I’ve been struggling writing this for over 4 years. I want to tell the story, but to go back to the scariest day of my life, the one that was supposed to be the best day of my life, the day my first child was born (early).
At first the delay in telling this story probably some post traumatic stress that was keeping me from doing it, then denial, wanting to capture everything (the slightest perfectionism in me, wanting to do everything or nothing at all), then just enjoying (and wanting to be just enjoying) where I was and not wanting to go back to those memories, then life got busy, then a second child on the way, you know how it goes...
But, it is important to me to write this down. So, here I am. Even after almost 5 years…
To start the story off from the beginning…
Lance wanted to have a baby, he was ~33 years old I was only just 28, I wasn’t quite ready. We had been married 2 years before. We decided to have a “Summer of Fun” and then start trying for a baby. Little did we know when we started tracking everything – 6 weeks later, and I was pregnant. I was shocked! I was happy/excited – all of the normal things. A little part of me was scared out of my wits and totally wanted to go backwards. I was wondering if we had done the right thing, made the right decision, all the fear crept in, but there was no going back now!
All of my dreams about what this little person would be like started when I found out I was pregnant, all of the possibilities in life. It’s hard to truly explain it, but when you become pregnant - it encompasses all that you are and all that you do and all that you think about. You think about situations differently, you react differently. You are different. The core of who you are is changed. You dream of yourself holding your baby, rocking and carrying your baby. I’ve heard men dream differently – they dream of playing ball, riding bicycles, carrying kids on their shoulders.
Early on I was tired, queasy, excited, nervous, all the normal things. Part of our “Summer of Fun” was to compete together in triathlons. I had already done 4 that summer, and the 5th triathlon came when I was already 8 weeks pregnant (technically I did the 4th when I was about 4 weeks pregnant, I just didn’t know it yet!). They should’ve had a category for pregnant ladies – because I would’ve won! But, alas, I came in 41 out of 53 in my age group. Total time of 1:48:44. What a great start to being pregnant! I felt pretty tired, obviously, and was pretty nauseous during the run, but held it all together for a great finish. I was in the best shape of my life. Lance and I trained and cheered each other on the entire summer. It truly was a great summer.
I had the usual tiredness, queasy/nausea, but not usually in the morning - it usually came in waves in the afternoons and especially at dinner time. I couldn’t eat dinner for what seemed like forever. Usually by 9 PM, I could muster up to eat something and my favorite was cold cereal during this time.
We found out we were having a boy on Christmas Day when we opened two cards (one with a symbol and one with the symbolized answer, so you needed both cards to know) that the ultrasound technician had prepared a few weeks earlier for us.
A boy!
All my dreams became about little boys and what he would do started coming even more now.
My pregnancy going along just fine. I was doing yoga twice a week (had already been doing it regularly for a couple of years) and transitioned to walking in my neighborhood, instead of running and biking, as I got bigger and bigger. I didn’t even really start “showing” until I was well into 24+ weeks. I finally looked slightly (maybe) pregnant, instead of just getting a little round in the middle, at 26 weeks.
Pictures from our road trip to San Diego (~24 weeks along). Yes, I know I don’t look pregnant. I told ya so!
I traveled to Washington D.C around 28 weeks and that was a difficult, it was a bumpy ride and it was very emotionally hard to leave on a plane, away from Lance when I was pregnant. Darn those hormones! I got a bit puffy on the plane, but didn’t think much of it at the time (one of my first symptoms). My body was starting to ache, by back would hurt and I would do lots of stretching, but nothing out of the ordinary. Everyone you hear about has some aches and pains by the 3rd trimester. My IT band would kill me (those hips were loose and moving around), and I would have to get out of bed to stretch in the middle of the night because my hips/IT band was hurting me. I was having a perfectly normal pregnancy, all that you read in the books about and hear about from your friends.
Picture taken Jan 11, 2007 (~25 weeks along)
To be continued…
1 comments:
Good for you Allison! I love reading this!
Jess
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