I know a lot of my clients, friends and family already know this but I wanted to take the time to publicly announce that I am pregnant! My wonderful husband and I are expecting our first born son, Parker Lopaka Palaina Barnes, on May 13th, 2018. We are both over the moon with excitement to be going on this journey and we couldn't be more happy to be bringing a sweet little baby boy into this world.
Our first ultrasound at just 7 weeks
Even with all of the excitement and anticipation, everything still isn't rainbows and sunshine. I want to take a moment a get real with all of you, so far for me, this pregnancy has sucked! Don't get me wrong, I am so in love with my baby boy, I get so excited every time I feel him move around and dying to meet him but this pregnancy has been really hard. I got hit with morning sickness really early. I was maybe 4 or 5 weeks and not even yet aware that I was pregnant when it first started to get me. At first I thought I was just coming down with the flu or something but my observant husband knew better and insisted that I take a pregnancy test. Lo and behold, he was right!
Second ultrasound at 12 weeks
I am officially 20 weeks now and just now starting to finally feel a little relief from the constant all day nausea. I still have my bad days and if I don't eat enough, eat too much or make the mistake of picking the wrong thing, the nausea rears its ugly little head at me. When I am not feeling like I am going to barf at any given moment, I am either plagued by horrible heartburn, debilitating migraines or excruciating rib pain. If it's not one thing, it is always another.
Me at 15 weeks pregnant, still documenting myself all the time even if I don't feel so great.
Now besides feeling like garbage pretty much all of the time we've recently had more stuff piled on top. We went in for our second trimester ultrasound on December 20th. I couldn't have been more excited going in, we were going to get another look at our little baby and finally found out what we are having. I walked into that appointment feeling like I was on cloud nine and left feeling like I had just been punch in the gut. After the tech finished with all of her images she said it would be only a few minutes at the doctor would be in. 20 minutes or so later the tech comes back in and gives us this story about how the doctor had to run to some other building in the hospital and would be in as soon as she could. I am naive and thought that the doctor was really off doing something else but I have come to realize she was probably just really studying our ultrasound before coming to talk to us. After 45 minutes of waiting the doctor finally comes in and immediately hits us with 2 things. First, I have some dark spots on my placenta that are concerning. They could just be blood clots or it could be a growth, either way it could be harmful to the baby and we are going to have to monitor it closely through the rest of my pregnancy. Then the second thing, she tells us that there are supposed to be two arteries going in and two going in the umbilical cord but my little guy only has one going in. It's a condition call Single Umbilical Artery (SUA) and although it is one of the most common umbilical cord abnormalities it can increase the risk of the baby having cardiac, skeletal, intestinal or renal problems. It is his heart that they are particular worried about, although my doctor was able to see all 4 chambers of Parker's heart and thinks it does look good, they want us to see a neonatal cardiologist.
Our little guy at 19 weeks
We get to start of our year with three doctors appointments in the first three weeks and until then we have to just sit here and wonder what will happen. Things don't look specifically bad but it is so hard not to worry. This little thing inside of me already means the world to me and there is nothing I can do for now but wait for more answers and do my very best to be positive. I will keep you guys all up to date as soon as we do know more.
Despite everything he is already a badass little rocker! He gives me so much hope already! 😍
So now I have told you about my story, tell me about yours! Leave me a comment and tell me about your pregnancy. Did you have lots of morning sickness? Or were there other symptoms you experienced? Did you have any scares or issues during your pregnancy or delivery? If so, how did you deal with them. Let's start a conversation, this is such an amazing and scary thing to go through as a woman and we should definitely all be talking about it more.
Cleaning the house at 10pm and I just had to stop to snap a shot of my 20 week belly. I can't wait to get my own maternity photos done! It is so important to exist in photos!
