Following is the story of how I found out I’m pregnant. If you can’t stomach some talk of breasts, menstrual cycles, and overly fertile people, you might want to get out now.
In the middle of January, Bumblebee self-weaned. He simply would not take the breast anymore and would only drink out of a bottle. I tried pumping, but could never get more than a few drops with my hand pump (which I had previously used mainly to relieve engorgement when my milk came in). I decided that it must have been all those bottle over Christmas while driving and visiting in-laws, and so I just switched to the bottle with a small amount of guilt which I got over quickly enough.
Bumblebee was almost three months old then, and I waited or my period to return. I wasn’t particularly concerned at first because I had read in a book that you shouldn’t get your period back for about three months after starting breastfeeding at least. But when it didn’t come a month after weaning completely, I was a little concerned until some research let me know that it could take 2-3 months after weaning to return.
And so time passed rather stressfully. I wasn’t worried at all until almost three months had gone by with no sign of bleeding. That’s when I called my mother and asked her what she thought. She told me to take a pregnancy test as soon as I could. Although I was worried, we didn’t exactly have an extra $20 lying around, so I had to wait a couple of weeks (things are very tight around here). It was after I talked to my mother that I began to be aware of pregnancy symptoms in the way that every woman who thinks she might possibly be pregnant is. Was that round ligament pain I felt as I twisted around to play with Bumblebee, or had I just moved in the wrong way and stretched a muscle? Were my breasts really that tender, or was it because Bumblebee had started pinching my breasts (and any other readily available body part) when I held him? And my god, was that a bit of a baby bump, or just because I pigged out all day, and why was I so hungry lately anyway?
I nearly had a nervous breakdown when the test cam back positive, although honestly I don’t know what I thought was going on. And so I began obsessing with how far along I was. I was pretty sure I got pregnant before Bumblebee stopped weaning, but there were no opportunities before Christmas. I guessed around 20 weeks. Because I washed my phone and haven’t been able to get a new one yet, I had my husband set up an appointment for me about a week after the positive test. The clinic didn’t have any openings for a month and so I went to the doctor on May 30. I measured at 24-26 weeks and we scheduled an ultrasound for the following Wednesday.
The ultrasound revealed that I was 23 weeks and 5 days pregnant with a healthy baby girl. I’m now at 26 weeks and 3 days. We’re calling her Butterfly for now.
Since we had a family reunion on my husband’s side on Saturday, June 14, as well as his sister’s wedding on June 11, we decided to surprise them with the news. We basically just showed up with my now huge belly and of course everyone noticed right away. That’s why I haven’t posted about anything in so long. The temptation to talk about the pregnancy was just too much! But now I’ll be around more regularly (hopefully). I’ll post about our trip in a different post, too.
