we'll see. So how did I get pregnant you ask? Well, if you really need an explanation... I mean... just kidding. But I'm really finally writing this post because I knew years down the road I'd want to remember my journey of getting pregnant for the first time and how my pregnancy went. So if you don't care to know the little hairy deets, feel free to skip to the lovely pictures of me getting fat! In a cute, miraculous way of course... at least that's what we all like to think when we of the female population find ourselves pregnant and growing a nice round ball of baby above our pants.
So I've pretty much wanted to be a mom ever since I was born. Yep. But the smart side of me knew it would probably be best to at least wait until I was married to act on that wish. And if I could have, I would have popped out a honeymoon baby once I sealed the deal with Adam a little over two years ago. But again, the smarter side of me knew it would make a little more financial sense to wait until Adam was done with school to have a baby since I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. So since he was finishing school in December of 2014 and we all know how long it takes to bake a baby from start to finish, we anxiously awaited the month of May to get the party started.
And then May came... and May went. No eggo.
June came... and June went. No eggo.
July came... and July went. STILL no eggo.
But August! August came... and little eggo decided to form.
My precious little eggo - after all the sadness, tears, painfully slow waiting, and uncertainty that consumed those 4 months (side note: I know 4 months in the long run is really actually NOTHING and so many people struggle for years to get pregnant... and now I have the strongest empathy for them because really those 4 months were still so hard for me! I can't imagine having to wait any longer and really feel for those that women that do - you are rockstars!) I had finally gotten what I wanted.
My cousin had taken a video of her and her hubby finding out together if they were preggo by looking down at her pregnancy test and I just loved that they found out such big, life-changing news together. So I decided that I wanted to do the same with Adam and include him instead of telling him after the fact. In May, my period started on time so we didn't even get to the point of taking the video But in June, I decided to take an early test since we were going to see my family... and well, let me tell you that you feel pretty stupid starting the video in the airport while you're waiting to get picked up by family thinking it will be a perfect opportunity to share such great news with them in person ...and you both end up looking down at the test to see just one line. And you realize there will be no exciting news to share so you stop the video. And trust me, you feel even more stupid when you are actually a WEEK late and so sure that you're bound to see that little plus sign that you have it all planned out. You'll take the test on a Saturday morning so you don't have to worry about hurrying off to work and then your sweet hubby decides to get up early and go pick up your favorite donuts for breakfast and some flowers, thinking it will be this grand special occasion that you never want to forget. But you start the video that time.... and still see one line. Yep, you do feel even more stupid and start to wonder why you ever thought it would be a good idea to get your reaction on video. And the water works flow! When August rolled around, I was so over it and so doubtful that I didn't even really have a plan except that I knew I would just go ahead and take a pregnancy test if I was even one day late, just so that I could take the test, get another no, and move on yet again. Because waiting a week to take the test like I did in July... oooh boy that was a loooong week. And I had nothing to show for it in the end. So on August 21st, I woke up by myself - thought for a second that maybe I should at least wake up Adam just in case - but then thought "yeah right" so I let him sleep and actually saw the little plus sign all on my own in our bathroom. I covered my mouth and couldn't believe it. I started to cry and all I could think to do was to just run back next to our bed and wake Adam up by saying "honey, we did it! We did it!" In his groggy state he was confused as to what "we did it" even meant and then I showed him the test and he just smiled and said "oh good honey!" Poor boy was still so out of it. So although it wasn't a glamorous reveal with both of us actually conscious enough and together in the moment... that was how we found out that morning. And although I'm a little bummed we don't have a video with our reactions, it's just nice to think that it happened the way that it did because our situation was unique to only us. It's our story and to know that it's ours and only ours is enough for me. :) And I'll still always remember that that's how it all happened! And I'll smile when I look at this beautiful picture of us that we took that morning, looking our finest of course, after we both realized we were really going to be parents.
Such raw emotion.
Up until that point I thought once I got pregnant, I could just check that one off the list. No more worries, no more waiting. I had accomplished what I needed to. Right? Wrong. It later hit me that day that I had to wait 3 months to even TELL anyone besides my immediate family and honestly to make sure our mini McKarns was actually here to stay. And then when that first trimester felt like an eternity, I realized how long pregnancy really is and how long it would be until we actually could hold our little sweet babe in our arms. And of course, hope that along the way everything went smoothly and she stayed healthy so that that day would really come.
