SO I wrote this blog post back in March but (true to form) left it sitting in my notes. “Why,” you ask? And to that, I have no answer other than the past 10 months have FLOWN by. In fact, I am sitting here, posting this blog (finally) just 2 days before my delivery date. I CANNOT BELIEVE I AM GOING TO BE A MOM IN 2 DAYS!!!!!!! So incredible.
I chose to leave the blog post as-is so that you could read my unfiltered thoughts into how we found out we were pregnant and what came after. If you’re more of a visual learner, watch our 1st & 2nd Trimester Vlog here (yes, that just went live today as well; better late than never!!!).
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WE’RE HAVING A BABY!
It’s still so crazy to write those words; to fully grasp that there is a precious little baby growing inside of my belly right now. But here we are — the next chapter of our life starting mid-August 2023.
I am currently 20 weeks pregnant as I write this blog post, and I’ve just recently started to feel little movements that feel like kicks. Or rather, super super soft pokes. The more movement I feel, the more this is starting to sink in.
Since we’re already halfway through our journey of pregnancy, I thought it would be fun to recap the beginning.
We found out we were pregnant on December 23rd, 2022 at approximately 5:00pm at night, in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. Whispering to ourselves in the basement of Brennan’s childhood home as we took a pregnancy test “just to make sure” before we left for the infamous “Cassidy Cousins night out,” the annual bar hop that has been a long standing tradition amongst the many Cassidy cousins who are over the age of 21. This particular year we were celebrating a 21st birthday the same night, so it was an extra special, extra exciting evening. Since my period was late, but I was technically feeling what I attributed to be period cramps, I thought it was the responsible thing to do. Since according to Flo, well…”I guess it is possible I might be pregnant…”
To our surprise, our evening took a very unexpected turn as we sat there and saw the pregnancy test flash the word “Pregnant” almost instantly after I set it down on the counter.
I am SO thankful we propped our phones up to capture the moment, despite the doubts we had that it would be positive.
Brennan and I had only recently decided we were “ready” to see what might happen if we were to try to get pregnant, but we hadn’t officially crossed that line of “we’re trying,” so it wasn’t on our radar. In fact, buying the pregnancy test almost made me feel like a teenager who was trying to hide something from her parents. Especially since we hid the test in Brennan’s jacket and took it in secret in the basement. There were butterflies and nerves and lots of “can you imagine if this says positive???!” And sure enough…
I now attribute those butterflies to the first signs of life happening deep inside.
I recognize what a blessing it is for this to be our path as I know that pregnancy is such a sacred, vulnerable experience that is so different for every single person that goes through it. Brennan and I had always talked openly about having children together, since the beginning of our relationship. We were set on the mindset of “whatever happens, happens.” Whether that meant getting pregnant, or not. We knew that it may be a tough journey, and if it wasn’t possible for us, we promised each other to embrace what was meant to be our story and live our incredible life together fully no matter what.
Those first few weeks were really strange.
Finding out you are pregnant an hour before a drinking escapade with 20 of your cousins is not the easiest thing to manage. I tried to insist I was the DD since the roads were dangerous, the party was 45 mins away from home and we didn’t want to Uber, and even threw in a pity “we’re just being careful because we’re trying to get pregnant” to select cousins…despite my best efforts they saw through me lol.
To say Christmas Eve in Brennan’s family is an event is a bit of an understatement. There’s roughly 65+ immediate family members in attendance, the older cousins put on a Christmas play of sorts, lead by Brennan, and the gift exchange is lively. Not the best place to convince people you’re not pregnant even though you’re known to have a glass of red in hand, especially around holidays. Thankfully I was able to *sort of* hide with a new gf in attendance who I instantly connected with a few nights previously — she too wasn’t drinking, but my cover was definitely not as secure as I had imagined it was.
We flew out on Christmas Day and I experienced my first ever “omg where is the barf bag I might need it for landing” moment. Thankfully I was able to somehow get all the way home despite being in a full body sweat during landing, baggage claim, and the car ride home. The moment we walked through the door, I ran to the shower and pretty much took a nap with the water raining down on me as I lay flat on my back for at least an hour.
Since it was Christmas Day we had places to be! So I had to pull it together. Showing up to my mom’s house was so bittersweet. I was dying to reveal our exciting news, but also desperately wanted to get to the doctor to confirm everything before getting too excited.
I had to attribute my terrible symptoms to “pretty tired & hungover from drinking so much in Minnesota” lol.
The next few weeks were interesting. We weren’t able to get into our doctor until I was already 9 weeks pregnant, which felt like an eternity. In those beginning weeks, the only things to confirm I may be actually pregnant were the strange food aversions and symptoms I was experiencing.
My typical diet went from healthy and lean to sourdough bread, cheese, bagels galore, Mac & cheese, buttered noodles, and cereal. If it was bland, it had my name all over it. Mostly; depending how I felt after it was prepared.
I am also the type that sticks to 3 meals a day, maybe a snack here and there. Suddenly I transformed into this person that needed at least 6 meals a day starting the moment she woke up.
