Happy New Year!! Hope it’s been great so far. It’s been super relaxing for us so far — exactly what we needed! Kevin hasn’t ended up working that much with all the mid-week holidays plus we had an appointment at the midwifery and some other baby errands to check off our list.
My own mom made fun of me for not wearing heels in the pic below…. can’t catch a break. In my defense, I seriously thought about it, but it had been snowing and I didn’t want to ruin any. :)
One great perk of being super pregnant is that people don’t really expect you to go out. I actually just wish I could hibernate totally for the next month, but I can’t quite make that happen. On NYE, Kevin’s office sprung him out early so we made a trip to one of my favorite bookstores! Barbed Wire Books is definitely worth the drive to Longmont, and the 20% off coupon they on their website right was all the motivation I needed! We had fun sifting through their great collection of used children’s books, and we each picked out a few for Baby K. I spent another hour looking at “my books”, and Kevin was so sweet and patient.
Okay, maybe a little bribery helped. I looked up some nearby spots on Yelp, and found that La Vita Bella was right down the street.
The pregnant girl got a whole 2 bites of that, but I did claim one in the center. That’s the BEST part of a cinnamon roll, for sure! And if you’re going to splurge on bread, it might as well have frosting on it!!! :)
Kevin fell asleep before 10:30PM, and so I gave up shortly after. Pippa woke us up at midnight when she got totally spooked by the fireworks. She squeezed in between us all the way up to the pillows. She’s never done that before, but we felt sorry for and let her stay. #pushovers!!!!
Okay, I decided today I wanted to blog about some of just my general pregnancy memories. If you’ve been reading, you know that it’s gone very smoothly and it’s been fast & furious. I feel like we were just telling our families a few weeks ago! I haven’t done a good job keeping a journal or a baby book or anything like that, but I’ll write it in my blog so I can at least Google it! By the way, of course, having a personal blog as 30-year-old is a little ridiculous, but it comes in handy when you’re trying to remember something or find a pic. Seriously!
Finding out. The long version. (Don’t worry, nothing gross here!)
Haha. WE HAD NO IDEA we were parents in this pic. We had just climbed the Manitou Incline, and I felt wonderful. I seriously had no inkling whatsoever at this point. Don’t you think 9 months is really short time to adjust to the idea? Especially if you don’t find out immediately!
This is the first day I remember thinking…. what?? why am I moving SO SLOWLY in this workout (it had a ton of handstand push-ups)!!!!
Next signs (besides the obvious scientific one which we won’t get into here….). One day, I noticed my wedding ring wouldn’t come off? Huh? That was totally weird. I take my ring off a lot for CrossFit purposes so it was super noticeable. That was really the first time I had a little feeling in the pit of my stomach like…. ummmmm…. maybeeeee….. And then a few days later, while I was teaching piano, I had a slight wave of nausea. Haha. it was seriously like 30 seconds, but it caught me sooooo off guard as i was trying to talk to a piano parent. That’s just not normal for me.
So I did what a normal human in 2014 would do:
Ordered some pregnancy tests on Amazon. I wasn’t in any rush to take one, in fact, I didn’t even tell Kevin I ordered them. I had said to him a few times that I thought I might be pregnant, but he did not take it seriously at all. The day they were scheduled to arrive (thank you, Amazon Prime), I was a little bit anxious, but still not totally freaking out. I had to teach that afternoon, and of course, UPS did not arrive until I had a student with me. So inconvenient. But I think I had a cancellation, because for some reason, I had a chance to take one. Here I will admit that I wasn’t entirely sure exactly how to use the tests. I know it seems obvious (and it is), but they were super cheap — not like the ones you see on tv. I took one, and let it sit the recommended 5 minutes. NADA. I was incredibly relieved. But I didn’t throw it away, just in case. Some of the Amazon reviews I read (while I was trying to figure out how to use it – haha — seriously though, thank God for the internet) said they took longer. Sure enough… ten minutes later, it was a pretty clear positive. Yeah, you better believe, I took at least five more just to be sure.
OMG!!! Kevin’s bday present was definitely going to be a baby!!!
I told him as soon he got home from work, although I seriously thought about waiting until his birthday (one or two days away at that point). If anyone could hold a secret in like that, it’s me! Ha. But I figured he’d want to know. HE DIDN’T REALLY UNDERSTAND/BELIEVE ME!! Haha. Of course, we knew it was scientifically possible, but it was pretty shocking how quickly it happened. It took me a while to convince him. Haha. But he was so excited!! Also, we were both still in denial.
Haha. 2 weeks later I thought maybe I should try a “name brand” pregnancy test. Yeah, definitely still positive. It was so weird because I was pretty much 2/3 of the way through my first trimester, and I felt EXACTLY the same other than the two brief instances I mentioned.