So here I am now, 7 months preggo and honestly can tell you that it feels like it's been ten years since that day we found out there was a baby in my belly. And I still have 2 1/2 months left. Two weeks ago I said hello to the third trimester. Bring it on third trimester! It feels more and more real everyday (probably since I feel her kung fu moves more and more everyday) and for the most part, the ride has been pretty smooth. Here are some things I want to remember thus far from my pregnancy:
First Trimester - Things were great for the first few weeks and I didn't feel any different at all really. I was downing tons of fruits and vegetables all day long and getting all of my folate from natural food sources. Little miss was being treated like a queen. Then one weekend, I decided to make some hummus. I even photographed it. And I even enjoyed it while I was eating it. Then the next day I thought about that hummus and nearly gagged. And then I couldn't get it out of my mind. Thoughts of hummus haunted me and I was constantly feeling sick at the thought, just thinking about the taste. I started to wonder why I ever made the stupid hummus and wanted to burn the pictures that I took of it. And then it was all downhill from there. Many of my beloved vegetables -- asparagus, broccoli (THE SMELL), bell peppers, spinach -- all started to sound incredibly gross. And beans - eww. I started to wonder how I was ever able to eat vegan 5 days out of the week. So for me, I wasn't having many cravings really, it was mostly just about those food aversions. I normally love cilantro and then poor Adam made something with a little too much cilantro once and it ruined it for me. I could only eat a few bites without wanting to gag. I grocery shopped on a daily basis because I could only make healthy things that sounded good right then. And unfortunately, sometimes I ended up eating those things and halfway through realized that I needed to stop eating them or else I probably would have thrown up. I had a few breakdowns along the way because it was just so frustrating that I knew I had to eat regularly enough to keep from feeling sick, but hardly anything sounded good EVER. I tried to eat as healthy as I could, but was sick of choking foods down, so probably around 8 weeks I decided to just eat what sounded good and kinda pushed my vegan mentality aside. I was a little sad that it had come to that, but I was soooo much happier once I started to introduce dairy and meat again into my diet. Through the rest of the first trimester, the hummus still haunted me from time to time and I had to eat every two hours to keep the nausea at bay (translation: snacked on lots of saltines) but otherwise it really wasn't too bad. And I am grateful for that!! If you ask me now how my first trimester was I will tell you it was pretty much a piece of cake. ;)
Second Trimester - once I hit 14 weeks, I was on the top of the world! I started showing a little bit around 15 weeks and pretty much all the nausea subsided completely. I was loving it because I started to feel like there was a really a baby growing inside of me AND I was feeling great! Win win! The only complaints I had from time to time were:
1. Really bad round ligament pain (I only experienced this one night really badly at 18 weeks and then mildly a few other times that week... kinda random. Ironically I also felt her kick for the first time driving home from work the day that that pain was horrible - which made me smile in the midst of the pain!)
2. Leg cramps some evenings
3. Feeling faint if I ever got too hot, my clothes felt too tight, or I got too hungry
4. Congestion (Picture this: its at its worst and I fail to blow my nose before swishing my mouthwash at night before bed and I'm expected to basically hold my breath for an entire minute because breathing through my nose is pretty much out of the question - so I'm nearly hyperventilating trying to get in any air through my nose at all possible trying so hard to last the entire minute. Then Adam walks into the room and wonders why it sounds like a lawn mower is going off in the bathroom and makes me laugh, spitting out the mouthwash prematurely. Probably has happened 10 times.)
But honestly, most of the time, I felt totally normal and enjoyed seeing my baby girl grow and feeling her move more and more! For the first week, her movements really startled me and I wasn't totally loving it (made me feel a little guilty) but then I got used to it and now I love feeling her move all around. It was sweet because Adam got lucky enough to feel her move for the first time just a few days after I felt her for the first time. It was so cute seeing his face light up when he felt her little kick. At 23 weeks, I started to see her movements from the outside of my belly which was really fun and to this day still makes me laugh sometimes. It really can look so funny.
Now that I'm in my third trimester, I've started to experience acid reflux a little bit more and sometimes it wakes me up in the middle of the night and I have to prop myself up for a bit. I just took my glucose test this week and found out that I passed with flying colors, although my iron levels are low. I'm not surprised though because lately I always want to eat ice (which I knew was a sign of low iron) and not to mention it probably also explains me feeling faint off and on throughout each week. But hey, I am just grateful that all I have to do is incorporate more iron into my diet and it should fix the problem and I'm grateful I don't have gestational diabetes!
And just so you know, your hormones really are pretty out of whack when you are pregnant. Like for instance, the time that Adam said something that made me laugh so hard and I thought it was so sweet that he can always make me laugh so hard that I immediately started to cry happy tears right after! Needless to say, he was at a loss of words in that moment. And then that other time that I felt completely fine but for some reason he thought I looked sad and asked me why I was sad, to which I replied "I'm not" and then started crying. Yeah, true story. These things happen(ed). Turns out, I might be the baby after all, not her.
Now for some pictures/videos. We all know that's really the best part of any blog post.
Here is us the morning we found out, in all our morning glory looking quite fine. I really do love this picture though.