Having a full breakfast at 7am, and then needed another full breakfast at 8am, and maybe again at 10am was not uncommon. I had also never experienced that kind of immediate hunger ever before in my life; I am the type to get hangry, absolutely…but this was different. This was like “oh I think I could eat soon” to then 30 seconds later feeling like “if I cannot get food in my mouth in the next 2 minutes I will pass out.”
I haven’t had any intense food cravings still, but I was highly disgusted by truffle for the first few weeks. We had truffle pasta leftovers in our fridge one week and I told Brennan it needed to be disposed of immediately lol.
It’s a crazy beautiful thing to be so connected to your body; at various times of the day I will get a very specific message as to what I’m hungry for. Like my body is saying “you’re needing a bit of dairy right now, time for a nice snack with cheese.” It’s a no-questions-asked sort of message; I know what I want and I know what I don’t want. It’s pretty cool.
We have known the gender since week 10 when we could do the blood test, so we decided to tell our families when I was 12 weeks along. It was important for us to tell as many people as possible in person, in special ways if we could, so we took our time and savored the moments where it was just us 2 that knew.
I will say it’s hard to control other people’s actions once they know your news, so if it’s important to you to deliver the news yourself like it was to us, be sure to remind them to keep it a secret. I didn’t think this sort of reinforcement of privacy was necessary and I was mistaken.
Once our families knew, we started scheduling dinner dates and coffee dates where we could to tell friends person as well. It was such a fun message to deliver — definitely makes it feel more real.
If you watch my 1st Trimester vlog then you’ll see more of the raw moments where we were really scared after receiving news I tested positive for 5 recessive genetic disorders; as a first time pregnant person who wasn’t trying to get pregnant, I really wasn’t preparing in any way. I wasn’t reading any literature, I wasn’t taking any prenatals, I didn’t even really know what to expect in the first few appointments. So when we did the “10 week gender blood test” I didn’t realize that was also genetic testing all tied into one.
Looking back I’m really happy that we did get the testing done, and I’d do it again — but as an attempt to ease any worry to expecting mamas in the same boat, try to breathe and not think of the worst case scenario 🙂
I’ll space the dramatics, but after Brennan went in to test and make sure we weren’t genetically matched for any of the recessive disorders, it felt like we couldn’t fully embrace the pregnancy until we knew our baby was safe & healthy. That month of wait time left us feeling so helpless and thinking of the worst case scenarios — partly just to prepare ourselves for what could potentially come, and partly because we didn’t know what to expect.
We got the wonderful news we had no overlapping disorders while we were at dinner for my birthday, and when I tell you that there is no better gift than receiving a good phone call about your baby on your birthday, I mean it wholeheartedly. I started crying right there in the restaurant and felt like I could finally embrace the thought of this growing baby in my stomach being okay as far as we could know right then. It was a wonderful feeling,
Since then, everything has been moderately easy.
My symptoms have never been terrible; right now I’m in the thick of random morning migraines that typically go away with my cup of coffee, and heartburn at night that can be cured with a single Tums tablet when it’s really bad.
I’ve also had 2 instances where I was so overwhelmed with pregnancy hormones that I couldn’t help but my cry myself to sleep, even though in my head I kept telling myself “you’re not even that upset, this is silly, this is pregnancy lol.” And aside from a few random 3 hour naps that have come out of nowhere, I haven’t had too much fatigue in the 2nd trimester.
I didn’t know this before, but the 2nd trimester really is bliss. I have been able to keep up with my workout regimen, get back to eating healthy balanced meals at normal times, and not really feel bogged down at all by being pregnant.
And now that we’re to week 20, it feels like my belly is finally here to stay. It’s been pretty easy for me to hide physically up until now, especially with my baggy / comfy clothes uniform, but as soon as we got to Mexico and I was in bathing suits, the belly finally started to feel free. By the end of our trip to Mexico I found myself looking at outfit photos thinking “okay it’s time to announce” lol.
It feels SO GOOD to finally have this special part of us out there for the world to know about, but it also felt really special to keep it to ourselves as much as we could these past 20 weeks. Getting to know the feeling of being parents, knowing that we’ll never fully understand until baby arrives; bonding as a couple knowing that we’ve had the most beautiful marriage these past 3 years full of adventure, and our newest adventure is going to be here before we know it. And also plotting how we plan to teach our new bestie how much we love to travel, and do our very best to keep up the mindset that we want to show our children the world, not just tell them about it.
The excitement of becoming parents just continues to grow each day; especially as we start to buy fun clothes here and there. I’ve been trying to hold myself back knowing that there’s no need to rush on filling up the non-existent closet for this little babe, but it’s so hard to resist some of the pieces. And as each one arrives, my heart bursts at how tiny everything is.
I can’t wait to continue to share our experience through this journey, but I’ll stop here before I write my first novel on random 1st trimester musings.
Thank you all so much for your love and support as we share this news; I’m not sure I’ve ever felt such an outpouring of love from my online community such as this one, and it just makes me feel the much more full of love and gratitude for this beautiful space on the internet that offers a connection unlike any other. I love you all <3
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Thank you for reading my thoughts about pregnancy 🙂 now I can officially say: we’re having a baby in 2 days!
Come back for the birth story!
You can find my pregnancy style & baby favorites HERE and HERE!
And as always, shop my personal favorites HERE
