Pregnancy 1: 12 Weeks

12 Weeks: Baby is the size of a Plum

Quick Recap: This week Tomek and I spent most of our time resting and chilling from the whirlwind of telling everyone less than half a week earlier. Which leads me to the first part of the focus this week….

Advice: Either when you first tell people about your pregnancy or days/weeks later you are likely to receive advice from them. These will be family, friends, and honestly even acquaintances will offer you advice on what you should do. This can all become very overwhelming and even frustrating at times. What you need to remember are these core things:

The people giving advice are only trying to help you.

They are sharing advice that is typically based on personal experiences

It can get complicated because it is based off of personal experiences, they may conflict with each other!

More than anything Thank these people for sharing with you and actually listen. BUT don’t feel obligated to actually do what they say. Do your own research and decide what is best for your immediate growing family (you, spouse, baby!)

Birthing Plan: This leads me to the next topic, Birthing Plan! Consider quickly who you want in the room (because trust me, people will start asking or just assume they get to be in there), but think beyond this. Natural: No medication, such as pitocin that is sometimes used for pain and no Epidural. This is our plan but that means we also have to consider exercise, learning more about progressing labor naturally, etc. So whatever you choose, that is up to you, don’t let anyone shame you or try to convince you that you can’t handle that and lastly stick to your guns, you do you and you will end your birth with your baby in your hands and happy with the choices you made!

Happy Moment: This week I had quite the happy momma-to-be experience and it was all Tomek. Tomek and his friend Pat (remember our friend expecting 1st baby) were on the phone and I was laying on the couch near him as they both are talking about their ladies symptoms, what they have learned to help, and just other baby daddy related talk. They were so cute just going back and forth and all I could do was lay their with a big grin on my face thinking about what amazing fathers they are going to be!!

Puppy Knows: I can’t tell you what week this started, but it was probably pretty early on just not something I thought to write about until now (again pregnancy brain sometimes makes it hard to think up core topics to write). We have a cute little black la mix, Maggie and she is the sweetest little dog. Since early in my pregnancy her behavior has changed. She used to jump up on my chest all the time and now I think she has only done it once. She trails me wherever I go in the house and when I try to get on the floor to play with her, she isn’t nearly as playful (aggressive but not bad) as she was instead if I lay on the floor she just curled up as the little spoon to me. I assume one key reason she knows is the change in my body’s pheromones. Dogs already know their owners natural pheromones so it makes sense to me that they can sense the change in them as well, I just don’t know if she knows that it is a baby causing the changes. Either way she is still our baby girl and since getting pregnant she is happy because I take her on 30-40 minute walks about 3-5 times a week which we didn’t do before.

1st Burst of Energy: I have been so tired these past weeks I have barely managed to just get to work and fulfill my duties as a professor and my service activities. So, the idea of cleaning or doing anything to the house just seemed impossible. However, this week my energy seemed to have a good burst for a couple days. Because of this I was able to clean up most of my kitchen, get some laundry done, and the next day I had this strong urge to vacuum and dust, though I only managed to do two rooms before I felt exhausted again.