We made this video about a week after we found out and sent it to our immediate families to share the news with them.
Just before I hit 13 weeks, we told my cousins at our annual cousin Halloween party. Adam was taking a picture of all of us cousins and after he took a couple good ones, he said "okay okay, just one more" and then took this video to reveal the news:
I am so glad we got all of their reactions. It's actually really funny if you watch it enough times to focus on everyone individually, because you realize that a few of them literally do not react at all, a few have pretty delayed reactions... and then there is Jen who just freaks out! Ha love her! And don't ask me why I'm nodding my head so awkwardly over and over because I have absolutely no idea.
Our dear friends the Morcos were then kind enough to do a little photoshoot for us so that we could reveal the news to the Facebook world. We had made these shirts to wear to our ward Halloween party as baseball players! Here's one of the photos we got that day.
When we went on a trip to Tennessee with my family in October, we happened to see this on the wall so naturally we had to take a couple pictures next to it. :)
Just getting some practice in with my newest nephew Zach... this will be us in just a few short months holding our own baby, except of course we'll be holding a girl, not a boy. And I just have to add that one could maybe believe that Zach was my baby but definitely not Adam's. He's got Whitmore in him for sure, but there ain't no McKarns in there anywhere!
We found out our sweet babe was a girl at 20 weeks and were literally shocked. We along with pretty much everyone else were convinced it was going to be a boy. So much for mother's intuition! Promise I'll still take care of ya, baby girl.
Proof that she's a girl (notice the arrow pointing to her parts):
We found out just before going to my house for Christmas, so we decided to make the reveal in person with them. Prior to that though, it just so happened that we had a ward Christmas party and I had a work Christmas party so I decided to make gender reveal cupcakes with what are supposed to look like question marks on the top and they had pink frosting in the middle to reveal it to all of them.
We bought pink silly string to spray my nephews to tell my family once we got to Connecticut. Here is the video of it:
Unfortunately, it ended up looking more white than pink, hence the somewhat delayed reactions... caused a little confusion, but oh well! What can you do! As you can see, they were pretty shocked. Just to illustrate how convinced they were that it was a boy, my brother had sent me a thank you card for his birthday present in September and he addressed it to "Meg, Adam, & male fetus" -- oops, sorry little missie. ;) We really are all happy that you are a girl, we promise!
And then later we took these photos to reveal the gender to the Facebook world on Christmas Day.
The first baby clothing purchase I made was these cute little ruffle bum leggings. I don't really like how they look so huge in the picture with both Adam and I, because I promise you they really are so tiny!
And now for the series of bump pictures we have taken so far:
Second Trimester - once I hit 14 weeks, I was on the top of the world! I started showing a little bit around 15 weeks and pretty much all the nausea subsided completely. I was loving it because I started to feel like there was a really a baby growing inside of me AND I was feeling great! Win win! The only complaints I had from time to time were:
1. Really bad round ligament pain (I only experienced this one night really badly at 18 weeks and then mildly a few other times that week... kinda random. Ironically I also felt her kick for the first time driving home from work the day that that pain was horrible - which made me smile in the midst of the pain!)
2. Leg cramps some evenings
3. Feeling faint if I ever got too hot, my clothes felt too tight, or I got too hungry
4. Congestion (Picture this: its at its worst and I fail to blow my nose before swishing my mouthwash at night before bed and I'm expected to basically hold my breath for an entire minute because breathing through my nose is pretty much out of the question - so I'm nearly hyperventilating trying to get in any air through my nose at all possible trying so hard to last the entire minute. Then Adam walks into the room and wonders why it sounds like a lawn mower is going off in the bathroom and makes me laugh, spitting out the mouthwash prematurely. Probably has happened 10 times.)
But honestly, most of the time, I felt totally normal and enjoyed seeing my baby girl grow and feeling her move more and more! For the first week, her movements really startled me and I wasn't totally loving it (made me feel a little guilty) but then I got used to it and now I love feeling her move all around. It was sweet because Adam got lucky enough to feel her move for the first time just a few days after I felt her for the first time. It was so cute seeing his face light up when he felt her little kick. At 23 weeks, I started to see her movements from the outside of my belly which was really fun and to this day still makes me laugh sometimes. It really can look so funny.
Now that I'm in my third trimester, I've started to experience acid reflux a little bit more and sometimes it wakes me up in the middle of the night and I have to prop myself up for a bit. I just took my glucose test this week and found out that I passed with flying colors, although my iron levels are low. I'm not surprised though because lately I always want to eat ice (which I knew was a sign of low iron) and not to mention it probably also explains me feeling faint off and on throughout each week. But hey, I am just grateful that all I have to do is incorporate more iron into my diet and it should fix the problem and I'm grateful I don't have gestational diabetes!
