Things I learned
during the first trimester of pregnancy.

That little bump you’re patting at 7 weeks is tomorrow’s trip to the bathroom.

On that note… every trip to the bathroom resulting in #2 should be celebrated.

…and it may or may not smell worse than anything you’ve ever encountered – dead or alive.

Parental sleep training starts early with every-two-hour trips to the toilet. Yes, your baby is the size of an apple seed, but your kidneys don’t care.

On that note, you get to be quite familiar with the bathroom… Vomiting multiple times a day, peeing every 30 minutes, you name it. (Make sure you have nice TP… or better yet, baby wipes!)

When you’re lying in bed eating crackers from your nightstand, it’s not worth it to even sit up… puke WILL happen.

Coughing too hard equals the doom of once again assuming the position – doubled over the sink losing everything that you worked so hard all day to eat.
Don’t. Cough.

Be careful with what you snapchat to your mother. She may screenshot everything for “keepsake” purposes, including those pitiful post-puke selfies you were hoping would score you some sympathy points.

Brushing your teeth has become a sport and a challenge in itself. If you complete the task without vomiting, consider it a successful day.

Your dream of a super-healthy pregnancy full of avocados and lean meats has been replaced with a nutritious diet of crackers and ginger ale.

Chew food well. Because once you’ve felt it come back up, you wonder if you may have actually swallowed razors instead of a fresh peach.

The term “morning sickness” only refers to when the ill feeling begins in the day. Right away. (And it was probably coined by someone who had never been pregnant.)

People who have never been pregnant but attempt to sympathize by telling you they know how you feel (‘cause “they felt nauseous earlier today, too”) test the limits of your ability to resist throat-punching.

On a different note,
I learned…

The results on a pee stick could suddenly make my heart explode with more love for my husband than I had two seconds earlier or ever thought possible.

“What’s new” is the hardest question to answer with a straight face when you’re not yet ready to tell your exciting secret but simultaneously bursting to tell everyone – even the stranger at the checkout line.

That telling the news of pregnancy is so freaking fun, and so worth capturing on video when at all possible!

The strength of love that is possible to have for someone I’ve never even met.

The beautiful relief of another day completed and a baby still growing!

That although this tiny person is growing inside me, there is nothing I can do to cause him or her to grow body whole body systems, organs, facial features, fingers and toes. God alone set the growth of this tiny person into motion and watches over this perfect and miraculous process.

…and because of that, I have learned that He is in control, and he loves me and my little darling with a love beyond anything I could ever comprehend or hope to learn.

❤