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!