40 Weeks (A reflection on my pregnancy)

40 weeks

As my due date comes to an end (with no impending signs of little dude making his appearance anytime in the next foreseeable future), I feel as if now is as good a time as ever to take a minute to write about what a journey the past, almost year, of my life has been.

It’s crazy to think that for the past 10 months of my life, I haven’t ever really been alone (since modern medicine technically defines pregnancy as the date of your last period plus the nine months it takes to grow a tiny human) and that I will never be alone again, at least not until little man is grown and moved out on his own. This has truly been one of the most wonderful, yet difficult things I have ever experienced.

I found out I was pregnant very early on—something like a few days shy of four weeks, as @thatsweeneyguy and I were trying to conceive. We had been trying for a little over six months, but this was the second time I had become pregnant during that time.
(I will likely write another post at some point about that at another point in time, as it does deserve its own post because a miscarriage is something that up to 20% of known pregnancies are known to end with.)
I decided to take the last pregnancy test I had one night after I got out of the shower, even though you’re supposed to take them in the morning with your first pee of the day, which will be saturated with all of the pregnancy hormones. I really was not expecting the test to come out positive because I hadn’t missed my period, it was at night, and after months of trying with no success, I think you almost prepare yourself for it to be negative so you aren’t as disappointed when it does turn out to be.

Any woman who has ever taken a pregnancy test will assure you that the two to three minutes it takes to develop are the longest few hundred seconds of your life, no matter what you want the outcome to be.
In the past, I would pee on the test, set it on the counter and play around on my phone and wait for the alarm to signal that the appropriate amount of time had passed to get an accurate reading.
This time was different; I kept an eye on the result window as the test was developing. After about 30 seconds a faint (but definitely there) second line was visible. I will never forget how I told Cryptopapa (which is what I am now dubbing @thatsweeneyguy to avoid tagging him every time I want to talk about him 😝) our good news. He had just laid down in bed before I took a shower because he had to get up early for work the next day.
I came out of the bathroom, still wrapped in my towel, flipped on the light and yelled excitedly “Babe! We’re pregnant!” as I tossed the stick I had just peed on at him. Not the most special, creative, or sanitary way to tell your partner you’re pregnant, I know, but, I just couldn’t contain myself.
I went the next few weeks without anything of importance happening, as it was too early to tell anyone or notice anything different about my body, with the thought in my head that I would willingly take any symptom of pregnancy to make it seem more real. MAN, did I eat my words.

I woke up sometime early on during my seventh week with an unreeling vomiting episode everyday up until about 15 to 16 weeks in. I considered it a good day when I would only get sick once, only to have it made up for with twice the episodes the day after. I lost weight and had trouble keeping anything I forced myself to eat down, but still kept going to class four days a week and working alone in a hotel continental breakfast bar by myself like a champ (with only a tad bit of complaining and wallowing in self-misery, or so I like to think, haha).
By the time the nausea let up it was about time to find out if the peanut I had been growing was a little boy or girl. Cryptopapa and I disagreed all the up until the time we went in for the anatomy scan whether we would be bringing home a baby boy or a baby girl. Due to old wives’ tales saying if you had horrible morning sickness it was destined to be a girl, I was convinced our nugget would come home dressed in pink ruffles and bows, but Cryptopapa never once let up that it would be a boy, and he was right. Our baby was not only a boy, but also VERY proud of his extra phalange, displaying it with his legs wide open during the ultrasound for everyone in the room to clearly see.

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Although I was not disappointed to be carrying a little boy, it did take some time for me to come around to the idea that I would always and forever be a Boy Mom, as Cryptopapa already has a four-year-old son. I had always thought that my first child would be a little girl, but after a few days I began to accept that I was destined to have a testosterone-filled home accompanied an endless amounts of fart jokes. Looking to the future now, I cannot imagine having it any other way.

Fast forward to roughly four months later after a lot of eating, nesting, and all other wonderful things pregnancy related and here we are waiting for baby Vincent Orion Thais to make his grand appearance into this big, strange world. While some days (like the ones I spent bowing down to the porcelain throne) felt like the end would never come, these past few months have truly flown by and no matter how difficult they have been, I would do it all again in a heartbeat and without hesitation to get to where I am now.
I hope I haven’t bored or grossed you out with too many details of this crazy rollercoaster that I have been on. Even if I did, leave me a comment and tell me. Happy Steeming, folks!