Growin' A Baby

Being pregnant wasn’t too terrible. I mean… it wasn’t like I’m over here going “that was awesome!” but it wasn’t something I would never do again. I didn’t have any complications and my body handled it pretty well. Plus, you get an amazing little person out of it.

I had morning sickness almost immediately. I swear it started as soon as egg met sperm. I was nauseas for about a week on and off before I even took the pregnancy test, and I did that at only two weeks pregnant. It wasn’t too bad, compared to what it could have been *cough cough-Jessica’s experience.* The first month I threw up pretty much every day. I was okay enough to not puke at work, but mornings and evenings it would get to me. After that I still threw up plenty but not nearly as much as the very beginning of the pregnancy. It became more just in the morning when I did puke. It was almost always when I got up to take a shower and brush my teeth. I brushed my teeth twice in a row pretty regularly during my first trimester. Brush. Puke. Brush. Nice, right?

My tummy grew pretty quickly. I was small so I was expecting to show relatively fast but not nearly as soon as I did. I had people wondering if I was pregnant when I was only 7-8 weeks. I hadn’t even told everyone at that point. I actually had an employee at work come up to me at 8 weeks and say “You’re having a baby!” to which I could only reply “WHAT?!” Apparently the bump was already there. I told my friends right after that and then I told my coworkers. Obviously I couldn’t hide it anymore.

Mmmm... Cake pops...

My pregnancy was pretty low key. I had the regular pregnancy symptoms. I craved Coca-Cola, orange juice, cheese, cream cheese, Twix, and plenty of other things. I got uncomfortable and couldn’t bend over or see my feet. I have plenty of stretch marks on my thighs. Somehow I made it through pregnancy without stretch marks on my stomach. But my thighs are f#*@ed up... And my cute little belly button is now like a squishy cavern. I did get pretty bloated in the last trimester. I took my wedding rings off as soon as I got home from work and could only wear flip flops. Any other types of shoes were not going to fit onto my huge, puffy feet. I did ice soaks for my poor feet and put them up every chance I got. Who needs ankles anyway, though?

Romeo and I decided that we wanted to use a midwife, as opposed to a doctor, because we liked the idea of having less intervention. I wanted to let my body do what it was made to do. I didn’t want a doctor saying that things weren’t happening the way they wanted and try to rush my body and the process. We also decided to take part in Centering Pregnancy. This was a way of having our midwife appointments where we could meet with other couples who were due in the same month. We got to ask questions and got a lot in information in our 2 hour meetings. We had meetings once a month for the first two trimesters and twice a month for the third trimester. Romeo and I are both really glad we decided to do the Centering Pregnancy. We learned a lot and got to meet and become friends with a lot of great people. PS-They all have super adorable babies now too. 

We found out at 12 weeks that it was a good chance we were having a girl. We were both so excited. We weren’t set on wishing we would have one gender or the other but I loved the idea of having a girl. When I was 20 weeks we went in for our gender reveal and found out that for sure we were going to have a girl. (Yay team girl!) We already had a long list of name possibilities and then we could at least cut it in half.

We knew we wanted her name to be different. I grew up with 3 other Heather’s in just one class at school and didn’t want her to have the same situation. She was special. And we also wanted her name to be at least Italian based to honor Romeo’s heritage. We thought about the name for a while and didn’t narrow our list down to a few names until the week before I went into labor. We did know from the start that we didn’t want to choose a name for sure until the baby was born so we could make sure the name fit her.

The plan for the nursery was to do green for a boy and purple for a girl, from the start. Slowly, but surely, the nursery came together. We did light purple and lime green with a garden theme. I love Quorra’s nursery. Purple is my favorite color and everything came together nicely. (I don't have any pictures right now but I promise I'll get you some.)

My sister helped me throw a baby shower, which had a purple nesting theme. It was super duper awesome and is the only reason my nursery got as stocked as it did. Check out some great pics of my shower on her blog.

When Nicole gave birth to her son, Broderick, we knew we weren’t too far behind and shit got real. We made sure all the bags were packed and everything at home was ready for our little lady to come. My big wish was that my water wouldn’t break at work. I worked full time through my entire pregnancy, up to the day before I gave birth.