And just so you know, your hormones really are pretty out of whack when you are pregnant. Like for instance, the time that Adam said something that made me laugh so hard and I thought it was so sweet that he can always make me laugh so hard that I immediately started to cry happy tears right after! Needless to say, he was at a loss of words in that moment. And then that other time that I felt completely fine but for some reason he thought I looked sad and asked me why I was sad, to which I replied "I'm not" and then started crying. Yeah, true story. These things happen(ed). Turns out, I might be the baby after all, not her.
Now for some pictures/videos. We all know that's really the best part of any blog post.
Here is us the morning we found out, in all our morning glory looking quite fine. I really do love this picture though.
We made this video about a week after we found out and sent it to our immediate families to share the news with them.
Just before I hit 13 weeks, we told my cousins at our annual cousin Halloween party. Adam was taking a picture of all of us cousins and after he took a couple good ones, he said "okay okay, just one more" and then took this video to reveal the news:
I am so glad we got all of their reactions. It's actually really funny if you watch it enough times to focus on everyone individually, because you realize that a few of them literally do not react at all, a few have pretty delayed reactions... and then there is Jen who just freaks out! Ha love her! And don't ask me why I'm nodding my head so awkwardly over and over because I have absolutely no idea.
Our dear friends the Morcos were then kind enough to do a little photoshoot for us so that we could reveal the news to the Facebook world. We had made these shirts to wear to our ward Halloween party as baseball players! Here's one of the photos we got that day.
When we went on a trip to Tennessee with my family in October, we happened to see this on the wall so naturally we had to take a couple pictures next to it. :)
Just getting some practice in with my newest nephew Zach... this will be us in just a few short months holding our own baby, except of course we'll be holding a girl, not a boy. And I just have to add that one could maybe believe that Zach was my baby but definitely not Adam's. He's got Whitmore in him for sure, but there ain't no McKarns in there anywhere!
We found out our sweet babe was a girl at 20 weeks and were literally shocked. We along with pretty much everyone else were convinced it was going to be a boy. So much for mother's intuition! Promise I'll still take care of ya, baby girl.
Proof that she's a girl (notice the arrow pointing to her parts):
We found out just before going to my house for Christmas, so we decided to make the reveal in person with them. Prior to that though, it just so happened that we had a ward Christmas party and I had a work Christmas party so I decided to make gender reveal cupcakes with what are supposed to look like question marks on the top and they had pink frosting in the middle to reveal it to all of them.
We bought pink silly string to spray my nephews to tell my family once we got to Connecticut. Here is the video of it:
Unfortunately, it ended up looking more white than pink, hence the somewhat delayed reactions... caused a little confusion, but oh well! What can you do! As you can see, they were pretty shocked. Just to illustrate how convinced they were that it was a boy, my brother had sent me a thank you card for his birthday present in September and he addressed it to "Meg, Adam, & male fetus" -- oops, sorry little missie. ;) We really are all happy that you are a girl, we promise!
And then later we took these photos to reveal the gender to the Facebook world on Christmas Day.
The first baby clothing purchase I made was these cute little ruffle bum leggings. I don't really like how they look so huge in the picture with both Adam and I, because I promise you they really are so tiny!
And now for the series of bump pictures we have taken so far:
Until I put all these up on here one after the other, I didn't realize that we ended up switching sides starting at 24 weeks... oops! We'll have to switch back to how it was before at 28 weeks. Which we actually did already take those photos, but I'm going to save that one for the next post.
I just have to post this gem too (which took a lot of convincing on my part) because this is the kind of picture I get first of Adam when I tell him it's time to take our biweekly baby bump photos...
He's crazy! And I love him for it. He hates this photo, but of course he's pushing out what he's got! He's just jealous of my bump. I'm pretty sure if our little miss (or Missy Higgins as he likes to call her - which evolved from little miss) comes out anything like him at all we're going to have a sassy, silly girl on our hands. :) And I sure hope that is what we get.
Oh and one other very crucial piece of information... maternity tights are the best thing since sliced bread and maternity garments are the worst thing since sliced bread. Those are facts.
He's crazy! And I love him for it. He hates this photo, but of course he's pushing out what he's got! He's just jealous of my bump. I'm pretty sure if our little miss (or Missy Higgins as he likes to call her - which evolved from little miss) comes out anything like him at all we're going to have a sassy, silly girl on our hands. :) And I sure hope that is what we get.
Oh and one other very crucial piece of information... maternity tights are the best thing since sliced bread and maternity garments are the worst thing since sliced bread. Those are facts.
Hurry up little girl! Get here fast so that your mom can put an end to getting weepy in the car while driving to and from work just thinking about your greatly anticipated arrival. ;)
