First Trimester Recap

My goodness this past week has been a rollercoaster.  Celebrating our pregnancy with all our friends has been one of the highest highs, but this week we were also forced to face a devastating low when we decided it was time to put Butler down.  Thankfully, his health made the choice for us and he is no longer suffering.  My heart aches every day, but I know he had a wonderful life with us!

With the good, we must take the bad.  And these days there's a lot of good.  I'm 1/3 of the way through my pregnancy and I honestly still can't believe it.  I updated this post as the weeks went by with random things that were going on, so here's a little recap of my first trimester!

3.5 Weeks
1/18/17 - I woke up and took a pregnancy test, 11 days past ovulation.  I see a squinter!  It's super faint, but it's definitely there.  I can't believe it.  I took another one after work to see if it was real, there's definitely a line.

1/19/17 - I became obsessed with taking pregnancy tests.  I took two more the next day and the line kept getting darker.  I surprised Dave with a tiny orange tie dye onesie and when he opened it he said "it's cute" with no reaction.  I kept staring at him with some crazy eyes and finally he figured it out and got super excited!  My only symptoms are tender breasts, a little bit of light cramping, and the frequent peeing thing is definitely real.  I'm also feeling kind of bloated, but still feeling more slender than when I started my Whole35.

1/21/17 - I gave my brother a birthday card that said "Uncle" on it.  My dad read it out loud and Michelle got it immediately.  Her face was so funny!  My parents took a little longer, apparently they thought we were calling Tom an uncle to the pups.  Once everyone figured it out there was lots of excitement and some tears!

4 Weeks
1/23/17 - I'm wondering how long I'll be able to keep the secret since I'm blogging about how I feel every day, especially if I start to experience morning sickness.  I'm also feeling like it's going to be obvious at the gym, since I'm now trying to keep my level of effort at 70%.  It's honestly pretty hard to sandbag the workouts that much haha.

1/24/17 - I didn't realize how bloated I would be.  My tummy is not reflecting the fact that I've been rocking my diet for the past two weeks.  I'll just pretend it's a bump.

1/25/17 - Dave called his mom to invite his parents to dinner so we could tell them the big news.  Robin said "what's the occasion?" and Dave replied "we have big news" (idiot).  She guessed immediately.  Surprise ruiners, both of them!

5 Weeks

1/30/17 - Went to a networking event with an open bar and was discussing future family plans with an old friend when he said "You're obviously not pregnant now since you're drinking!" I'm glad I asked the bartender to put my club soda in a cocktail glass haha.

2/1/17 - I'm feeling kind of nauseous and all the leftovers in my fridge sound disgusting... wondering if I've officially made it the morning sickness phase.

2/3/17 - Day 26 of my Whole30 and I officially quit.  I was so nauseous and the idea of cooking veggies made me want to throw up.  We ordered pizza for dinner and I felt pretty guilty, but it was also the best thing EVER.

6 Weeks
I've been super nauseous all day, every day for the past week.  Brushing my teeth in the morning makes me gag.  Fun times.  I have no desire to cook and I hate everything in my fridge.  Takeout, for the win!

7 Weeks
My pants are starting not to fit.  I've definitely gained a few lbs (which isn't exactly a surprise since I'm basically only eating carbs & cheese...)

8 Weeks
I had my first appointment and everything went GREAT!  The baby measured as expected and we got to hear the heartbeat (which made me cry)!  I was so nervous leading up to this and it was such a relief to know that everything is going well.  We mailed announcements to our extended family.

9 Weeks
I thought the nausea was going away and then it came back with a vengeance and I finally threw up.  Twice.

10 Weeks
The exhaustion is so real, especially after lunch.  I have to fight the urge not to take a nap at my desk every day.

11 Weeks
The on and off all day nausea has definitely subsided, now only certain things set me off.  Little mints are my best friend.  I'm starting to come around to real food and even bought some raw meat & veggies at the grocery store.

12 Weeks 
We got to see the baby two days in a row!  The first time was at the hospital and they checked the neck thickness, which is a marker for Down syndrome.  The ultrasound tech said everything looked great.

We saw Baby Midgley again the next day at my 12 week OB appointment and it was upside down kicking it's legs in the air.  We said it was doing a jig for St Paddy's Day.

13 Weeks
Because Tom has Down syndrome, I'm "high risk" in the insurance's eyes (which my OB said I'm really not) so I was approved for the fancy new genetic test called Non-Invasive Prenatal Test (NIPT).  This means I only had to have my blood drawn once at week 12, instead of twice at 12 and 16 weeks for the standard Sequential Screen, and it is more reliable (less false positives).  Oh and it will tell us the gender super early!  The OB called and told me everything looks normal!  Yay!  What a relief.  They are mailing us the gender results so I can give the envelope to a baker for a gender reveal cake surprise :) All my friends think it's a girl.  I really haven't had any special feelings about it.  I've only had one baby dream and it very closely resembled the birth from the end of Breaking Dawn (aka I'm having Edward's vampire baby)...

And now the first trimester is wrapping up!  The nausea has definitely subsided (except for when I smell something that doesn't agree with me) but the mild headaches have started.  I'm definitely starting to get a bump and maternity pants are looking pretty appealing.  I guess I need to take my first bump pic!

Good News, Bad News

Hello long lost blog!  I've got news!

When we last left off, I was in the middle of my Whole35 and I abruptly stopped blogging without any explanation... well I was super nauseous ALL the time!  On Day 26 I said screw this and ordered a big cheesy pizza!  I'm not exactly proud to tell you that the next month and a half was just carbs, carbs, and more carbs, but that's really all I could stomach.  Even the thought of vegetables made me sick.  Now that I'm hitting the second trimester, I'm feeling a lot better but I'm still really hit or miss with certain foods and haven't had a lot of desire to do much in the kitchen.

