Pregnancy

So we are a little over 8 weeks pregnant… I don’t look any different, but I feel like I have the flu…all the time. I’ve never wanted to puke so bad in my life, except that one time I was too hungover or maybe that’s called still drunk. I thought it was a mental thing, like maybe I wouldn’t feel pregnant if I tried to forget I was pregnant… until one day I walked by the pantry and noticed the door was open. I decided to go over and close the door, but not before I saw a jar of orange marmalade on the shelf… who the hell buys orange marmalade?!

I felt instant nausea, clammy, and weakness, followed by anger. It was the moment I accepted the reality of pregnancy and raging hormones. I knew If a jar of orange marmalade could ruin my day, this was going to be a crazy ride. I figured since I knew nothing about pregnancy, and never wanted to, I should buy a book to read on what to expect. I absolutely hate books like this, but the question I had, I needed answers for… what would happen to my body? I knew If I googled that question it would range from “you died 8 minutes ago, to pregnancy is a breeze and there aren’t any reasons to worry”. I was only interested in the parts that described week by week what body parts of mine would be ruined, and how the baby was developing. As certain curiosities of mine were answered, I then wondered who lived inside me was a boy or girl. I had realllllllly wanted a boy. I grew up with mostly male figures (minus my real father) and worked in mostly all male jobs.

I figured since I was always “one of the guys” taking care of one wouldn’t be all that hard. What a moronic way to think! I mean I’ve lived with guys, and I’ve seen them sick… we all know there’s nothing easy about either of those scenarios. I asked my boyfriend if he wanted a boy or a girl and he said he always wanted a girl. Naturally we are always opposite… I continued to go to my appointments for bloodwork, urine tests, vaccines, and the flu shot. I am 30 years old and have never had a flu shot, why get one now? I told the nurse I wasn’t interested in the flu shot, and she said well it isn’t actually to protect you as much as it is the baby. She followed that up with, “it’s not about you anymore, its all about the baby”. That is the absolute truest statement! So after getting the flu shot I wasn’t going to get… I was then asked if I wanted to do any genetic testing to measure the likelihood of certain risks. Immediately I wanted to know the likelihood of anything! Only two tests really seemed necessary, but one of them would reveal the baby’s gender! Unreal! At 12 weeks I would know who this little nausea causing person is! But I didn’t want to find out that way, because on tv everyone finds out by ultrasound, and it’s exactly everything they ever wanted. After reading all the potential diseases and developmental disabilities, all I wanted was healthy. I called my boyfriend to see how he wanted to find out, and he said if he was home he wanted to wait for an ultrasound, and if he was away at work he wanted to know from the genetic testing. A week went by and I received a call from the office, our results were in. I was nervous to call them thinking they may blurt out the gender… my boyfriend said he wouldn’t be home by my next scheduled ultrasound so to go ahead and call them back… I was at work, trying to focus as best I could, but I couldn’t wait. I went outside and sat in my bosses old truck, not my truck… I’m not even sure why… I called the office back and they said everything looked great for the testing and asked if I wanted to know the baby’s gender. I went silent and finally said yes. They said congrats you’re having a….. at this point my heart was in my throat… girl! I had no idea what to say back other than “yayyyy”! They asked if that was what I wanted,truthfully, I said no, I want healthy! We decided not to tell anyone, not a soul, until our gender reveal. In the book it said the second trimester is the time to do anything you want to do before the baby comes. In hindsight I totally understand why… these months bring what feels like energy! Sometimes super hero strength with it.

I began working out more, cleaning, and knocking out projects on my to do list. It was finally time for another ultrasound, this time a cute one with the belly jelly! I was excited to see my little tadpole again! This time though, the tadpole was gone… what I saw looked like a little person.

I just stared and stared and without realizing I cried. I was for sure having a baby. I hadn’t been really scared while being pregnant until that moment. All I could think about going forward was what if something happened? Would I know? How would I feel? I continued to worry like this, losing sleep and all. Only one thing made me feel better. The baby’s movements! Those little kicks made every almost barf worth it. For me, it was security. Although I couldn’t know things were right, with every kick I knew she was right there fighting with me. I was starting to get a little bump now. It looked like I ate two burritos before bed or something. I thought well this bump isn’t so bad! My boyfriend came home for a few weeks so we could throw the gender reveal party. With him being a pilot and his love for aviation, it was a given a plane would be involved some how. We decided to pay a pilot to fly a sea plane over our house and dump some colored powder… of course it rained while all the guests were there and the food was out, but thankfully it cleared just in time for the fly over. Everyone stood waiting and waiting… finally we could hear the hum of the plane and our guests caught on immediately. He flew right in front of us and dumped the pink powder… we bought 5 pounds which I thought was a lot, but really it looked like the plane farted and left a little poof, but nonetheless a pink poof! Everyone cheered and my mother and grandmother just about croaked with happiness! Charleigh Rose would be her name. It’s true when people say you don’t realize how many people you know or don’t like until you have to name your baby. I can see why some of these famous people are rattling out crazy names like north west or whatever they are… I didn’t know any girls named Charleigh, and I liked that it was typically used as a boys name. I wanted it spelled differently to be a little girly, and I always wished my name was spelled Ashleigh, rather than Ashley. Rose is my grandmother’s name, and was almost my middle name, so it felt and sounded right. Easy. So now I’m pregnant, it’s a girl, it has a name, and everyone knows… now what? The baby shower, and then we wait right? The baby shower was a month away so I went back to trying to focus on work and finishing the nursery. Every day I came home from work I did a little more and a little more. Eventually it started to look like something. I made a guest list for the baby shower, but family and friends were throwing it for us… thankfully! One less thing to stress over. The shower was exactly like I wanted it. I wanted a jack and Jill shower, and for it to be at a place where there were things to do… because men get bored… we opened gifts on gifts of frilly girl things, diapers, and toys… it still all seemed so weird, like I wouldn’t need any of those things because I didn’t have a baby. My boss bought us a crib, which I had assembled and it sat by itself in the nursery…

