Entry No. 1: Looking back on January 11, 2020

I found out I was pregnant on January 11, 2020. I hadn’t been feeling like myself, and my dogs wouldn’t leave me alone. So I took a test.

It was positive.

I called my doctor right then, on the spot. A year earlier, we had lost a baby, and she had promised me that the moment I got pregnant again, she would be right by my side. She kept that promise the same day. Come in, she said. We’ll do your first blood draw and watch your hCG numbers rise each week.

Then I had to figure out how to tell my husband. We were a month shy of our first anniversary. I went to the store and found a funny card about how someday we’d look back on this moment and laugh. I bought his favorite cake. I put both tests in a gift bag and handed it to him. He was excited the second he saw it all.

The first trimester was not the glow everyone talks about. I was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum, and the medication they gave me didn’t help. I was in and out of the hospital for IV fluids, just to stay hydrated and keep the baby healthy. At week 12, a blood draw and a gender reveal told us we were having a girl.

In the second trimester, the food aversions arrived. Chicken was the big one. I was still stuck at home, weak from the hyperemesis, right after I had joined a mom group at my church.

By the third trimester, my doctor was worried enough that she recommended a C-section to reduce the risks to both of us. I spent those months planning her arrival and trying to stay as healthy as I could. Then the date changed. First we moved it from 39 weeks to 37 because my health wasn’t improving. Then it moved again, because my OB and the pediatric specialist needed to be in the same place, so a doctor would be ready if she needed the NICU.

She was born at 36 weeks and 5 days. A preemie, technically. Six pounds, six ounces, and perfectly healthy. No NICU. We got five days in the hospital, just the three of us, getting to know her.

In August, we became a family of three.