Baby Midgley is due on September 28th and I'm honestly still in shock.  I'll post more about baby soon!

In not so happy news, Butler was diagnosed with lymphoma right at the beginning of the year.  They told us 3 to 6 months and we were seeing small changes in him, but for the most part his demeanor was unchanged... until this past weekend.  He was throwing up, refusing his meds, and very lethargic.  Our vet gave us some special food that we've been mixing with water to make into a baby food consistency and his medicine in liquid form so we can give it to him via a large syringe.  He seems to be doing a little bit better today, but we're just trying to give him all the love we can because I think our time with him is pretty limited.

So many things to post about, I hope to be back soon.

January Whole30(+5): Days 18 - 23

Day 18, Thursday 1/26/17 - I went to happy hour and didn't drink or eat anything.  I really wanted those $1 chicken fingers more than any alcohol.  I rushed over to Whole Foods between happy hour and choir rehearsal specifically for Tessemae's BBQ Sauce and they had a whole row of Tessemae's products, but no BBQ.  Boo!  I ate a Larabar on my way to choir to hold me over and had a small bowl of chili when I got home.

Day 19, Friday 1/27/17 - The workout was a modified version of Open 16.1: a 20 minute AMRAP of 8 front rack lunges, 8 chest to bar pull ups, 8 overhead lunges, and 8 bar-facing burpees.    This workout holds a special place in my heart because it was the first time I got C2B pull ups, but last Friday and Monday, I was really struggling with C2B pull ups, so I was thinking maybe I lost them.  But as soon as I warmed up I knew today was different.  I was crushing them!  I hit every single rep and they felt amazing.  My booty was on fire from all the lunges (grow booty grow)!  I finished 4+26 beating my score from last time by 8 reps.

I hosted the annual chili cookoff at my work!  Two years ago, I had a seriously unfortunate time when I decided to throw caution to the wind on Day 19 of my Whole30 and try over a dozen different chilis.  It wasn't pretty.  I knew I couldn't do a repeat of that.  I stuck to my chili (which was compliant aside from the bacon & spicy sausage, because I couldn't justify putting the expensive stuff in my chili for my coworkers) and I had a few bites of a handful of other chilis.  No belly aches.  Thank God!

Day 20, Saturday 1/28/17 - 10 hours of sleep!  Because I can haha.  I went to Leah's for lunch.  It was great to catch up and lunch was tasty.  We had mahi mahi, a tomato cucumber salad, and this Bacon Lime Sweet Potato Salad.  Jeff and Arley came over for dinner and I made a simple Asian beef stir fry.  I totally added non-compliant sriracha (at least it was a more natural version).  I really couldn't tell you why I deemed this acceptable in my head, but I just really wanted that taste in the dish.

Day 21, Sunday 1/29/17 - Lots of sleep and Dave and I both took a nap after church.  Talk about a lazy Sunday.  We went out to dinner with Dave's parents at Bahama Breeze.  I started with an appetizer of lump crab meat, shrimp, avocado, and mango.  It was delicious.  For my entree, I should've gotten the catch of the day with veggies, but I splurged and went for coconut shrimp (which were probably coated in flour and cooked in a crappy oil) with mashed potatoes (that probably had butter and cream in them) and broccoli (butter).  It was super delicious and my tummy was not upset with me afterwards.

For the record, I did not eat whatever those cracker things were.

Day 22, Monday 1/30/17 - Ugh a crappy night of sleep.  I woke up freezing at one point and had to get out of bed to put more layers on.  Butler was also snoring in my face.  At CrossFit we worked on finding a max thruster (squat & then press overhead in one movement).  I got up to 100#, I definitely could've done more but I was being cautious of my back.  The metcon was several rounds of power cleans, thrusters, and burpees.  Thrusters + burpees = awful, but I know they are coming in the Open!  After 3 days of being pretty loose with my diet, I got my act together today.  I was tempted to go out to lunch but I decided to skip and stick with what I had.  In the evening I went into the city for a networking social at McGillin's Olde Ale House (with an open bar and a buffet of wings, meatballs, and other yummy food).  I ate some leftovers before I left work, abstained from all the food aside from a handful of fruit, and stuck to club soda with lime.  I asked the bartender to put my drink in a cocktail glass and nobody was the wiser.

Day 23, Tuesday 1/31/17 - I can't believe it's the last day of January... and that I still have 12 days left!  My friend suggested that since I never commit to the reintroduction protocol (because who wants to do another 10 days after the 30?!) that I should do 30 days and then start the reintro in the last 5 days.  That way I could really evaluate how certain things impact me while not totally blowing my diet for the last week of my gym's nutrition challenge.  So I'm considering that.  I was really hungry when I got home from work so I decided to make 4 deviled eggs and eat them straight to the face (well I gave half of one to the dogs).  I had a lot of regret later... I really wanted to blow off barbell club, but I stuck with my schedule and sucked it up.  The eggs were sitting like a brick in my stomach the entire time I was there.  I did a bunch of power cleans and they were really consistent.  My stomach was still feeling kinda iffy so I skipped dinner when I got home and just went to bed super early.

I've been feeling sort of uninspired in the kitchen the past few days, but we're having a small shindig for the Super Bowl and I'm excited about my compliant, yet delicious menu: wings, guacamole, build your own taco bar, and more!

 So what do you think, should I call it at 30 days and start reintroducing foods?