The Surprises of Pregnancy

Well pregnancy has been different than either of us expected.

Here are some of the things we were right-on in expecting:

1. I would gain ridiculous amounts of weight and have to be ok with it
     - so far 11lbs
2. We would get so excited to feel our baby move
     - we take time out every single day to just sit and feel him move together
3. We would be happy with a girl or a boy
     - we were convinced it was a girl...we were SURE of it. It's a boy, and we still couldn't be happier
4. I wouldn't feel great the first couple months
     - was sick on a daily basis, and had to force myself to eat anything for the first few months

Here are some of the things we were completely wrong about:

1. We would have 9 months to do everything we wanted to before the baby came
      - I was too sick to do anything besides work the first 13 weeks
      - I was restricted in what I could do after 21 weeks because of threatening pre-term labor
           - that left us with 8 weeks, at which time we were planning things for a later time in the                           pregnancy which we had to cancel
2. I would be able to keep working until a few weeks before the baby came
     - had to quit just before 23 weeks
3. I would eat healthy to keep our baby healthy and make him more likely to enjoy healthy foods
     - I've never eaten more grilled cheeses, starches, butter, cheese, and ice cream in my life
     - during the months of nausea, kale made me throw up every time I ate it, now if I can taste it in             something, I literally get sick to my stomach
     - I do still try to eat healthy, but I definitely give into temptation more often than not
4. We would go on a "Babymoon"
     - traveling is out of the question because of my "high-risk" pregnancy
5. I would continue to exercise through my pregnancy
     - hahahah... even when I was allowed to, exercising was the last thing from my mind, I was way             too tired, all the time. Unless walking at a 1-2 mph pace with 9 toddlers in tow counts. In that             case I exercised up until just shy of 23 weeks.
6. We would plan on having the baby near his due date. (+/- 2 weeks)
     - my new plan is to expect him about 4 weeks early, but be ready for him at any time (whether a                 week from now or a week after his due date).
7. We would have a small-average sized baby (I was somewhere between 5 and 5.5 lbs and Scott was     7lbs11oz)
     - yes we can't know this yet...if he comes early, he will obviously be small, but his ultrasounds               show he is growing in the 81-84%
          - that means that if he continues to grow at the pace he has been and goes full term, he's                          estimated to weigh around 9 lbs!
          - yes, I know it's just an estimate and can be off by a lot
8. We would see our baby twice before he is born
     - we have already seen him 6 times that I can remember and have 2 more ultrasounds scheduled in        the next few weeks.
9. We would have to wait until he was born to know our baby
     - he is super active (every single ultrasound tech has mentioned this to us)
     - he is stubborn (took an hour to convince him to turn so we could see his heart and an extra Dr             and about 20 minutes to let them do the amnio to check for infection because he would move to           where they were going to do it every time they found a spot).
     - he loves his dad (he seems to sleep a lot while Scott's away and wakes up to "play" when Scott's           home.
     - he sucks his thumb
10. I would know when I was having contractions
     - I'd been having them for weeks before someone explained it to me and I was able to recognize             them as contractions, though I found out I was also having "silent contractions" that I couldn't             feel no matter how much I tried to pay attention to what was going on with my body.
11. I'd start feeling him move around 20 weeks
     - I was able to feel him around 12/13 weeks, though his movements definitely got easier to                    recognize later.
          - I'm assuming this is because of how much he moves and how big he is

I'm sure there are many more, and more will come up as I progress in the pregnancy, but as you can tell, we had no idea what we were in for! Probably just like we have no idea what we're in for when he comes to join our family.