A New Beginning

Hello Everyone!

So I am starting a new blog! I've blogged other blogs in the past, and I miss it so much! It's such a great, healthy channel to document a journey or just daily thoughts. My main mission here is to document the final and third trimester of my first pregnancy and then continue on to document the joys and hardships of raising our first child! The blog is for me, I'm not working to market to a global audience by any means. The world has enough 'new mom' blogs, thats for sure! But I want something that I can publish as a book for myself after her first year to document the years journey, to look back on all we've done together. What will make my blog a little unique, is technology. I've named my blog "the New Motherboard", partly in that because I am obviously a new mom, and the other half is because I love all things technology. I work as a nurse in IT and get to see and hear about the brand new technology available, particularly how it is used and affects healthcare. As we have been shopping and browsing for things we need for our baby, its been overwhelming on how many options there are out there in terms of technological products. So part of what I want to focus on is not just new parenting, but also using existing and new technology in ours and our child's life.

A little about myself, I am a first time mom at 29 years old, soon to be 30 in one week! I work as a nurse in informatics, but prior to that was a nurse at the bedside for 10 years. I am happily married to my husband, who I met six years ago and have been married to for almost three years. We have been trying for this child ever since the wedding, so we are very excited. We both feel like we were blessed enough to spend our 20's vacationing, enjoying life, exploring, building our careers, upgraded our house, and now are ready to enter parenthood in our 30s! We have three "Furchildren", one girl Dog Daisy, a 10 lb cockapoo, and 2 cats, Belle & Maui, 5 years and a kitten. They already keep us busy!

So far the pregnancy has been relatively good and healthy. My first trimester I was downtrodden with awful nausea. I only vomited once, but the nausea alone was so bad there were days I could barely function or stand up. The second trimester got rid of the nausea (thank god) but brought in severe headaches. I've still been working to battle the headaches, but they've improved a little as I have learned safe techniques to help. The third trimester so far has been mostly back pain, hip pain and heartburn! Yay!

As for baby, we are having a baby girl! She is usually very active and it amazes me the movements she makes sometimes. I was trying to explain how it felt to my husband and couldn't come up with words that made sense. It is just truly surreal. She moves the most when I eat or drink, but in general anytime I am sitting down. Or driving! Lately I have noticed when I am in the car she likes to move, not sure if that means she will be a "car sleeper" or if she will hate the car. Who knows!

I am trying to soak in every moment of the pregnancy. Some days I feel like I'm already so done with this, but other days I don't want this time to end. Our due date is August 16th, and part of me feels like it is right around the corner (it is), and part of me feels like that is forever from now. I strive to take in each moment but life keeps me distracted easily too. I have always been a type of person to adapt quickly to situations and surroundings, whether it be a new challenge at work or in life. So part of my subconscious has just taken this whole pregnancy and just adapted to it as yeah, just a part of my life. I work full time and have plenty at work to keep my mind distracted and plugging through the weeks. But then there are those moments where it all sinks in and I am like, "Holy Sh**, I am creating an actual human being in here. This isn't something that will just be over, we are bringing home a baby!!" Its very scary. But in a good way. It's definitely harder to forget I'm creating a human now that I feel huge and she moves a lot.

Something I have really struggled with this pregnancy is watching myself get bigger and bigger. I know it's the baby, but I know its also me. I've always struggled with my weight and haven't felt comfortable in my body since I was about 20. In March 2017 I had reached the heaviest I have ever been at 212 pounds and it was the wake up call I needed. I hated how I looked and was depressed with it all. I started a journey with the help of a chiropractor and a nutritionist to start losing weight. It came off slowly that whole summer, til I started what is called the "HCG diet" in the fall 2017. This was a 500 calorie/day specific foods only diet used in combination with the HCG hormone. Through this diet in combination with the summer weight loss, I had lost a total of 40 pounds and it felt so good. I had no intentions of returning to any bad habits, I had adjusted to my new way of eating and was in a good place and wanted to lose more. Well we found out we were pregnant in December 2017. With the severe first trimester nausea, I found myself disgusted by leafy greens or excess vegetables, and all I could muster up the strength to eat was simple carbohydrates like bread or pasta. Therefore began my spiral back into my bad habits again. I had intentions to walk it off as I ate more, but we had a very very cold northeast winter and I couldn't really consistently get out walking until late April/May. By then however I was in my late second trimester coming into the third, and walking now is a lot harder. I have been working on other ways to keep my weight in check by doing small exercises and trying to find the willpower to not indulge on everything I want, but it is hard! There's gotta be a scientific fact to prove that pregnancy overall makes it harder to turn down our indulgences!

The last subject I wanted to talk about in my first post is something that has truly surprised me in this pregnancy. I want to call it "Stranger negativity". Almost every person that I have talked to about the pregnancy, whether it be a stranger, an acquaintance, a coworker, or even a good friend, they all have so many negative things to say about "what I'm in for". They all need to throw in their two cents on how hard its going to be in the next couple months raising a newborn, and how our lives will never be the same, and we can say goodbye to our freedom, and say goodbye to sleep, yada yada yada. And I get it! I know all of this is true. We've been waiting for this for over 2 years. That doesn't mean by any means that we are 100% ready, of course not. No parent can truly say they are ready, ever. But we know it's not going to be unicorns, puppies, rainbows and a perfect baby either. We know what the next few months to a year has in store. But what bothers me is how much negativity and "warnings" come from other parents out there. It's exhausting to hear. I appreciate and know they mean well and are recounting their own experiences with their children, but we will live through that soon too and see for ourselves. Why do we have to dread it? I want to strive to take in those hard days and nights as challenges but get through them. Will I likely read this post 2-3 months post birth and laugh at myself? Yeah, probably. I know its going to be hard. But literally only one mom-friend that I have said how good the experience has been for her, despite her many bad days and nights too. Everyone else has been all warnings, dread, and negative comments. It's disappointing and sad to hear and I look forward to hearing other good experiences parents are having. And I want to be that good voice for any of you too, and talk about our good and bad experiences as we raise our daughter. Like any challenge we have to strive to see the good moments in a challenging journey.


Thank you for reading everyone! I hope to post frequently on many topics that I encounter or think about in the pregnancy. Come back soon!

Love,

The New Motherboard