Healthy Chicks

 

Happy Valentine’s Day loves! My heart is literally exploding with love right now, as hubby and I are officially 12 weeks pregnant with baby arriving late August. Today on the blog, I wanted to share my journey with you, including the ups & downs, and how we found out we were pregnant. (Spoiler: it was a big surprise!)

Many of you know I had an early miscarriage in July, and the whole trying to conceive journey did not come easy for us. It wasn’t “hard” either, but it took us about a year to get pregnant, including a loss along the way. I will say that going through the hardship of loss and learning to trust in my body more deeply than ever before has made me appreciate this little growing rainbow babe in ways I can’t express. The amount of gratitude I feel right now in this very moment is indescribable (morning all-day sickness and all).

The Turning Point

In December, after nearly a year of trying to get pregnant (including an early miscarriage in July), I started losing hope and decided to book an appointment with a Healer I was referred to who offers intuitive medical readings. I wanted to know what the heck was wrong with me.

To my surprise, she told me nothing was wrong with me physically and my only barrier to having a baby was my own fears and beliefs. She told me that a baby wouldn’t come likely until the late summer or end of 2018, and recommended I delete all the apps, calendars and everything I was doing to “control” the situation. Lastly, she recommended I put three rose quartz under my mattress.

After the call, while a bit discouraged, I felt a huge sense of relief and peace. I knew there was no rush, and it felt so good to take some of the pressure off! For the record, the amount of pressure I put on myself was insane. I told hubby that it’s likely going to take another year for us, and suggested we stop “trying” and just go back to having fun.

So we stopped trying. I had the best month ever eating all the sushi, drinking all the coffee, doing all the things and even ripped two shots of tequila with my aunt (two days before I found out I was pregnant, oops!) I also put the rose quartz under my mattress, because why not?

Oh, and I didn’t track my ovulation and we didn’t “try” to get pregnant (or so we thought).

A Christmas Miracle

Mid December, we took our monthly trip to our condo in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire with my family — the perfect place to relax and soak in those mountain vibes. I realized that weekend that my period was late, but thought nothing of it. I knew it was coming and for the first time in a while I was actually OK with that.

I thoroughly enjoyed drinking lots of wine, telling stories and laughing until we cried with my family. To close out the weekend, I made a delicious Chicken Divan Casserole for my family, and took two shots of tequila with my aunt. “To 2018 and babies!” my aunt had said through watery eyes.

Driving home from New Hampshire, I realized my period was now about 3 days late, but I still felt it coming. I decided that if it didn’t come by the time I got home, I guess I’d take a test but I didn’t tell hubby this.

When we got home, I took out the one cheapie Amazon test strip I had left and waited. I was so used to seeing stark white, that I was in complete shock when I saw a second pink line appear almost instantly. I still couldn’t believe it was really happening, so I busted out a “Lucky” Digital Pregnancy Test my friend sent me from her two-pack after she got her positive (also after a loss).

While it seemed like the longest three minutes of my life, my heart melted when I saw the words “Pregnant” flash before my eyes. Holy crap, this is real. Shaking, I called my husband who was on his way to work to share the big news. “It’s a Christmas Miracle!” I kept screaming, while hubby just said he totally knew it.

The days and weeks that followed were full of so much excitement, from telling our parents to surprising my grandparents on Christmas Eve dinner. I may or may not be so good at keeping secrets, so I told lots of close friends too. After all, I felt the more people who knew, the more people you have looking over you.

Seeing our little “gummy bear” or “potato spud” (hubby’s name) for the first time at our 8 week ultrasound brought us so much joy, and we even got to see the little heart beating strong and healthy! Our 12 week ultrasound (below) was absolutely incredible as well, seeing the little arms and legs moving around and little babe was actually measuring a little over 12 weeks!

This whole process has been completely magical, and we feel extremely lucky for this blessing.

My Fertility Story

Hubby and I knew we wanted kids since we started dating, and if it was up to hubs we would have gotten pregnant on our honeymoon 3.5 years ago! For me, I wanted to wait until I felt a bit more stable, less stressed in my job, and most importantly healthy. When I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease the fall of 2016, I knew that when I felt my worst was not the time to start trying for a baby. I wanted to feel myself.

So I dedicated several months to getting my health back to the point where I felt vibrant, radiant and healthy inside and out. At the end of February of 2017, my health had improved quite a bit and my thyroid was starting to heal too so we decided why not start trying.

This may be naive, but I always assumed that I’d get pregnant really easily — and so did hubby. My periods are super regular (about every 28 days), I’ve never had any major issues in that department and I had been off birth control for about six or seven years.

Each month that went by I’d swear it was the month, only to be greeted by good ol’ Aunt Flow or a negative pregnancy test.

After six months of trying, we finally found out we were pregnant, but unfortunately it ended in an early loss about a week later. That really threw me for a loop with a feeling of sadness and emptiness I had never felt before. While early, any loss is a loss and it was very difficult for me to snap back from it. We decided to take a couple months off from trying — in fact we prevented it — so I could heal emotionally and physically.

During this time, it seemed like everyone I knew was getting pregnant — best friends, internet buddies, random ladies I’d run into at Whole Foods! While I was of course over the moon happy for them, I couldn’t help but think, What’s wrong with me? 

We started trying again in September and I had a really good feeling fall would be our time, but that was quickly followed by three months of negative pregnancy tests. During this process, we tried everything from having sex every other day to cutting out all alcohol and caffeine to doing the ol’ hips up / legs up thing to encourage the swimmers to get in place. I also tracked my ovulation via an app, and got so good at understanding my body that I could pinpoint ovulation to a tee.

None of that worked.

It wasn’t until I gave up the control and took the pressure off, that I was able to get pregnant — and have it stick.

Throughout the process, it used to annoy the crap out of me when people would say, “It’ll happen when you least expect it,” “You need to stop stressing about it” or “It’ll happen when it’s the right time, now just isn’t your time” While they had a point, I didn’t want to hear it. After all, everyone processes things differently and I’m a firm believer that you should never tell someone else how they should feel.

That being said, I do think that giving up control and letting go of the fear allowed the baby to come. I finally let my walls down, and there was no more resistance.

For those of you on a fertility journey of your own, I want you to know my heart goes out to you. I feel for you, and know it’s not easy. I’m not going to tell you to calm down or relax or to stop stressing about it because that’s total B.S.

Just know I am sending you love, prayers and lots of magic baby dust!