The last three months have just flown by. Not only does the weather go downhill from today, signaling the end of summer, but it’s also the end of my first trimester. I know, it’s confusing, wasn’t I at nine weeks just three weeks ago? Numbers aren’t my strong suit either, but that’s what the ob-gyne says. I am officially 14 weeks today.
It’s mostly bloat, but yes, there’s some baby in there too.
I’m surprised at how fast the first trimester has gone and how little I actually blogged about it. I’m actually the only person I know around here who’s said anything her pregnancy before the first trimester ended (seems to be a Western/Caucasian thing).
Still, I don’t want to forget; in fact, I already regret not documenting some of the early highlights (like how flat my tummy actually was!). So I thought I’d share a few of the most memorable moments from the first three months of my pregnancy… starting with how I found out I was pregnant.
I will never forget the day I found out. It was the day after Kleine Fabriek, which came right on the heels of an active week in Iceland, and I was completely, utterly exhausted. I intended to stay in bed the whole day, a plan I announced to Marlon before he left for work.
Somewhere in the middle of my sleepy, exhausted fog, I realized that my period was two weeks late! I had taken two pregnancy tests before Iceland and both were negative. Apparently, third time’s the charm. That day, I added a very important new word to my Dutch vocabulary.
The word “zwanger” (pregnant) was set to disappear in an hour or so, so I immediately leapt out of bed and rang Marlon up for a lunch date. Of course, that told him something was definitely up!
So he walked out of his building to meet me with a huge smile on his face. I didn’t have to say anything. A (very) rare ray of sunshine just happened to break through the clouds, shining on us as we hugged. It was perfect.
After our rather cinematic meeting, we had lunch at The Butcher, a new-ish burger bar at the Albert Cuypmarkt. To celebrate, Marlon ordered a big hunk of beef aptly named The Daddy.
Marlon went back to work (it was his second day at his new job!). As for me, after stopping by the American Bookstore to pick up a copy of What To Expect When You’re Expecting, I floated home and promptly fell asleep—the first of many first trimester snoozes.
When Marlon came home that evening, we took lots of silly pictures of ourselves with the pregnancy stick. Don’t worry, it had a cap and a holder, so we never actually touched the part I peed on.
The next couple of days were a blissful haze. I remember lying in bed with him that first evening, simply enjoying the feeling of having this special secret that only the two of us shared. I remember feeling that both nothing and everything had changed: that our life was still “our” life, still normal and still the same, except that we knew something was different. It was a strange, surreal feeling, but a good one, and I savored it for as long as I could.
I’m in a sharing mood, so I’ll write about a few other memorable first-trimester moments in the next day or two. Anything you’d like to know? And if you’ve been pregnant, how did you find out the first time?