We celebrated our third anniversary, and just sort of acted normal. We climbed a 14er, and I will always remember that Kevin had ZERO mercy for the pregnant girl. Lol. He claims he was just trying to keep it a secret from our friends for me. What a giver. :)
I was having a really difficult time adjusting to the idea of a baby, and of course, I started having to Google a million little things. Reluctantly, I decided I should see a doctor to at least have it totally confirmed before our upcoming trip to Minnesota.
It was also around this time that I apparently discovered that Fire on the Mountain was my go-to pregnancy restaurant! Seriously, my fave.I love the spicy food.
We went to a women’s health care provider in our neighborhood, just for convenience, although we were already pretty serious about going with a birth center. Pretty much all they did was give me a pregnancy test. Can I just say health professionals have no pity on you with drastic news? They were like, yes, you are definitely pregnant. No warning. Just bam!! Okay, I guessed I couldn’t deny it any more. They actually scheduled a first trimester ultrasound for me, but I ended up canceling it because of travel conflicts. And I knew after my appointment that I definitely would be transferring out of their practice.
I decided to buy a very modest one-piece for our vacation at the lake, just in case I started showing. I was already going into hibernation mode, people. When we were in my hometown on that trip, I tried to see nobody!!!!
Telling people.
Trust me, if I thought I could’ve gotten away with a group email or text, I would’ve gone for it! But Kevin wasn’t going to let that happen with our first baby. Especially since we were going to be in Minnesota right at the end of my first trimester. I definitely was not showing enough where I had to tell, but the timing was just too right not to.
The first person I told was my hair stylist. Because, why not? Also, because I know some people question hair dye in the early weeks so I thought I’d be careful. Right before I left I told my CrossFit coaches and my CF Bff’s. I was going to be gone for almost two weeks and heading into my second trimester, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. It just seemed like the right thing to do (there’s a whole recap on first trimester CrossFit here if that’s your thing).
I texted and emailed some of my friends the happy news in the car on the way to Wabasha from the airport as sort of a warm-up.
We told both sides of the family with the delicious Whole Foods Berry Chantilly Cake. I personally thought it was pretty obvious, but my family totally played dumb and made me spell it out. I actually considered writing something like “Corrie Is Pregnant”, but that just didn’t have the same cute affect. Oh well, the cake was delicious. Kevin’s side did a little better, with my ten year-old-niece being the first to figure it out.
Baby K is far from the first grandchild on either side so everyone was excited, but it wasn’t a huge ordeal. There’s lots of kids everywhere in our families.
Of course, as soon as I told everyone, people started saying that I was showing which annoyed me more that it should have. I looked about as pregnant as any girl who doesn’t have 6-pack abs, but people can’t help themselves. It’s one of the downsides of being a pregnant introvert, you just have to brace yourself for the things people say out loud and try not to, well, slap them. Too hard.
When we got home from that (amazing and super fun) lake trip, things started to get real. Since I have my own business, I needed to start making plans for that, and I thought it was only fair to notify my piano families that I’d be taking maternity leave.
This baby is so loved.
I know I sound a little detached from the whole process… it took me around 25 weeks to feel really engaged or connected, and I still experience some bouts of denial. I cried when I found out the baby was a boy. I’ve mentioned that I have an anterior placenta so I didn’t feel the baby move until super far along, and honestly, it just took a long time to sink in. There was no question that we hope to have children someday, but “someday” is a lot easier to swallow than “January or February.” For a while, I was actually afraid I might have some type of prenatal depression. Looking back, it’s probably just more that I have been incredibly spoiled and I was just nervous about all. the. changes.
The second trimester was a lot more about BABY NAMES!! Are there baby boy clothes are actually cute? Seeing him for the first time (and thinking one of his pics was cute….. that could only be a mom. ultrasound pics are weird).
I would never write something like this on the internet if I thought it would hurt my child’s feelings someday. The fact of the matter is, I think it’s fine for him to know that we were deliriously happy before we had him…. and even happier when we did. Plus I felt like the only not-super-excited-from-the-first-minute pregnant woman ever in the history of the world which just made me more sad. Totally not true, but most people don’t write it on the internet. So here I am, writing it on the internet. It’ll get better, and it won’t make you a horrible mom. <3
Now I’m off to shop for diapers (for real)… I’ll type up some more of the fun parts of pregnancy another time.
For now, if you’re pregnant, you should buy these Gap super stretch legging jeans. They are amazing! Since I made it 30+ weeks in my regular jeans, I figured why bother buying maternity jeans? I did buy those jeggings at around 20 weeks, just because my jeans were getting really old and I didn’t want to buy really nice fitted new ones. I had assumed that they wouldn’t fit anymore, but they do. I wore them to dinner last night. They should be great for post-partum as well!! Definitely find a way to get a sale price though. It can be tricky with Gap jeans, but there are ways! Just hold out for the right sale. They are also great for CrossFitters, by the way. I couldn’t fit some of the maternity jeans I tried because of my calves. In any size. That’s so special. Lol.
[Follow corrieanne Instagram, Pinterest, and find the fabulous Baby BOY page here]
