Alyssa’s Pregnancy Journey: Three Things I learned
Starting a family is a huge life event for many couples. Many couples decide to start a family right away while others decide to wait a few years so that they can enjoy time spent together. Starting a family can be easier for some and more difficult for others. For us, we kind of experienced both.
My husband and I got married when I was very young; 23. I had just graduated college and was searching for my first “real” job and he was still fresh in his career as an Athletic Trainer. We originally thought that we would start a family a couple years after getting married but we decided to make the huge decision for him to go back to school to become a Doctor of Pharmacy. It made the most sense to just go for it since we were both so young. This meant holding off on our dreams of becoming parents for 7 more years.
Traveling, schooling, getting a puppy, having carefree fun, and 7 years later my husband graduated and we moved from Indiana to Virginia for his career. Once settled, we started trying and were blessed to successfully get pregnant with our, now almost 2 year old, daughter right away. Other than the typical pregnancy discomforts, I had a pretty uncomplicated pregnancy and birth. We were so in love with our little girl that we knew we definitely wanted to keep adding to our family.
I didn't quite give my body a full year to heal when we decided to try again early in 2017. I got pregnant! We were shocked, scared and excited! I didn't quite make it 7 weeks until we found out that I had already lost the baby and my body was completing the process of re regulating itself. We never saw a baby or heard a heartbeat. We just had the positive results to go by. I was saddened but thankful that we weren't further along. It took me a couple months to wrap my mind around it and when I think about it, it still makes me sad to think of the little one that we could have had in our arms right now.
We were told to wait at least 2 months after the miscarriage before we thought about trying again. Two months rolled around, we tried and I didn't get pregnant. How discouraging! We decided to try again a couple months after that and we were successful that time! This brings us to our current pregnancy today. I am happy to announce that, so far, baby is looking great and I am doing great also!
My experience made me realize that everyone's pregnancy journey is very different. Such life changing events make you do some serious reflecting.
3 things that I learned about myself through my pregnancy journeys:
1. The Human Body is Amazing
My body is capable of growing and nurturing another life, what?! It is such hard work to grow a tiny little human. The body knows exactly what to do and takes a lot of energy and strength to do so. Moms are super heroes!
2. It’s Important to have a Partner to Rely on During the Good Times and the Bad
Let's be real, life can be great and can also throw you curve balls. Having a present partner that is just as invested in the pregnancy as you are is essential in having a healthy and happy parenting relationship. I realize that not everyone has a partner, so having someone that you trust and can lean on is important. I am extremely lucky to be married to the most amazing man ever (I know, I am biased)! He has been such a great support through our last pregnancy and parenting, miscarriage, and current pregnancy. It would be significantly more difficult to experience everything without him. Look, miscarriage, pregnancy, and parenting aren't easy but they can be so much easier with the right support.
3. Your Heart is Capable of Growing in Ways that you could never have Imagined
Everyone told me that I would be amazed at how much love I would have for another person once the baby was born. Boy, was that true! I was so skeptical at first because I had never experienced it before. I am not kidding you, the moment they put my baby girl on my chest my heart exploded with love! The amount of love I felt for her was overwhelming. BEST.FEELING.EVER!
What did you learn about yourself during your pregnancy journey(s)? We'd love to hear it! Comment below to let us know!