Thank you all for such a lovely response to my pregnancy announcement this week! In the spirit of being as open and honest as I can about my whole journey (the good, the hard, the beautiful and the terrifying), I’m excited to start sharing my bumpdates with you. I’ll be publishing these every month – although we have a few to catch up on first! – and they’ll be a raw, inside look into my pregnancy. I’d always find posts like these really interesting even before I was pregnant so hopefully you do too! Let’s kick things off with my weeks 1-4 pregnancy diary!
Bumpdate: Weeks 1-4
To *really* start at the beginning, we need to backtrack slightly to the previous few months. So after my miscarriage, the doctors advised us to wait one full cycle before trying again to give my body time to heal and rebalance. Thankfully, four weeks after the D&C, things seemed to be back on track. I had no idea how long it would take to recover and so was pretty grateful that it didn’t take too long at all.
I know a lot of couples choose to wait a while before thinking about getting pregnant again after going through something as traumatic as a miscarriage. But for us, we didn’t want to delay. Healing after grief is a long-term process that doesn’t have a start and stop date. I knew that I’d still be dealing with it even years from now. But another pregnancy, another baby, might help us to keep looking forward and not back.
I got pregnant the second month we tried, like last time. (Note: I’m fully aware of how lucky I am in this regard and how long it can take for some. I don’t take this for granted for a second, especially after suffering pregnancy loss.) I felt so so pregnant even before I peed on the stick, but I didn’t trust myself. My mind had played tricks on me the last month where I was totally convinced I was pregnant only to see big fat negative tests results. So I was playing it cool. Or at least trying to?!
But wait. What made me think I was pregnant before taking a test? Well, I basically felt like I had my period about a week before it was due. I’m talking cramps, bloating, backaches, sore boobs and just generally feeling ‘blah’. All I felt like doing was laying around on the couch bingeing on Netfilx. This was weird for me. Usually, I’d only feel this way the first day of my period, not days and days before. I knew what being pregnant felt like and this was pretty much it.
I didn’t trust myself though. I was determined to have some self-restraint and NOT test before my period was due. I just didn’t want to see a negative result again. So I waited it out…
…For a grand total of two days and then I totally caved and tested early!
I just couldn’t shake the feeling.
My period wasn’t due for another three days but I had some early-result tests in the cupboard. I scanned the pamphlet. It said ‘87% accurate four days before your missed period’. I’ll take that.
I did the test, covered it and put the timer on. My heart was thumping. I went back to bed, turned to Ben and said, ‘I’m probably not pregnant. It’s probably all in my head’.
‘Well, let’s find out,’ he said.
The timer buzzed. My stomach flipped.
‘I don’t want to look at it. You do it.’ I couldn’t handle seeing a negative.
Ben walked into the bathroom and when he came out, a giant smile was plastered across his face.
‘What, is it positive? No, you’re playing a joke on me, right?’
What a cruel joke that would be. Nope, there they were, the two lines on the stick. It wasn’t a squinter either. It was assertively strong.
I stared at it in disbelief for a moment and then a flood of relief washed over me. I thought so. I wasn’t crazy.
The next few days passed in a fuzzy blur of relief, excitement and hope. I held back from making a doctor’s appointment right away since I hadn’t even missed my period so, technically, shouldn’t have even tested yet! And since pregnancy dates are counted from the first day of your last period (weird I know), that would make me only 3 weeks and 3 days pregnant. Crazy early. Let’s just see, I thought. No point in rushing things along. Everything happened so fast last time and I was in having doctor’s appointments almost as soon as I peed on the stick. I wanted to avoid anything that was a repeat of last time.
So I held off on booking an appointment for about another week and a half when I’d be 4 weeks 6 days.
In the days leading up to that first appointment, I began being crippled by anxiety. You know how I mentioned that I felt panicky after the hospital procedure? It came back with a vengeance during week four. My heart started racing, I couldn’t catch a deep breath and I even started having heart palpitations. It was an awful feeling and I tried to control it as best as I could by practising yoga breathing and meditating. This helped a little but I was still struggling.
I realised that it was the looming medical appointment that was triggering my anxiety. Even though this would just be an initial consultation, it signified the start of tests and monitoring. Since I’d always received worrying news at these appointments during the last pregnancy, I’d started to negatively associate anything to do with pregnancy care. I guess I was subconsciously anticipating another awful experience.
I spoke to my doctor about my anxiety and she was great. She said there’s no reason to think that I’d have another miscarriage, that the odds were on my side and I would most probably have a very healthy pregnancy this time. She offered me a referral to speak to someone about my anxiety, but I wanted to try and get it under control myself first. So off I went to get a blood test to confirm everything and check my hormone levels.
And that was it for weeks 1-4. Stay tuned for the next update to find out how I go with the anxiety. Also read about my first test results, the ultrasound and what it was like travelling interstate during the first trimester!
In the meantime, get up to date with my pregnancy journey here:
- Miscarriage: A Jumbled Mess of Thoughts and Feelings
- What it’s Like to Have a D&C for a Miscarriage: My Hospital Story
- Saying Goodbye After Pregnancy Loss
- The Things That Helped Me Heal After Miscarriage
- Oh Baby!
Like this post? Pin it for later!
I’d love to hear your own experience with weeks 1-4 of pregnancy!
