Twelve Weeks

I have waited nine weeks to be able to share this news: I AM PREGNANT!!! I am twelve weeks today and Josh and I are beyond excited. We spent last weekend getting in contact with family and friends. If I did not manage to get reach you personally, I apologize.

For both of my pregnancies, I knew right away. The first time Josh thought I was nuts and just making things up in my brain, but the second time around he picked up on it right away as well. One day he came home and declared "You look different. I think you're pregnant." We had zero basis for why we thought I was pregnant, we just knew.

I was so convinced, I took a pregnancy test at three weeks (one week before my missed period) as Josh was supposed to go into the field (for the millionth time). I didn't want him to know I was taking it because 1.) He would give me that "what are you doing?" face and 2.) I didn't want him to be disappointed if it came up negative since it was incredibly early to test.

As I was trying to be super sneaky, I only glanced a the test window. It appeared to be negative so I tossed it in the trash. About an hour later though I had a nagging feeling. You barely looked at it, go look again. So like a completely crazy person, I dug it out of the trash. Sure enough there was a faint line. However, I still had my doubts. What if it was an evaporation line (which can happen if more than 10 minutes has gone by since testing)? So I tested again. BAM. Pregnant.

Josh, understandably, did not believe that this was a positive test as the second line is barely visible. I scheduled a doctor's appointment for that day to confirm the pregnancy. The urine test came back positive and the following day I got my hCG results from my blood work. To this day, I have no idea how the at home pregnancy test was able to detect my pregnancy. My hCG came back 13.6; the at-home test I used can only detect 25 or higher. Basically, magic.

Of course, I had to go through the nonsense of convincing doctor's I was not nearly as far along as they thought I was since I don't have normal cycles (in fact, in 2013 I only had 9). There was some initial concern as they were convinced I was 4 weeks, not 3 weeks, and 13.6 is low for 4 weeks. It wasn't until I was 7 weeks by my count and I had my first ultrasound that an OB was able to date the pregnancy and agreed with me.

At 11 weeks I went in for another ultrasound to make sure the pregnancy was progressing as it should. Due to my previous ectopic pregnancy and some terrifying bleeding at 8wks4d and 9wks5d I was considered high risk. Thankfully, everything is looking great and I am now considered a low-risk pregnancy :D.

The 11 week ultrasound was hands down the single most amazing thing I have ever seen. At 7 weeks we could see a heart beat, but the baby largely resembled a jelly bean. By 11 weeks it had taken on a much more human appearance. It has a profile with a little nose and jaw, but my absolute favorite thing was when it began to bounce around. When the ultrasound first started it would bob its head around and wiggle its arms a bit, but then suddenly it bounced to the top of the screen and gently floated back down.

Since calling my family to let them know, I started getting a lot of the same questions so I figured I would compile some of the most frequently asked questions here:

1. When are you due? March 2, 2015.
2. How are you feeling? Great! I had one day of morning sickness/nausea (lucky me) and my energy is coming back. 
3. Will Josh be home? No, Josh will not be home for the birth. This sucks quite a bit, but it's an unfortunate reality of the marine corps. They do not fly fathers-to-be home for births.
4. How far along are you? I am exactly 12 weeks today!
5. What is the gender? We don't know yet :) We will find out around 20 weeks.

Some other stats that are just fun:

• The baby is now approximately 2.5 inches long and is the size of a large plum (however it only weighs half an ounce)
• At 7wks1d the heart rate was 143; at 8wks3d it was 180, and at 11wks1d it was 150. The heart rate rapidly rises during weeks 5-9 then decelerates to anywhere between 120-160 BPM after 12 weeks. 150bmp is the average for 12 weeks.
• I crave tomato products (spaghetti sauce/marinara in particular) and sour candy.  

Here are some progress pictures (more to come on Facebook) although I don't really look much different yet:

8 Weeks	12 Weeks

If you have any questions or just want to chat, give me a call or shoot me a message :)

 About Samantha Bookwalter

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Samantha Bookwalter is freelance writer and social media specialist. She specializes in web editing, copy editing, copy writing, social media management, HTML, CSS, and other web-related acronyms. Samantha has an affinity for health and fitness; in her free time she enjoys working out with her husband and researching recipes that are not only healthy but delicious too.