We are pregnant!!! It’s still so surreal to say. Finding out we were expecting a little Baby Sells was the most amazing moment in my life. Zarin and I have felt so completely blessed with the out-pour of love and support from our family and friends since we shared the news. I’m happy to share that as of 5.13.17, we are officially into our second trimester! I experienced so much during my first trimester and thought I would take some time to reflect back and share some of those experiences.  Not only with you, our closest family and friends, but anyone going through a pregnancy, trying, or have already gone through it. They say every pregnancy is different. And this being my first child, I learned so much in my first trimester. The first few weeks after we found out I was pregnant were kind of scary. I kept feeling like I needed to have my own personal pregnancy expert on hand to answer my gazillion questions and concerns. Overall, though, I’ve come to realize this is an absolutely blessed time for my family and to enjoy the journey. And that’s what we intend to do and bring you along the journey with us.

How We Found Out

It was early Saturday morning, March 11th (I remember the day specifically because it was one of Ziggy’s big football tournaments that day). I was a few days late.. okay, maybe 5 or 6 days late. When I woke up that morning I leaned over and sleepily asked Zarin if I should take a test. He mumbled, “Idunno”. That didn’t work for me. “Babe, should I take a test or not”, I insisted. “Yea…”, he replied with a yawn. So I hopped out of bed and walked into the bathroom. Just as I was waiting for the test to develop, Zarin walked into the bathroom to brush his teeth. I looked down at the test and saw the first line pop up. “Negative”, I thought and shrugged it off. We had actually been through this a few times before so it was kind of what I expected. At this point, we weren’t trying to get pregnant and had decided that we were going to wait until the end of the year to start again. I looked down at the stick again and this time saw a second line start to come through. I felt my heart beat faster and faster. I immediately let out a huge gasp and covered my mouth in shock. Zarin looked at me like I was messing around with him. My eyes started tearing up and I waved the stick frantically from the toilet. I was in complete shock! I held up the test again begging Zarin to look at it. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Tears streaming down my face, he stared at me, completely frozen. He looked at me with a look I’ve never seen on my husband’s face before. He looked shocked, stunned, but had so much excitement, love and joy in his eyes. After what felt like 2 hours of begging him to look at the test, he did, and we shared the most amazing moment I’ve ever experienced in my life. We created a life! I only had one test so we immediately decided he would run out and grab another one just to be sure. At 6am on a Saturday, it took him a few tries until he found a store open and came back home with two more tests. When he got home, I had already gotten Ziggy up to get ready for the tournament. We waited to say anything to him just to be safe but it was soooooooo hard to contain our excitement. While Zarin was getting Ziggy ready, I went and took the other test. It lit up with both lines right away. Smiling ear to ear, I walked back in the room and gave him a reassuring smile. Yes, we were indeed pregnant!

 

How We Told Our Families

So we definitely couldn’t wait to tell our families. We found out I was pregnant on March 11th and wanted to see the doctor before saying anything to anyone. At just 5 weeks my doctor told me there wasn’t much they could do but confirm I was pregnant since it was so early on. So, we decided we couldn’t wait. We told my dad first. He was leaving out of the country for four months towards the end of March and we knew we wanted to tell him before he left. We had a small birthday party for him before he left and invited him over for cake with my brother and his girlfriend, Paige. I had wrapped a gift for my dad and told him to open it while we ate some cake. Inside the box we had printed a photo of me holding the pregnancy stick in front of my belly. Then around the border of the photo I wrote, ‘You’re going to be a Grandpa!’ My dad slowly and dramatically opened the box. I was SO nervous. I could feel my hands shaking! When he finally got it open he looked at the photo confused and said, “A pregnancy test? Uh oh.” He actually thought the pregnancy test was for him and was our way of telling him he better not get anyone pregnant on his vacation…. really dad!? But then there was what felt like a long moment of silence. Finally, Paige shouted, “No way!” and it started clicking for everyone! My dad asked me if I was pregnant and I shook my head, yes! I was already crying. I’m such a cry baby. Their confusion turned to excitement was sooooooooooooo funny to see.

During that time, my mom was in Florida so we knew we would tell her in person as soon as she got back. We picked her up from the airport a few days later and had a similar box waiting for her at home. We walked her into the house and let her get settled in. I brought her over to the kitchen table where the box was waiting for her. She was excited and confused about why we would have a gift for her. She opened it right away and saw the photo with, “You’re going to be a Grandma!” written around it. She immediately screamed and started bawling her eyes out. She went to give me a hug and nearly collapsed! I had to grab her to make sure she didn’t fall. Aside from Ziggy, my dear momma only has one grandson, who lives all the way in Florida. She has been dying for a grand baby for some time now.  We had her sit at the table and she held the box with the photo like a baby the whole night. Even when she got up to get something from the kitchen, she carried that box with her. I can’t wait to be the momma she has been to me, to my little baby.

My mother-in-law has quite a few more grand kids than my mom (about 7 more to be precise) so we figured her reaction might be slightly different. A few years back we had gone on a trip with her to search for her biological father and came up empty handed. Well, fast forward to present day, and we learned that she had finally found him and other family through an ancestry website. We were so thrilled and excited for her that after all these years, she had finally found him. What was even more exciting to us is that our baby, who she didn’t know about yet, would be born into this world with a whole other side of family that we hadn’t known before. One night, we went over to her house to talk about what she had discovered and what new family members she had found. We saw of a picture of her biological father, and other family. The resemblance was uncanny. Although we learned he had died in 2006, we were so happy that we had finally learned who he was. Leaving her house that night, Zarin and I looked at each other and realized we couldn’t wait to tell her. So we went back to the door and rang the doorbell. She answered and we stood there frozen. I nudged Zarin to say something and she stared back at us asking what was wrong. He lifted up his cellphone with the picture of our first ultrasound. She looked more closely and said, “You pregnant!?” We both smiled and nodded yes and she let out a big smile and hugged us both. We told her how excited we were to learn about our baby’s great, great grandpa and that the timing of her finding him and us finding out about our baby we’re too perfect.

