Our Biggest Adventure Yet!

Well HELLO there! Happy Spring, almost Summer! I’ve been a little MIA lately, and I’m only kind of sorry… because we have some really big, really exciting news! Can you guess? I’ll give you a hint!

YOU’RE SEEING THAT RIGHT!!!! IT’S A BABY!!!!!!! A WEE LITTLE ONE!!!!!!!!!! AND IT’S OURS!!!!!!!

In light of this eXciTiNg news, I’m going to mix things up a little bit! I’m starting a new “category” on Rise and Renovate for pregnancy and baby – I’ll be blogging a bit about my pregnancy and lots about creating our nursery and baby-fying our house! The countdown to November 28 begins. Let the baby-bloggin’ commence!

Finding Out We’re Pregnant

I have learned SO much in the past 3 months. When the hubby and I decided we wanted to start trying for a baby, we had to strategically plan around our Europe trip we took in mid-March. I didn’t want to get pregnant too early and be sick throughout the trip, so we waited until we thought we were in a “safe zone,” or too early in the pregnancy for any symptoms.

Welp, little Baby Rissler decided to make its appearance ASAP! While we were on our vacation I took the first pregnancy test which was a little inconclusive, so I took another test a couple days later which was more conclusive. Did you know that any semblance of a second line is a positive result? I didn’t. LOL.

Another thing I didn’t know: When calculating how many weeks pregnant you are, the date is calculated from the first day of your last period. Not the conception date. Soooo, I was actually 4 weeks pregnant, not 2 weeks pregnant!

That means I was already feeling some symptoms – the #1 symptom being FATIGUE. I was SO exhausted. I thought I was just tired from walking 30 miles in Italy the week before. While that definitely didn’t help, my fatigue was primarily from growing a child and a placenta.

When we arrived in Germany for the second week of our vacation, I was barely functioning. Our family wanted to do some sightseeing, but all I wanted to do was lay down and not move. Look at this photo we took on 3/20 in Germany – I was basically asleep standing up:

I made it through the rest of the trip (barely) and took some serious recuperating time when we got home. Weeks 5 & 6 were OK, though I was still pretty tired. Then came week 7. OMG.

The Nightmare of Week 7

It was a Saturday night. My brother-in-law was visiting and we all decided to go out to dinner. I indulged in the juiciest, most delicious cheeseburger a pregnant woman could want. That night, I had THEE worst indigestion of my entire life. I woke up several times in the night with a nasty stomach ache/heartburn combo. We didn’t have any Tums in the house, so I woke up my sweet hubby at 4am and asked him to take me to Walmart to get some. He is literally an angel.

Unfortunately, the Tums could not calm my stomach acid. The indigestion made me nauseous, which was horrible because I have a moderate phobia of vomiting. Can I add that all of this was decently embarrassing because my brother-in-law was hanging out with us? They bought me some nausea-ease medicine for pregnancy, candied ginger, soup, and Vitamin B6, but nothing helped. Finally that afternoon I dry-heaved a few times and started feeling better afterward. It was… lovely. *eye roll*

The rest of the week I had classic morning sickness. I had to eat a few saltine crackers before getting out of bed due to nausea and had to eat throughout the day to keep from vomiting. One of the only things that helped was sitting outside and getting some fresh air.

Weeks 8-12

I’m slowly getting better, week-by-week. The fatigue has improved (though not 100%). For awhile it felt like my stomach shrunk and I could only eat half a meal at a time, but that improved, too. Other symptoms have included bloating, round ligament pain (cramping), sore abdominal muscles, foul-tasting saliva, and moodiness. But then at week 9, I had my first ultrasound!!!!!!!!!

The ultrasound tech said I’ve got a “wild one” since baby kept moving its arms around! It also had a strong heart rate of 177bpm. Seeing baby up on the monitor made all the sickness and other symptoms so, incredibly worth it.

What’s Next?

In about 6-8 weeks I’ll have a super extensive ultrasound that will tell us Baby’s gender. Once we know that, we’ll be kicking our nursery-designing efforts into full gear! In the meantime, make sure to follow all my nursery inspiration on my Pinterest board!

Thanks for coming along on this journey with us! We can’t wait!!!