I think I’ve narrowed down my points to experience per trimester, but I bet they’ll be some interesting random tidbits in between as well. From day one the first thing that changes about your life is time. Period. Time stops having a meaning when minute to minute hour to hour day to day, all you can think about is growing a little baby inside of you and hoping that everything is going OK. I was obsessed with what I ate (and yes I was starving from day 1) how I was feeling, and what was going on. I guess I was one of the lucky ones that didn’t have a lot of symptoms other than being super tired and having a little bit of a light headache that seemed pretty constant. Although that in itself can be cause for concern. If I’m not puking is the baby growing?

Around week eight I started spotting. As it got heavier, I started to panic and we ended up in the ER that night. I was diagnosed with SCH, which I learned was a subchorionic hematoma. The first few minutes of being in the ER were terrifying and I of course went back-and-forth between trying to be positive and trying not to assume the worst and absolutely being devastated and feeling that familiar feeling of loss. I got into the ultrasound and was able to see my baby‘s heartbeat - something I’ve never seen before. The waves of emotion…I’d never felt so much at once. They measured the SCH - a larger one is cause for greater concern, but mine was small(ish) and so all I could do was go home, wait and rest. No lifting heavy things, be careful. I was sent home. While this wasn’t on the one hand how I wanted to see my baby for the first time, it was remarkable that we went home with an image and a confirmed pregnancy, albeit a high risk one.

I think about secrets here because this was traumatic. This was during the week, this was during work, in sort of still a pandemic. This was while I had meetings and life and I had only told my mom and mother-in-law about this pregnancy. I had to like, keep doing the things you just “do”, without letting my trauma and fear seep into my day to day.

Overall as a human being, I like to think that I’m a good friend and good keeper of secrets. Actually looking back at it I don’t know if anyone’s ever told me a very big secret, or that I’ve ever had to keep a secret for someone else. In this case, I was keeping a secret for myself and it was very very hard if I got a rude email or if someone asked me why I wasn’t doing something. It was so hard not to say well I just got back from the ER, I haven’t slept and I’m afraid of losing the baby that you didn’t know that I was pregnant with.

I didn’t just need the empathy but the context is always helpful as the popular saying goes ‘you never know with someone else is dealing with’, so you should always be kind. I definitely gained a lot of empathy after going through this and I was reminded that it’s so true that someone can be dealing with something you have no idea about when you send that rude email or are snappy in the cashier check out line. Big life lesson to add to my stressed-out plate and pregnant brain.

So there we were, keeping our tough secret. Definitely scaling back activities, and I would just try to sit and rest and manifest positive thoughts. I did look online for affirmations, and positive pregnancy mantras. I sat and meditated, and I spent a lot of time doing research that would help me try to be positive instead of negative about the situation that I was in. However, a lot of times you just have to log off the Internet.

After a while, I realized that all of the positive affirmations were actually making me spiral in the other direction. I found this in yoga to be true as well - sometimes going as extreme as possible pushes me too far and as a human, I need to dial it back to be rational and to manifest just the right amount and not overdo it. I was lucky to have a strong partner that would listen to me/let me bitch/hear me out, and as soon as I vented, I often felt better. So we sat. We watched. We waited. We prayed. I kept working and kept the minutes, hours, days added together without further incident. I was manifesting the little baby that could.

We made it to our 10-week appointment, and we had another scare. Another trip to the ER. More blood, more incredibly scary times again during work, during the day, during a pressing time of year, during when life is just happening to you and all you can do is drive yourself to the hospital and pray, again.

Once again, we were able to confirm the pregnancy was viable. The baby was OK and the spotting was a side effect. Not a sign of anything bad! At that point, we started to believe that our little baby was going to make it.

Photos: my first picture of our little miracle, my first bump photo, the milestone I hit while nine weeks pregnant, a memory of the funny celebration.