The First Trimester; How I Found Out & How I Told People

at 13 weeks

I still call total bullshit on people who ‘didn’t know they were pregnant’.

You know. 

Or at least I did. I mean I was in denial, but I knew. 

I was on birth control, so I ' couldn't ' possibly be.. could I?  Well breakfast suddenly turned my stomach.. stretching backwards hurt in a period cramps sort of way, and my boobs looked like they got a little help from a plastic surgeon.

I bit the bullet and bought 2 tests from my mom’s money when I went to get groceries for us, and hid them until I knew she wasn't home and took them. 

I don’t dream often, but the night before I took them I dreamed that I got not one but 2 big fat positive tests... and well I wasn't wrong. 

That morning I had so many thoughts in my head. It wasn't one of those super pretty moments where I found out and planned all these creative ways to tell my boyfriend.  He took one look at me before taking them and said .. 

"you know what the result is going to be already right?"

" you know you’re totally pregnant?" and waited for me to go and do them.

Just a sidenote.. why do tests have to be so demeaning? I mean it’s totally not fair that guys don’t have to pee on a stick, but then again bringing a child into this world on the whole  is rather lopsided.

I was reading the instructions to make sure I’d do it right. Then I did it and before even a minute had passed I saw 2 little red lines denoting my fate. At first I  thought ‘ Oh. My . God.’ 

Then I thought ‘ This can’t be right, let me go and do the other one to double check’... which I did. 

By the time I got the second result it had already sunk in and inside all I was thinking is HOLY CRAPOLA. I’m going to be a parent.. I’m 18 and I’m going to be in charge of someone’s life, but I was never really sad or angry about it.

It was this weird feeling of love, and awe. I started looking at my stomach ALL the time and being in complete wonder at the fact that my little peanut was growing inside of me. A part of Richard and I.. 

The week after I found out ( about week 5) I started getting THE worst morning sickness, which had me existing on a diet of corn pops and warm apple juice.. which only expanded to KFC chicken wings or Chicken BBQ sandwiches around week 12. It was horrible, and it was hard. 

I just wanted to eat all the food. All day. But I couldn't.. I could barely keep down water, so my loves cheese and chocolate were definite no-nos too.

I couldn’t stand up without being queasy and every smell including my deodorant, my lotion and my boyfriend made me feel sick. Who knew that having super smell senses when you’re pregnant sucked so much? Like 98% of smells made me heave and I couldn’t help but smell them. I sure as hell couldn’t cook without barfing either. I was a mess and I had to stop going to school. I felt like ‘ I wish I’d stop barfing so that I could be really excited.’

All though that morning sickness thing gets really old, really fast and I was pretty tired of everybody asking me if I’m alright, because I never really felt any better than the last time they’d  which was perpetually about 5 minutes previously.

It was touching to see how much Richard really cared for me in those months, not getting angry at me when I couldn’t get out of bed and spending crazy money on the only things that I could eat. Sitting with me on the bathroom floor when I was sick and holding me until I felt better. It really brought us together.

He moved in soon after we found out and has been there for me ever since.

Obviously being so sick wasn’t something I could even ATTEMPT to hide from my mom, whom I live with, so I told her pretty much straight away, although it might have been ill-timed after a comment she made about ‘babies having babies’ - but I wasn’t bringing it up so she had to take what she could get. She cried and I’m fairly sure that they weren’t tears of happiness but over time she became really glad that she’ll have a grand-child, and she’s dealt with it really well.

The thing about telling people that kind of news is that they want to tell other people though. It’s kind of a tradition where I’m from to wait till the 3rd trimester until you tell people in case you lose the baby before then, but after within days of us telling our parents our circle of ‘knowing’ was about 20-30 people large. That kind of pissed me off because I barely actually told anyone, but it’s small fries now. 

I was also super impatient to actually get a bump, rather than just look like I’d eaten too many cupcakes, but I’m actually thankful I didn’t really start to show until about 14 weeks, especially now that I’m in the home stretch. Hopefully it means it’ll be easier to lose all this size when ‘Boopsie’ as we call him/her is born. The boobs were the first thing to grow though, and they continue to. I’m kind of hoping that my porn star -esque boobs stay, but I know they won’t. They did increase a whopping 2 cup sizes and 2 back sizes which I’m not too happy about.

One thing that I thought from the time I found out is that ‘ it’s such a long time!’ but simultaneously it feels like no time at all until I meet this tiny human that’s been growing inside of me and I still feel that way. 

These are moments I don’t ever want to forget.