Written by me at 22 weeks pregnant in 2019 with my first child
Now that we’ve been lucky enough to get to this point with every going ok, I’m talking more openly about my pregnancy to those lovely people who care to know about it. Surprisingly, one of the questions I’ve been asked the most is some variation of how did I find out and when did I find out I was pregnant. I guess I find it surprising that people are interested in the first place.
Before it happened to me, I just assumed it was as simple as missing your period or morning sickness kicking in after a month or so...but boy was I wrong! A quick review of my Google search history can confirm that I had more than a hunch I was pregnant almost immediately (i.e. within 5-6 days of (how should I put it...ahem) ‘the deed’ being done! In reality, I didn’t need Google to tell me what I already knew . My body, not to mention my emotions, were already doing a pretty good job of that.
So how did I know I was pregnant? For me, there were three big symptoms that took hold almost immediately and that I couldn’t ignore after a couple of days. The BNM trifecta as I now call it, told me I was pregnant long before any test could:
Boobs - It genuinely felt like my boobs grew three cup sizes overnight. I was traveling that week and when FaceTiming my other half (OH) (not in THAT way before you say it), they just seemed to take center stage. I’m usually a C cup but that day, they had swollen to what I can only describe as Dolly Parton proportions. They were big, puffy, slightly tender to touch and in my OH’s words, they looked “exceptionally angry”
Nausea - While a boost to your cleavage might considered a pregnancy perk, one of the less fun but telling symptoms for me was the rapid onset of nausea. One day, I was doing just fine on an airplane, the next I have to get out of my taxi and walk for 30 minutes because the motion sickness was otherwise going to send me over the edge. For me, the nausea came in waves and was just too obvious to put down to anything else.
Moodiness - Probably my most obvious symptom when I look back on it now but it definitely took a couple of days for me to realise that my mood was all over the place. I was on a work trip that week that happened to be in my hometown, meaning I got to spend time with my family. That usually puts me in the best mood. It also meant that I wasn’t even in the same country as my OH, who also happened to be traveling that week. I won’t go into the details but let’s just say those couple of days involved me being so irritable...I was impatient with everyone, I felt stressed out and was never more than one innocent remark away from tears. In fact, that was the week my OH started not so affectionately referring to me as the Moodasaurus Rex (and still does…)
It didn’t take long for me to realise that all of these were maybe not a coincidence. Like a light bulb moment, it all started to come together. This sounds a lot like pregnancy. My intuition just kicked in. This was different to anything I had felt before. In hindsight, these symptoms could just as easily have been linked to the beginnings of my period but my gut feeling (and my body) told me otherwise. It’s strange because for me, this ‘feeling’ went beyond logic or rational thought. Looking at the facts, the likelihood that we would had conceived this time was low. The odds were not in our favour and I had only just finished up my last round of birth control (admittedly I had been more lax about taking them in the last month as we had said we were going to start trying the next month - let that be a lesson to you if you’re in the habit of missing a day here and there!). I had no idea where I was in my ovulation schedule for that matter. But something was different.
My first pregnancy test came back negative. In the past, I would have taken that at face value and got on with my day but this time, I didn’t. A quick search online told me that the best time to take a pregnancy test is first thing in the morning when your urine is more concentrated and there’s a better chance of detecting the indicative hormone hCG. So I waited another day and a half and took another test first thing. I’m pretty certain that had I showed that test to anyone else, they would have said it was negative. But I convinced myself that when I held it at a certain angle under daylight, I could see the most subtle blue line. You can see below for yourself…pretty sure there was nothing to see but again, my intuition was telling me otherwise. This was about 10 days post-conception. Fast-forward one week, and four tests later with more faint blue lines, I finally got my validation when a digital test came pack with a clear positive and a 1-2 weeks pregnant confirmation. Confirming what I already knew and what my body had been telling me for close to 10 days at that point.
So what was my takeaway from this experience...listen to your body. It might be telling you something. Female intuition is truly remarkable. There have been times in the past where I thought I might be pregnant because my period is a couple of days late or I felt a bit sick but deep down knew it was unlikely. This just felt different though. That said, I know every experience is completely different and some women live blissfully unaware for weeks or even months. And there’s nothing to say that I’ll have the same experience if I’m fortunate enough to get pregnant again at some point in the future.
But if you do have that hunch that something strange is happening or you feel the symptoms, here’s some of my learnings:
Take your test in the morning: Pregnancy tests work better when taken first thing in the morning when your urine is concentrated.
It’s a waiting game: Don’t expect instant verification - it took 2-3 weeks from what I think was our conception date to get a truly positive test result (i.e. more than a blue line)
Don’t torment yourself: If you don’t want to torment yourself with the ‘Am I? / Aren’t I?’ question, wait a couple of weeks before you take a test (easier said than done, I know..)
Listen to your body in the meantime: Take good care of yourself - if you’re feeling tired, go to bed early. Give yourself some TLC - pregnant or not, you deserve it :)
If you’re reading this and you think you might be pregnant, I hope you get the outcome you want. If you’re reading this pregnant or as a Mama, I’d love to hear how you found out.
Sx
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