Weeks 4 & 5: Is this for real life?
Letting It Soak In
Something I didn’t know until we started TTC, was that the doctor considers you to be two weeks pregnant at the point of conception. So by the time you miss your period, and get a positive pregnancy test, you are already 4 weeks pregnant. It seemed so weird to say that I was 4 weeks along, when the news was so…new.
The first couple of days we didn’t really acknowledge it. It is kind of hard to accept that it is for real when in essence nothing has really changed in a way that you can see it. I wasn’t nauseous or feeling bad, except for a few small things here and there, and you don’t begin showing for a few months.
Over the next few days we finally started talking about it, and made the decision to tell our parents. And as the news left us it started to set in a little stronger.
Then we realized that because we would be having our household goods moved two months prior to our leave date, that meant we needed everything for the nursery BEFORE the end of April. Leaving us just 2.5 short months to get things in order for our new addition.
I began feverishly researching and creating a baby registry. I asked a million questions to my mom and a close friend with a new baby. And by the end of the week our registry was almost totally complete. But since my first official appointment would not be for a couple of weeks, we put a strict hold (on ourselves and our parents) from buying anything just yet.
Lifestyle Changes
That weekend our friends with the new baby loaned us their copies of The Expectant Father, and What to Expect When You’re Expecting. We spent that Saturday running a few errands, one of which including a trip to Toys R Us to get a face-to-face look at the baby stuff. I wish I would have videoed Will fighting with a stroller/car seat combo, before finally deeming it stupid and huffily putting it back on the shelf. Needless to say, that particular item would not be making it on our list. We stopped by Target, which also has a Starbucks. I have been weaning myself off coffee for a while, but I genuinely just love the taste. I don’t need the caffeine or the pick me up (it doesn’t do that for me anyway), but that morning as he had enjoyed our french press I was developing a pretty strong hankering for a cup of joe. He stood waiting and I asked what he had ordered, and he told me he had got us a little “sumtin sumtin.” Turned out he had ordered me a decaf cafe mocha. My favorite drink. I guess it was the hormones, but it was all I could do to keep from crying at how sweet it was of him.
That afternoon, when we would normally be settling down with a cocktail or glass of wine, we parted ways to start reading. We both made it through the first two months of information before getting dinner together. After dinner Will went into the kitchen, stuff began clanging around, and if I didn’t know better I would have thought he was whipping up some of his usual white russian night caps. Instead he came back with an orange juice cocktail, sans alcohol, for us both. When I looked at him questioningly, he told me he read I was supposed to be getting a lot of vitamin C and calcium. I chuckled inside, and feeling very grateful for him, sipped it down while we watched Cheers reruns.
The next morning he made eggs (scrambled so there would be no risk of undercooked bacteria floating around), pancakes, and a yogurt bowl (because he read I needed protein and calcium and yogurt was a very highly recommended food). I reminded him we had bacon, and he refused it and told me I wasn’t supposed to be eating it due to the nitrates.
I was always curious as to how Will would handle me being pregnant. A big part of me expected this very kind of reaction, and all of me is very grateful. There is nothing that warms your heart quite like feeling so loved that someone is watching out for you and taking care of you.
Keeping Our Little Secret
That afternoon was the Super Bowl party at his boss’ house. Considering we were only 4 weeks and 4 days at that point, we were in no way ready to spill the beans to his office mates. So we devised a plan to use his home beer brewing bottles to bottle up some soda water for me to drink, so I could fake my imbibing at the party without questions. It worked flawlessly. The only time anything was remotely suspicious was when his boss’ wife commented on my persistent yawning and noted that when she was pregnant she was always tired and needing a nap. We tried to just shrug it off as if nothing was amiss.
The Man’s Registry
When we first started looking at things to put on the registry, Will’s first stop was the REI website. He asked if we could do a registry on there and I informed him that REI is not exactly a baby supply store. Nevertheless, by the Monday after we found out, he had put together a wish list on REI.com titled “Baby” and sent it to me. After a few revisions I gladly added his finds. Of course we need an infant sized life jacket 🙂 In all reality though, he is just as committed as I am to trying to make it possible for our little one to fit into our on-the-go lifestyle instead of having to drastically change the way we live and play. Not to mention it’s very important to us to live up this next assignment, and we want our little one to be a part of it all.
My Irrational Fears
I took a few pictures of the positive pregnancy tests right after I took them. In the past week I think I’ve looked either at those pictures or at the tests themselves a million times. Even though the time for me to get my period has come and gone, and even though I feel a constant sort of stretch happening in my uterus, and even though the base clinic assured me the blood test came back positive, it’s still so hard to feel like it is all for real. I can’t help but worry that I’m doing this registry, and talking all this pregnancy talk, and what if I’m not really pregnant after all?! I actually wish for more symptoms so at least I would FEEL pregnant. Something that would be a daily reassurance that it’s not all in my head. I even sometimes wonder if I actually did get my period at some point and I just suppressed that reality somehow. Crazy thoughts people!
