My first trimester was AWFUL. I am not just talking about morning sickness and all the joys that come with your uterus stretching to make room for another human being. Two weeks after I learned I was pregnant I learned I was losing my job. Talk about a blow.
My husband is a writer and works from home. Having him home and barely getting paid, we realized we could get by on my salary alone. For about a year he was home working on his book "Comics Comics" (on sale now at Amazon.com, hurry before it's too late!), but he was also killing it in the chores department. I may have hit the jackpot. Now I know why men in the 1950's insist that their wives stay home. Coming home to a nice meal and laundry folded was awesome! Then my company decided to sell and we were scrambling. Especially me, since I was the bread winner and I needed to find a job before the bump became too pronounced.
To add to this stress, a week later the morning sickness and exhaustion set in. I felt like I could get nothing done. Luckily with the modern age, a lot of job hunting is done online. No more hoofing it through the mall applying at every department store (although I was very close to having to resort to that). I couldn't believe how many accounting jobs required an accounting degree. Just a technicality, right? I have been doing accounting work for going on 8 years at that point, but nooooo companies want you to actually have documentation to show you know what you are doing. My foreign languages and literatures degree was nothing in the accounting world....... OK so I can't blame them.
I also did not want to tell anyone we were pregnant until I was much further along. I was still congratulating the baby for sticking around every time I went to the bathroom. No joke. This really happened. My best friend came to visit shortly after we found out and she instantly knew. She said she just had a feeling on the plane ride up here. So since she knew I had to tell my other best friend. All while hiding it completely from my family and everyone else. I cried at work when they said they were selling the company and had to tell all my friends there since that could not have happened at a worse time. Everyone was real supportive and tried to help me in anyway. Constantly giving me leads on jobs and what not since they knew I was running out of time until the bump showed. Finally at 9 weeks when I was dealing with puking and stress and exhaustion so much I decided I wanted to tell our families because, honestly, I wanted my mommy.
So Father's Day we called my dad first and said, "You know what is weird? This time next year Erich will be celebrating his first Father's Day." My dad was quiet for a minute then was yelling, "No! Really? Does your mother know? Here is your mom." Mom got on and started crying. First grand baby. I was incredibly nervous to tell them because they knew I was losing my job. And I knew they would stress for us too. But it was nice to immediately launch into the questions I had for her. *Note, mom hasn't been pregnant for 27 years. She only remembers the good stuff. But still had some advice* Then it was just a run through with everyone in the family. Lots of "No ways" and "Oh my Gods". But overall everyone was happy and I could finally talk about in detail to anyone who would listen to me bitch.
Second trimester started and I still had no new job. Luckily my job was keeping me until I was about 6-7 months pregnant. So I had that tiny reassurance. My supervisor knew I was pregnant, but my head of accounting did not. He came to me one day and told me there was a company looking for work that he knows. After two interviews I finally had a new job. I was terrified to tell them I was pregnant since I felt like I was essentially lying to them through the interviews, but they were amazing. Very accepting of it since almost every woman in that office seemed to be pregnant or just had a baby. It was tough leaving such a great company and all my friends, but the new company was great and I was very happy. Phew.
The second trimester also brought along a lot more energy. It was like a switch flipped and I could actually get out of bed. Now, I will not lie to you and say all the napping ended and I was running marathons, but I was up for activities finally. We started our registries which is always fun. We decided from the get go that we would not find out the sex of the baby, much to the dismay of family and friends. We just wanted that one great surprise in life. I totally understand why you would want to find out, but we were still in our one bedroom apartment so it's not like we had some massive nursery to decorate. So we just selected all yellow and green clothes and the most neutral looking gear out there. Although I have to say, I was pretty sure it was a boy from the start. I always wanted a boy first, but my husband was terrified of having a girl. He only has one girl cousin in his family, so he always said he wouldn't know how to raise one. But come on, girls are way more fun to shop for. Charlie will not pull off the tutu I wanted to buy darn it.
We also took a couple of trips during the second trimester. One to Florida with my family and one car trip down south to visit all of our families. I gotta tell you, my husband's family has the right idea with regards to pregnant women. I was treated like a freaking queen. I guess that's what happens when you are carrying the heir to the Beasley fortune...
Third trimester came and I was comfortably settled in my new job. We also had our two baby showers around Thanksgiving. No matter what people may think, I actually hate to be the total center of attention. I am a god awful public speaker and blush without even a thought. Blushing increased TEN FOLD when I was pregnant too. It's like all that extra blood in my body for the baby would just shut up into my face when I would ask someone a question. There were several instances, especially at work, where I would be talking to one single person discussing the weather or something totally inconsequential and I could feel my face on fire. Anyway, third trimester was going swimmingly until about 3 weeks before my due date.
New Year's my brother in law came to visit. He was on break from school and always liked to come visit us and we loved having him. We went to see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and I was sure I was going into labor in the movie. At least it was a good excuse as to why I was so confused during that film. We had about a half mile walk back to our apartment and I was waddling like a mofo. It was absolutely freezing, but I could not get my body to move any faster. That was when I knew the end was nigh.
My birthday is January 22 (a Sunday), Baby Beasley was due January 24 (a Tuesday). We had a doctor's appointment on January 19 and said she was positive she would see me that weekend to have the baby. She was wrong, Monday at 6 am we arrived at the hospital. WAY off :)
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