How We Told Ziggy

I was a little over 11 weeks when we told Ziggy. We only have him home with us every other week so we couldn’t imagine waiting until almost week 13 to tell him. So my husband picked Ziggy up from school on a Monday and told him we had a surprise for him at home. I had bought a shirt for him that had ‘Brother Bear’ on it. I’ve called him Ziggy Bear since he was itty bitty so it just seemed so fitting. I wrapped it up for him and anxiously waited for him to get home. Finally, he got home and ran upstairs to his awaiting present. He opened it, super excited, smiling ear to ear. Then he looked at the shirt and seemed a bit confused. I asked him what it said and he responded, “Brotherrrrrrrrrrr…”, confused but still smiling. I asked him if he knew what that meant, and he smiled and shook his head slowly, uncertain. Zarin and I excitingly told him that we were having a baby and he was going to be a big brother! He smiled so big and started laughing. Then, his eyes started to water and he immediately covered his eyes, the shirt still in his hands. I don’t think we were expecting such a strong, emotional reaction from him; it brought tears to my eyes. He came over and gave me a hug and said thank you, Fia. He’s been wanting a sibling for some time now. This boy is so precious and such a sweet, caring soul. He’s going to be an amazing big brother! Every week he asks about the baby and how big he is (yes, he’s been very clear he wants a little brother). He always loves hearing the progression of the baby’s size and was quite surprised to learn the baby is the size of a lemon this week. 🙂

Symptoms

When we found out I was pregnant, I kept saying how I felt perfectly fine. I didn’t experience any sickness, tender breasts, or any of the common symptoms women usually experience prior to finding out. I think I must have jinxed myself because morning sickness hit me like a Mack truck starting at around week 6 and lasted through about week 12. Morning sickness turned into afternoon sickness and then evening sickness. I felt sick all day, every day for about 6 weeks straight and was running to the toilet at least every day. I felt so nauseous that I wouldn’t be able to eat, and then I would stay nauseous because I wasn’t eating. Finally, my doctor prescribed me Diclegis to help with the nausea and vomiting. It helped a little but not much. I had to force myself to eat. Ice, Gatorade, some fruit, and cereal were about the only things I could stomach for awhile. I also experienced heartburn for the first time during the first trimester. I finally starting feeling a bit better around week 12 and 13. I still have have some of these symptoms pop up here and there. It’s still hard for me to find things to eat as well, but overall, it’s getting better – thank goodness!

 

Baby Size

Lemon

 

Total Weight Gain

Negative 10 pounds, thanks to all the morning sickness. But I’m slowly gaining back some weight.

Gender

We had blood work done around 10 weeks that checked for abnormalities in the baby. Those tests can also determine the sex of our baby. Thankfully, our tests all came back normal. We had to ask our doctor to keep the results a secret. We are waiting to find out the sex of the baby so we can be surprised with our friends and family during our upcoming gender reveal. At our 14 week checkup she told us she knew the sex. It was soooooo hard leaving the appointment not knowing. Any guesses? 🙂

Movement

During our 12 week ultrasound the baby was very active! As soon as the ultrasound tech put the wand on my stomach, we could see the baby spinning and flipping around. We tried to get some close photos of baby’s face, but baby kept hiding behind his/her arms. We did, however, get a perfect profile picture of Baby Sells and I fell in love. I can’t wait to feel baby’s first move! We also got lucky at our 14 week checkup with an unexpected ultrasound! My doctor was training a new staff member and had her sit in on our appointment. She explained that 14 weeks is one of the best times to see a baby because of the development and space that there still is in the womb. She asked if I would be okay having an ultrasound done to show her. Uh yes, any chance we have to see our baby we’d take it! We walked into the ultrasound room and got ready to see our baby. Right away we saw baby stretched all the way out rolling around and waving his/her arms. Our doctor kept mentioning how long the baby’s legs were. The baby kept doing jump squats. I have a feeling once I can start feeling him/her, it’s going to be nonstop! Then, we saw the baby opening and closing it’s mouth. Our doctor said it was the baby drinking the amniotic fluid. It looked like like a little pac man. My heart just melted.

Food Cravings

Nothing really right now. Although, I have had a major sweet tooth lately.

Food Aversions

Meat, meat, meat! Even the sight or smell of it would make me nauseous. Zarin was cooking chicken legs one day. When I walked into the house, it reeked of chicken. I had to leave the house and go to my moms while the house aired out. Later that day, I saw the chicken in some Tupperware in the fridge and immediately had to run to the bathroom. I’ve been able to slowly work meat back into my diet but it’s still pretty limited. Also, garlic. I started smelling garlic when I would walk into my kitchen and it was making me sick. I thought maybe the smell was coming from the fridge or maybe a small piece was left on the counter top somewhere. I even went as far as asking my mom to come over and help clean the kitchen for me because I couldn’t handle the smell. It didn’t help. We kept garlic in a drawer with potatoes, etc., that I completely forgot about. I had Zarin look in the drawer and he found a small clove at the very bottom drawer, all the way in the back. My sense of smell during the first trimester has definitely been super heightened.

 

What I’m Most Looking Forward To

Finding out the sex of our baby and feeling him or her move for the first time!

Thank you for following along. Zarin and I are so excited to share this journey with you and Baby Sells.

xo,

Zarin & Zo