Little E's Birth Story

As the nurse and anesthesiologist lifted my now completely numb legs onto the operating table, it finally started to hit me...

This is happening.

After a very short 32 weeks, I was about to meet my baby.

Planners and Pregnancy: how keeping my bullet journal has helped me keep my sanity while I'm expecting

We all know that I might be just a tad obsessed with having and using a planner.

It keeps my life so much more organized than if I didn't have it in my life. It's changed forms a little the past few years, but it's a mainstay, and I still lug it around everywhere. Especially now that I'm pregnant.

My Favorite (Non-Maternity) Second Trimester Clothes

Disclaimer: I am not a fashion blogger. I am not a fashionable person in general (just ask my sister...), and most of my wardrobe consists of camp t-shirts and flannel.

But being pregnant this summer has necessitated a bit of a clothing update. I still wear lots of camp t-shirts, though.

Because of the whole "not a fashionable person" thing, shopping for clothes is not my favorite- especially shopping for clothes that I'll only wear for a few more months. It also isn't very financially practical to spend a lot of money on a maternity wardrobe, and I'm cheap. I wanted to use what I've got as much as possible, buy things that helped the stuff in my closet stretch for a while longer, and purchase clothes that can be worn when I'm not pregnant, too.

Here's what I came up with:

Saving My Sanity in the First Trimester

As soon as that second line showed up on that pregnancy test, my anxiety level went through the roof.

Infertility has tossed me into a community with lots of testimonies of all the struggles of early pregnancy- HCG levels, low progesterone, spotting and heart rates and all the things that could go wrong. I knew more than many people about all the risks facing me, and man. I worried.

So I spent most of my fifth week of pregnancy researching symptoms, reading forums, freaking out, hanging around in the comments section of Pregnant Chicken, crying for no real reason (thanks progesterone injections!), and googling "How Not To Freak Out First Trimester."

Obviously, it was a very productive week. Ha. I got even less productive about a week later when I added morning sickness into the mix. Feeling crummy and getting stuff done do not jive well.

Now that I'm (finally) past the first fourteen weeks, I've been looking back at some of the more healthy ways I coped with the stress and sickness that came along with those first few months.

Pregnancy After Infertility

Pregnancy after years of infertility is hard.

It's complicated in ways that I didn't expect. While lots of newly pregnant ladies are busy looking up bassinets and bonnets, I spend much more time researching potential issues and learning how to do injections. Financially, emotionally, physically... being pregnant after dealing with infertility is just different.

Granted, we've been very, very blessed with a healthy and easy pregnancy so far- I'm sure that many of my formerly infertile sisters could add many things to this list that I've been fortunate enough not to experience- but I've found that so far, the biggest differences are medical stuff, fear, jealousy, and guilt.