we brought home the gift mountain and piled it in there and closed the door. My boyfriend said, you know what we should do? At this point I knew how men felt when we ask this question… I played through a quick forty scenarios of what he might suggest, and none of them were it… he suggested a maternity photo shoot… the kicker was it was a Saturday night, and he was leaving for work on Monday. This left me trying to find a photographer and some photo worthy clothes that still fit by ohhhh tomorrow! I texted a coworker who’s girlfriend is a photographer, and asked if he thought that was crazy to ask… he gave me her number, and I felt like an idiot as I asked her, a business owner, and a mother, if she had time to take photos the very next day. I anticipated the answer to be “no but I can squeeze you in, in the next couple months”, but I was wrong. She happily said yes, and with options. We could shoot at 9am or 2pm. Being a morning person, and a camera shy person, I wanted to get it over with… so I said 9am. We were getting ready for bed and he asked what I was going to wear, and how I would do my hair… what a perfect way to not get any sleep! Now I was in a panic, mostly about my hair because a couple weeks ago I had purchased two pairs of jeans that fit and maybe three shirts, all from the motherhood maternity store. A store I said I would never go to because I wasn’t going to waste money on clothes I’d never wear. Again, idiot. When I walked into this store I felt silly because it was uncharted territory, and I had no idea what to buy, let alone how to even put any of it on… also another great thing about me is I’m stubborn… so of course I wouldn’t ask for help. I grabbed a pair of maternity jeans ( I thought) and headed for the dressing room. I tried them on and they fit my legs great but around my belly was tight, like I just ate thanksgiving dinner tight… I asked my friend what she thought, and she said “they look good on you but you seem uncomfortable”… clearly my face said so as well because the girl behind the counter asked if she could help me. I told her I was sick of wearing sweatpants and Wind pants and wanted to look and feel “normal” again. She told me that was easily achievable, but the pants I had on were for post pregnancy… hence the tightness. We laughed and she grabbed me some other jeans and a few tops and guess what? They fit… I told her how comfortable I felt, and told her why I hadn’t purchased any maternity clothes already… I figured they’d be a waste. She told me the clothes would last for the rest of my pregnancy… I didn’t believe her, I still had two months left! My friend agreed with her and said she wore hers for both of her pregnancies right until the end… feeling better about my purchase these are the clothes… the only clothes, that still fit for the shoot.

The clothes issue was solved, but what about the hair? My hair resembles that of Medusa’s hair if left untamed, and it still had enough hairspray from the baby shower hairdo to ignite at any given moment. My mom offered to curl it and thought it would cooperate even better with all the hairspray. It sounded right, and I was too tired to question it at this point so off to bed I went. The next morning we got up and got ready for the shoot. Mom came in to help curl my hair, and it just wasn’t having it. Wouldn’t you know, hardly any salons are open by 9am on a Sunday! DUH! fortunately, and I can’t believe I said this, but fortunately, Walmart was open. It was apparent we were never going to make the 9am shoot and I figured we blew it… I called the photographer and apologized for wasting her time and she said to make it to the 2pm shoot! We dashed to Walmart and had my hair curled or whatever you’d want to call that, and headed for lunch. The other great thing about being pregnant is, you could eat all you wanted because looking bloated was already a given! We finally made it to our shoot and had some photos taken in a ballroom, and on the side of the road in a marshy area. I’d driven by this area hundreds of times, and never saw what this photographer saw… she has a beautiful eye for things… she always find the real in anything… some how some way, we did it! Photos were done!

My boyfriend left the following morning for work for the last time before the baby would arrive. Crazy. I continued to plug away at the house and the nursery to get it to where I thought would be a good stopping point. With some help from a good friend, I even refinished our old bathtub.

People are so much nicer when you’re pregnant! Our bodies really do know what we need, and when we need it, because despite everything everyone said, I didn’t stop until everything was done, but photos on the walls. My boyfriend kept telling me to leave some things for him to do when he got home, but my stubborn self just couldn’t. Now that things were done enough to the point where I could relax a little… My mind began to race. Everyone warned me the 3rd trimester sucks, and it did. At this point my belly was huge, my joints ached, I was tired, my appetite was weird, and i was an emotional mess. For me, anxiety was the real killer. Where would I be when my water broke? would everything be okay? Would my boyfriend make it home in time? How was I going to balance being a good mom, a good employee, 6 dogs, a home, and being a good partner…?