My summed up pregnancy story

I wish I could say my pregnancy was uneventful, and that I loved every minute of it.  But come on.  The way I found out was pretty dramatic in itself.  There was no way it would be easy after it started like that.  After I learned my due date of Jan. 30, 2011, I counted back to when I found out and learned I was 7 weeks along at the time.  Everything added up, and I should have known.

My pregnancy was rough.  I was sick from the day he got comfy in my womb, to the day that he came right on out.  I had all the typical symptoms of morning sickness, day sickness, night sickness to always peeing and never having any energy.  And the heartburn.  My god.  The heartburn.  Yeah, pretty typical as far as discomfort.  Times a million.  But for the sake of moving along, I will keep this simple and not whine. 

At 10 weeks I heard his heartbeat for the first time.  Talk about making my own heart flutter and making my eyes turn into Niagra Falls.  It was amazing. 

At 11 weeks I saw him for the first time.  He looked like a peanut.  My gorgeous, sex unknown, very tiny peanut.  I cried again.  Maybe it was the hormones.  Or the whole experience.  But I cried a lot.

At the next monthly check up at around 14 weeks, we learned that the ultrasound showed that we had a venous lake in my placenta.  A venous lake is a blood pool that grows in the placenta and can either grow or shrink.  When it grows it takes all the nutrients from the developing fetus preventing the fetus from growing.  So this was  a threat to Noah’s growth and needed to be checked about once a month.  Thankfully it never went further than it did.  Whew.  But it did cause me to spot on and off throughout the pregnancy.

At 17 weeks I went to the restroom and found a large blood clot along with blood.  We went into the ER immediately, waited 4 hours, never got examined, but went home with a “threatened miscarriage”.  This devastated me.  But I quickly learned the bleeding was because of a UTI…and the UTI eventually led to a kidney stone.  I passed the stone.  But let me tell you something.  The pain from that was VERY comparable to contractions.  If it was not centralized to the side part of my back, I would have been convinced I was in labor.

At about 20 weeks my blood pressure started to be high and stayed high throughout the rest of the pregnancy.  Scary stuff, but no preeclampsia!

We were planning to keep him a surprise.  But after my doctor called him a “she” a few times.  We decided to find out.  Good thing too.  There may have confusion on his end.  ;)

At 25 weeks I married Mr. Von Ritchie.  <3  And had the best wedding I could ever ask for. 

I failed my 1 hour glucose test, but passed my three hour with flying colors.  Those drinks..blah!

In the last trimester I was in and out repeatedly for either some sort of severe pain (him pinching a nerve so bad I thought it was back labor) or thinking my water broke (I actually peed myself). 

Throughout the pregnancy I gained steady weight.  Then one week I gained a whopping 9 lbs.  I guess this was when he decided to induce me.  Good thing too.  Noah came out to be 8 lbs 7 oz.  Any longer and he may have come out a full grown man.

And that is basically it.  Lots of pain.  Lots of stress.  But a wonderful baby in the end.