Nicole’s birthday was September 27^th and my due date was October 4^th. She mentioned that she would like to have a new niece for her birthday. I told her that I would talk to the baby and see if we could make that happen. Before I went to bed on the 26^th I told Romeo that I really didn’t want to go to work the next day. I was tired, uncomfortable and the work day took every drop of energy I had. I said, jokingly, that it would be great if I woke up and my water broke so I wouldn’t have to go to work.

I got up the next morning to turn my alarm off and, low and behold, my water broke. Neither me nor Romeo got too nervous. We took our time, got ready, and headed to the hospital. I called my family on the way to inform them that we were getting ready to meet our little bean.

Check back in for my birth story!

Then Came The Baby In The Baby Carriage

So remember when I told you I was a planner? Yeah, I’m not kidding. When my husband and I got married we had already discussed children. We knew we wanted at least one child, maybe two. Once we got married we decided for sure that we wanted to have a baby after we had been married for a couple years. We wanted to have time to be a married couple and to get to know one another before adding a baby into the mix.

After our first wedding anniversary we started discussing more and more when we thought we would want to start trying to have a baby. With more time and talking we decided that we wanted to start “trying” for our second wedding anniversary.

Remember my cousin and BFF, Nicole from Pampers and Pumps? We had our weddings mere months apart and were both discussing baby time. Her and her (now ex) husband had the same idea that Romeo and I had. It just so happened that both couples decided to start working toward a family around the same time. We do stuff together and thought that having babies around the same time would be AWESOME. She told us that she was pregnant right before Romeo and I starting the baby-making.

Anyway, I took my last pack of birth control in November and finished it the week of our second anniversary. My thought was to try to get pregnant in December/January and hope that it wouldn’t take us too long. Then we would have our baby before the holidays. Of course, we knew that babies and bodies work how they want to so this time line was a goal for us. We knew there was no way to guarantee anything.

Christmas and New Years came and went and we were still working for the baby-ness.  Mid-January I was supposed to get my second no-pill period. I am always very regular and was looking for it. Not to mention that I was checking my fertility calendar like a hawk. (Remember-I’m a planner.) I always start in the morning and had gone to work and gotten home that day and still hadn’t started my period. I had a back-up pregnancy test at home and decided to go ahead and take it. I needed to know whether or not to expect my period and buy more tampons. So I went ahead and peed on the stick. I checked it a few minutes later completely expecting it to be negative and to start my period the next day, like every other time I’ve taken a pregnancy test.

But when I looked I saw a faint second line. I sat down and stared at the test for a while. Am I crazy? Is there really a line there? No way… I reread the directions. I did it right. The second line meant it was positive. But it was so light. But the directions say ANY line means positive. Then I googled it. (I do that a lot.) It means I’m pregnant.

Do you see the second line? Confusing, right??

That evening was Romeo and my date night so I gathered myself to go meet him. I didn’t want to tell him on the phone if I could tell him in person. We had to stop by his parent’s house first  since they were having cake for his dad’s birthday. I got to the house and had Romeo meet me outside. I told him that I couldn’t drink the champagne they were getting ready to open. When he asked me why I told him it was because I thought I was pregnant. He was elated. His face lit up like a Christmas tree.

We knew we wanted to keep the pregnancy to ourselves for at least the first couple months so we went inside and kept quiet. I went home and took another test, which was also positive so it was for sure. We were pregnant. We were so excited that we got pregnant so quickly and I was stoked to be able to go through pregnancy the same time as Nicole.

My sister, Jessica at Heart on Homestead, and I are super close so we knew we wanted to tell her and her husband first. We invited them to dinner about a week later. After we got settled Romeo ordered himself a beer and I got water. I said “I can’t have a margarita today. I’m not going to be able to drink when we go on vacation either.” Jess was so confused. She asked why and I told her I was pregnant. *Cue the waterworks*

We told the rest of the family about a month and a half later. Everyone was super excited. I got to tell my cousins and extended family soon after that when we made a trip to Pennsylvania. Nicole and I were giddy to be able to go through the experience of becoming a mom at the same time.

Romeo and I started having the idea of being parents-to-be sink in and made all the new plans that came along with it. We were so blessed and excited to go through this experience together and couldn’t wait to welcome our little one. A piece of each of us. A show of our love. A miracle. Our miracle.