Going Public

Today is our anniversary and we decided to make it extra special by officially announcing our pregnancy.  I am so happy to finally share our wonderful news with all of our friends and our extended family.  We are exactly 18 weeks pregnant today!

Our gender scan at our doctors isn't for a few more weeks, but my husband took me for an early gender reveal ultrasound this Tuesday - now to keep it a secret for a few more weeks!

I can't believe we're already celebrating our 3rd anniversary.
We're excited to announce that this year will be the most exciting yet!

Announcement Pictures

I want to start by saying that we just received the results of our genetic screening earlier this week and everything looks great!

With that out of the way, I feel that I can go back to enjoying the pregnancy.  We are currently in the Poconos on a family vacation with my dad and his girlfriend, my grandmother and my siblings.  My dad is a photographer and was generous enough to take photos for our pregnancy announcement.  Here are some of my favorites!

Sharing the News

As soon as that little plus sign showed up, I started to think about all of these great ways we could tell our parents the exciting news.  However, since I'm way too impatient, we ended up calling everyone last night (parents, grandparents, and siblings) and sharing the news with them.  Everyone was overjoyed and overwhelmed.

Now, this was extremely early in the pregnancy to be sharing the news - we are only 5 weeks pregnant.  The general rule is that you shouldn't tell people the news until you've made it past the first 12 weeks.  The thought process behind this is that the rate of miscarriage decreases after 12 weeks  However, our personal opinion was that if something did go wrong, we'd want our families' support and so we were comfortable with telling them.

While we're on the topic though, the statistics on miscarriage appear to be very skewed.  After reading about it in my books, it turns out that miscarriage rates are the highest during the first 4 weeks of pregnancy (at which point you wouldn't even be able to test positive on a home pregnancy test).  By week 5 (when I found out I was pregnant) the chance of a miscarriage is only  about 15% and continues to drop rapidly.  By week 7 it is only 3% and by week 8 it is only 2%, which is what it will remain at through the rest of the pregnancy.

Plus Sign

I can't believe I'm saying this, but we're pregnant!  Last night I started to feel nauseous, almost hungover, but without drinking.  I woke up around 4AM today and decided that I was going to take a pregnancy test (still no Aunt Flow and I hadn't tested yesterday).  I was fairly certain I saw a second line, it was faint, but I'm sure it was there.

My grand plan of how I'd tell my husband was thrown out the window.  Instead, I went back into bed with my pee strip in hand, staring at my husband, willing him to wake up.  Somehow, this worked and I shoved the stick in his face and asked is he saw the second line (romantic, I know).  He agreed that he did.  Neither of us went back to sleep.  A few hours later, we went out to the nearest drug store to buy another test to confirm that we were pregnant.  And there it was, that little pink plus sign in the window.  We were both ecstatic and in shock.  We couldn't believe this was actually happening and only on our first try.

Then reality set it.  We had a rehearsal dinner to go to tonight and the wedding is tomorrow. To make things worse, as one of the bridesmaids, I was taking part in a girls morning out, which included a trip to Glitter Nail Bar - a cocktail bar and nail salon in one.  I was panicked, but thankfully called the nail bar ahead and they secretly made my drinks without alcohol.  Now to make it through the rehearsal.  I tried my best to pass my drinks to my husband when no one was looking, but a few people noticed.  We let them think what they wanted to think, but didn't confirm anything.  To make things worse, I only tested positive this morning, and the nausea has already begun. We headed home early, but now I'm wide awake writing this and pondering how I will make it through the wedding tomorrow.

Negative

It's been exactly 2 weeks since ovulation, so I took a pregnancy test this morning (and maybe one yesterday and one the day before that) and no luck.  They were all negative, but Aunt Flow hasn't arrived yet, so there's still a chance.  I guess there's nothing more to do than wait.

To pass the time, I've thought about how I will tell my husband when I finally do see that little plus sign.  I bought the book "Pregnancy Day By Day" and an adorable onsie with our last name on it, which I plan to give him.