Exciting News: We’ve Got A Bun In The Oven

Boy oh boy am I excited to share this blog post with you! We've got a bun in the oven - gluten free of course. ;) I am 18 weeks pregnant!!!

You may (or may not) have noticed that my recipe creation has been a little non-existent recently. Well, it’s because I didn’t really walk into the kitchen for 3 months straight, let alone cook anything. I had a pretty rough case of morning (all day) sickness and some insane food aversions, which I’ll tell you more shortly.

Given this news, I’m dedicating the month of August to pregnancy related blog posts. If this isn’t your jam or why you’re here, chances are you know someone that might find the information useful. Feel free to forward on the articles, and don’t worry, I’ll be back to regular blogging programming shortly!

Finding Out

Let’s just say it wasn’t a surprise that I was pregnant (it was in the plans), but in the moment it was also the hugest surprise ever! I was at an acupuncture appointment and saying how tired I felt. Things had been busy with work and I expected to be getting my period shortly - both normal explanations for feeling a bit tired.

My acupuncturist (who is AMAZING by the way and I’ll be sharing more about her in another post), asked if I’d taken a pregnancy test. I said no, because I was away at what I’d thought was the ‘optimal timing’ that month so wasn’t expecting to be pregnant. Her question still sparked a little wonder in my mind. I went straight to Shopper’s and bought a pregnancy test. It should be noted that I bought the cheap one (just the double lines) because again, I really didn’t think I was, so why waste money on the digital test.

I went home and took the test. There was a SLIGHTLY faint second line, but it was so faint that I thought it was negative. I went and ate dinner and didn’t think much more about it. Then, for some reason I google’d something about a faint second line on a pregnancy test and sure enough, it said that ANY second line, no matter how faint, is a positive. I almost fell off my chair and texted Adam to call me immediately (he was away for work at the time).

His response was, “Right now?” Haha. “YESSSSSS!” I wrote back. He thought I had crashed the car (no joke), which is kind of funny that his mind went there first. Anyway, I told him the news, but that I wasn’t 100% sure because of how faint that second line was. I’ve since heard that it’s really common for women to think the test result is wrong the first few times they look. I drove like a madwoman (probably almost crashing the car) to the nearest Shoppers and splurged on the digital test because I needed a proper, YES/NO written out for me. Sure enough it was a YES.

I was really excited, but was also in major disbelief and also quite nervous because the next morning I was going on our annual ‘biddie’ trip with my Toronto girlfriends to Scottsdale. I don’t think I slept a wink that night.

The First Few Weeks: Sore Boobs, Cramps, Nausea & A Misdiagnosed Miscarriage

The first few weeks ended up being an emotional, nauseating rollercoaster. I wasn’t very good at not telling people, mostly because my girlfriends would have figured it out the second I didn’t have a margarita with them by the pool in Arizona haha! I’m actually really glad that I told people though because it helped get me through some ups and downs that were on their way.

What I wasn’t prepared for was how sore my boobs would be (well actually I wasn’t prepared for almost everything that’s happened so far!). For the first month or so, it felt like I’d been punched in the boobs every time I moved. Rolling over in bed would wake me up they hurt so much.

I also wasn’t prepared for feeling like I had insane period cramps for about 3 weeks straight. I thought being pregnant meant no cramps? ;) They started right after I took the test, which I understood was relatively normal, but then continued until I was 7 weeks pregnant. They were so bad that I’d often have a hot water bottle on me throughout the day. Turns out your uterus starts expanding pretty quickly, and that doesn’t feel like a walk in the park.

Then, just one day shy of being 6 weeks pregnant I started spotting. Given the cramping and that I was already a bundle of nerves about being pregnant in the first place, I decided to go to emergency to make sure everything was ok. The combination of cramping and spotting *can* be the sign of a miscarriage.

After being at the hospital for 7 hours, I was told by the emerge doc that I had a “blighted ovum”, a form of miscarriage where a fertilized egg attaches itself to the uterine wall, but the embryo does not develop. Your body still thinks you are pregnant and it can take multiple weeks for your body to realize there’s no embryo.

I was really upset. It’s amazing how attached you can become to this “embryo” in just a couple of weeks. For the next three days I had thought I had miscarried, and was just waiting for my body to catch up and realize. At the same time I had just started to experience insane nausea. It felt like the universe was being pretty cruel - nausea without an actual pregnancy. Thank goodness for my Mom and Adam who took very very good care of me as I was a bit of an emotional, nauseous rollercoaster.

It should be noted that after I left the hospital, I had a voicemail from the emerge doc saying that he had referred me to BC Women’s Hospital. I didn’t know why. Three days after the miscarriage news, a very kind nurse from BC Women’s Hospital called. She said that they would take over my care from here and…(here’s the crazy part) that the doctor at emergency never should have told me I’d miscarried as it might just have been too early to see anything on the ultrasound, given I was just shy of 6 weeks. She said they would book me in for another ultrasound in a week (10 days after the miscarriage news) so that IF there was an embryo, they’d be able to see it since I would be over 7 weeks pregnant and it would be large enough to see via ultrasound now.

The next week was a major waiting game where I spent WAY too much time on google (which I do NOT recommend when you’re pregnant). I yo-yo’d back and forth between thinking maybe I was pregnant to being certain I wasn’t. Finally the day came that we went to BC Women’s Hospital and I had the next ultrasound and sure enough there was a heartbeat!!!! It was the best experience ever. It was so nice that Adam could be there with me, and seeing a heartbeat is way more exciting than peeing on a stick to confirm you are pregnant.

I mentioned earlier that I was really glad I’d told some close friends that I was pregnant. The reason for that was they were incredible at helping me through the 10 days of uncertainty. I know 10 days doesn’t feel like much, but to me, it felt like an eternity. Major shoutout to the girls who texted and called daily to see how I was, and to my Mom who moved herself in to our place temporarily in Vancouver and cooked and filled hot water bottles repeatedly. Not sure what I’d do without you! :)

The experience also made me feel incredible empathy for those who have experienced miscarriages in the past.

Despite what I found to be a difficult few weeks, I am now feeling back to normal (as normal as you can feel when pregnant). Yay second trimester!! But, since this is getting long, more on that another day! I’ll save the rest for future blogs. Here are some topics I plan to write about, but please let me know in the comments below if you have specific questions or topics you want to see.