Pregnancy

I'm really bad at keeping a diary and as you can tell, I'm really bad at keeping up with blogging, but I feel like this is kind of my diary and I feel the need to write in it every so often.. looking at my history, it's looking to be about a once-a-year type deal. haha I'm okay with that. 

My last post was about my first anniversary being married to Caiden and here we are having been married for 2.5 years and expecting a baby boy in a few short weeks. It's so surreal. I think with life about to change in a major way for us, I've been feeling the need to get my thoughts down on paper (aka the internet lol). It's like my brain knows that a lot is about to go down and so I need to write about pregnancy so that my brain can dump it and open up some space for this next phase in life. 

Baby Wilkins

Our first year of marriage I would talk to Caiden about when to start our family. I felt like I was pushing for earlier rather than later because I have endometriosis and wasn't sure what our experience would be like when trying to grow our family. Caiden was not on board due to school and work being crazy, understandably so. At the beginning of Covid, we were able to sit down and really talk about what we want our future to look like and we both felt it was time to start growing our family. We started trying early on in 2020 and received negative pregnancy tests every month. It was disheartening, but I also felt like I was prepared to have issues due to my disease. 

After months with no luck, my doctor put me on Clomid. After so many blood draws to track anything and everything, we still never received that positive test. Disheartened still, but trusting in God's timing, I tried not to let it get me down. We ended up putting a pause on fertility treatments as the holidays were fast approaching and we were headed to Missouri for a few months. Mind you, we didn't say a word to our families about the difficulties in growing our family. We wanted to surprise them! It was hard not having family support through this time but I found comfort in a few friends and knew that the surprise to our families would be worth the lonely times of dealing with infertility. 

A little background, because of my endometriosis, I'd been on birth control since I was a sophomore in high school. When I went off of it, my cycles were all over the place. Definitely not regular. *Is it weird that I'm talking about my menstrual cycle for everyone to read about?? Is that TMI?? hahaha oh well*  

A few months after stopping our fertility treatments and feeling like I was a few days late for my irregular cycle to start, I once again received a negative test and ended up starting my period the next day. 

At least.. what I thought was my period..

I guess why I feel like it's important for me to point out my irregular cycles is cause it leads me into things I didn't know about pregnancy. 

I had some irregular spotting/bleeding for 3 weeks. So one day I woke up and just felt like I should take another test even though the timing of it made no sense. To my surprise (see beautiful Aubrey at 8am below) the test was immediately positive. 

So why do periods have anything to do with this? Well, what I thought was an extremely abnormal cycle, was actually a subchorionic hematoma that lasted me till about halfway through pregnancy. The reason I look so completely shocked/scared/stressed in the picture above was cause my first thoughts were that I was miscarrying because I was bleeding so much. I had never heard about consistent bleeding throughout pregnancy. Just some spotting at the beginning. 

First Trimester

My OB was definitely concerned about the bleeding so I was able to get an ultrasound and more blood draws a few days later to help confirm I was pregnant. Ultrasounds that early on in pregnancy are not super duper fun. I got ultrasounds every 2 weeks my first trimester and had so many blood draws to look for rising progesterone. Those first few weeks were so stressful. My ultrasounds weren't showing much because I was only 6 weeks along and my blood work wasn't showing consistent numbers. Although I was experiencing morning sickness, nothing compared to the stress of not seeing a heartbeat and not knowing when the bleeding would stop. 

I was put on pelvic rest and told to take it easy. I worked from my couch and only got up to get food or use the bathroom. I can't tell you how stressful it was to think the bleeding was stopping just to experience more a few days later. I wasn't able to lift anything heavy and when I did, I would know I overworked my body by the next day. As challenging as this first trimester was, looking back, I feel very grateful for the opportunity to see our baby boy grow and change every other week. Seeing him as a little circle to a pulsing little circle to sprouting little fingers and toes, it made me believe in a God of miracles so much more. It made me appreciate my body and the way God made me. I felt so dang cool when I'd ask Caiden what he did that day and I got to respond to with, "I made vocal cords" hahaha *TOP THAT CAIDEN* 😂

Second Trimester

Wowie is the second trimester a gift from God. Finally started to feel normal again and get my energy back. I wasn't as exhausted and I was way more comfortable with my growing body than I was in the first trimester. I was sleeping better and halfway through my second trimester that stubborn hematoma resolved and I was able to function a little more normally. 

That's really all I got for this trimester. It was just that much better than the first.

Third Trimester

Now here I am, One week from delivering our baby and I am FEELIN' it. Not in the best way haha. People say to sleep now before the baby gets here and I'm flustered cause I try to sleep and I can't! It's so dang uncomfortable! I wake up to use the bathroom multiple times a night only to lay back down and get kicked in the ribs until I move...again...and again..and again. Everyone says it gets harder once they're here and I believe it, but boy am I looking forward to sleeping comfortably again... even if it's for a limited amount of time. 

I had heard so much about the dreaded glucose test and the terrible drink you have to consume, but as I completed this test, I was pleasantly surprised. The drink was not the best but definitely not the worst thing I've ever tasted and my blood draw went fine. I talked to my phlebotomist about what would be done if I didn't pass this test and she shared quite a few horror stories with me about the 3 hour (more like 4 hour) glucose test. She ended with "avoid it at all costs". The next day I received my results and I did not pass. My Iron was also so low that they were considering doing Iron infusions. 😅😭 This news stressed me out and there I was needing to get Iron supplements stat and scheduling my 4 hour glucose test. A few days later I went to my glucose test and got 2 out of the 4 blood draws done before I threw up. That second glucose drink is twice the amount of the first one and that's A LOT of sugar. My body rejected it 2 hours in. Unfortunately, if you throw up, you have to do it all over. So I found myself back in the doctors office 3 days later to try again. Luckily I got through it without getting sick but boy are those first 2 hours tough!

I received the call a few hours later that I indeed do have Gestational Diabetes and that I would need to take on a new diet with 4 finger pricks a day to test my sugars. Feeling completely defeated and overwhelmed with the news, I cried a lot and tried to stay calm about it all. Google is not your friend when you receive news like this, but I wanted to know how this would affect the remainder of my pregnancy as well as our little boy. 

Gestational Diabetes is no joke. I now meet with a dietician once a week and I have to log my sugars, food, activity, and fetal movement everyday. On top of my Midwife visits, I have visits every few weeks at a different clinic to monitor babies growth. I had another anatomy scan to make sure baby isn't measuring too big. Welp. He's lookin' like he's gonna be a chunky lil' guy. Who knows though. We'll find out once he gets here. 

When I first got this diagnosis, I felt like it was my fault and that my eating habits were causing harm to me and my baby. Which, yes our eating habits are important and do affect us but this just felt heavier to me. I was embarrassed and felt uncomfortable letting people know for fear of them thinking I was at fault. After learning much about this diagnosis though, I've learned that it truly isn't my fault. My placenta is managing and releasing a lot of hormones and this is causing my insulin to be weaker than normal. It's actually common within diabetes to see certain sugar numbers rise even though you're following the diet. It's because as the placenta is growing in pregnancy, it is releasing even more hormones making my insulin even weaker. 

Some days are really overwhelming for me... its just been a whirlwind of emotions these past few weeks and I didn't want to forget all that I went through to get our baby here. Maybe in a few weeks I'll feel the need to write another post talking about labor and delivery and the very special moments that await us once our lil' turd gets here💙

but also...maybe not. 

hahah 

Till next time