The stuff no one tells you

I promise I won’t let this blog become overrun with nothing but baby stuff, but the reality is, pregnancy is part of my new journey here, so I’m going to talk about it a bit.  Today I’m going to talk about the stuff no one ever tells you before your pregnant…like how terrifying life suddenly becomes because of all the little things that could go wrong.

Last week, I had a bit of a scare on Tuesday, right before I shared my news with all of you.

It was about 8 o’clock at night, and I went to pee…and there was blood.

Now, in hindsight, I guess it wasn’t a lot of blood, but ANY blood when you’re pregnant is the scariest thing you can ever see.

I was terrified.  I reached out to both of my sisters (who both have babies) and who reassured me everything was probably ok, but to call my doctor just in case.

I called the doctor, and the on-call physician told me I’m fine, that so long as there is no cramping or pain, and that the blood flow isn’t seriously heavy, there’s nothing to worry about.

Luckily, I had an appointment on Wednesday anyways, so he said they’d check everything out in the morning.

That wasn’t enough to stop my thoughts though.  Every possible scenario jumped into my head.  I went running for the first time in a while on Monday…did I push myself too hard? It was so hot and humid, did I let myself get dehydrated? Did I do this? What if I harmed my baby??

Flash forward to Wednesday morning, and at the doctor’s office, when they put the fetal heart rate monitor on my belly and I heard the heartbeat, I literally burst into tears.  I know everyone said it was “probably nothing to worry about” but “probably” means there’s a chance, even if it’s tiny, that something might be wrong…and that tiny chance kept me awake all night long.

The doctor told me after an exam that it’s just the way my cervix is built, that there are lots of little blood vessels closer to the surface now and that it will probably be a normal occurrence for me throughout my pregnancy, but holy cow were those 12 hours waiting to find out what happened were nerve wracking.  I hadn't had any issues before that, so this was a total shock. 

To be on the safe side, I’m supposed to take it easy for a full week.  No running, no high impact workouts.  I can still walk, and PiYo is probably ok too, but I have been too scared to push it, namely because the bleeding never really “stopped”, so I don’t want to aggravate it.

So, in the meantime, I’m trying to focus on getting my nutrition back on track.  The first trimester was tough with nausea (I was lucky to not have any vomiting, but the only thing I wanted to eat were carbs, carbs, and more carbs!), so now I’m trying to focus on getting enough protein again.

I’m lucky to have my Shakeology still to help fill those voids in my nutrition, but the healthier I can eat, the healthier baby will be, so I’m trying!

What are some things that you learned as a first time momma that no one ever told you or warned you about?