the summer I got pregnant — A Human, being

“I think I’m going to take a pregnancy test when we get home.”

It was June 21st; We were coming home from a week in Galveston with my family. Ryan and I were recalling stories with our dads from our childhood. He was telling me about the time he got stung by wasps on the playground at his preschool, and when his dad came to pick him up, he disguised a planned trip to the beach that day as a spur of the moment decision to cheer up his welted son.

“Dads really are incredible,” I said. I burst into tears. I couldn’t stop. I started laughing, sobbing simultaneously. Ryan looked at me, confused and worried. “I don’t know why I’m doing this,” I laughed through tears. “I seriously can’t stop. I don’t know what’s happening.”

Then it stopped as quickly as it started. That was really weird, I thought. “I think I’m going to take a pregnancy test when we get home.”

We pulled into the driveway and Ryan started unloading our luggage. I ran in and snagged the single pregnancy test under the sink and went into the restroom. Peed on the stick, whatever. I flipped it over so I couldn’t see the results screen and started pacing.

I’m not pregnant. There’s no way. Well like, there’s a way, but you know. There’s no way it happened already. (Mind you, I just spent the past week eating raw oysters and slamming margaritas by the pool)

It had been a couple minutes. The test was done. Well, guess I better tape this just in case, I thought, pulling out my phone and pressing record. I said a quick prayer before flipping the stick over. It went something like, Okay. If it’s time, then it’s time. I guess I’m ready if it’s time. Are you ever really ready? It’s so soon. Really? Now? Your will be done or whatever. Right? I’m trusting you on this.

I counted to three and flipped the test over:

Pregnant

I stared in disbelief. I started crying. I’m pregnant. Oh my God. I’m pregnant.

All of the cute little ways I had previously thought of how I’d eventually tell Ryan I was pregnant immediately went out the window. There would be no baby shoes or wrapped test or a hidden camera capturing it all. I suddenly didn’t care about any of it. I just needed him to know, immediately. I walked straight into the living room and blocked his path towards our bedroom, my suitcase still in one of his hands.

“You’re going to be a dad,” I said, holding up the pregnancy test to his face. “I’m pregnant.” It’s all a blur after that. He pulled me in for a hug and we both cried. I can’t remember the moment itself, but I’ll never forget how I felt. We were going to be parents.

It was our little secret for a week. The only other person that knew was my friend Bri. We had a sleepover the night I found out - we were having one last girl’s night before she moved to Pittsburgh. I had told her I would be late because I had to take a pregnancy test first. Thinking it wouldn’t be positive, I didn’t think to keep it a secret. I had texted her: “Wouldn’t that be crazy if I was?” Yes. Yes it would be.

I got to her house and it was all over my face. All she said was, “I knew it”, went into her bedroom, and came back with a wrapped gift. Inside was a handmade baby blanket she had been working on for months for me, way before we decided to start a family. She had just finished it that week. Insane, right?

Text from my dad the day after we told him

We told my family and his on my birthday. Now THAT is a sweet memory. We got his parents an Astros onesie with little Orbit socks. I’ll never forget the look on his mom’s face when she opened the bag and realized what was happening. We wrapped a bottle of wine with a label that said “Pairs well with becoming grandparents” in a onesie for my parents. My dad’s voice cracked when he looked up and asked if he was going to be a grandpa. I’m tearing up again just writing this. Best birthday gift ever.

Ryan sent this picture to my family (who had no idea I was in the ER) with nothing but the caption “She’s dying!!!”

Sigh.

The vomiting started a few days later. For about 6 or so weeks, I threw up 25+ times a day, easily. I was bedridden. I had to quit my job. I blocked Wendy’s on every social media app because every time I saw that abomination (the Takis burger), I instantly threw up. I couldn’t keep anything down, including water sometimes. I had to go to the ER for an IV drip, like a factory reset on my body. It was really hard - on both of us. I had no energy to socialize in any capacity, so I’d spend the day in bed or on the couch in silence (I watched a LOT of Great British Baking Show and Bob’s Burgers) and then Ryan would come home and I wouldn’t have it in me to talk to him. I lost a ton of weight and I was weak and exhausted all the time. I had gone from training for a half marathon months before to being unable to walk around our block.

Comic relief: the one and only food that I was consistently able to keep down? McDonald’s french fries. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba.

My anxiety skyrocketed. I was in a constant state of worry, guilt, and fear. I was afraid of becoming a mom, and I replayed any and all past mistakes in my head over and over again all day - all evidence, I told myself, of why I was never cut out to do this. I was going to fail epically and there was no way of going back. I told my therapist I felt like I was walking across a bridge that was slowly falling apart behind me, with nothing but a blinding fog ahead. There were days where I would be so enveloped in my own shame that I would forget I was pregnant, and then the vomiting would bring me back to reality. I felt defeated, physically and mentally. It was a really hard couple of months, but like all hard times - they do end.

I struggled, but through a lot of prayer, crying, Ritz crackers, and Zofran (finally prescribed once I was far enough along) - I slowly recovered and came out the other side with a lighter heart, full of joy and gratitude for the chance to be here, carrying our sweet little babe. The fog cleared and I was excited for what was ahead.

We did bloodwork to find out the sex of the baby. We knew it would be a boy. Ryan was one of three boys, his dad was one of three boys. The middle one was always left handed. It was my destiny. I joked about it all the time - I was going to be a boy mom through and through. I accepted years ago that I would never have a daughter.

So you can imagine our surprise when we opened the results, and there it was:

Fetal sex: Female

Ladies and gentlemen, we are having a baby girl.

Mom + Dad (and the 4th panel that says “GIRL” on it that we didn’t realize when we posted it)

We were dumbfounded. Like, utterly shocked. I just kept saying, “It’s a girl. Oh my God, it’s a girl?” over and over again. Another blur of a moment. I had been calling her “bro” this entire time, and referring to her as “him”. So much for a mother’s intuition, am I right? Both of us had a mini crisis adjusting to reality, and then just like that - we were locked in. We’re having a little lady and we are so freakin’ excited.

Simple overview - first trimester sucks. Second trimester rocks. The nausea slowly subsided and I got my appetite back. I had a newfound burst of energy. My mood improved drastically. It felt like the clouds cleared and the sun was shining again. Birds chirping again type of stuff. My belly was growing and I was beginning to feel flutters of movement. I was able to go back to work and see friends again. Life was good.

I had the palette of a child. I craved Gushers, cereal, pizza, Coca-Cola, and anything sweet. A vegetable? Jeez, I guess if I have to. I rationed my 200mg of daily caffeine strategically and with precision, which was hard to do while working at a coffee shop. I’ve dreamed of a crisp, ice cold sugar free Red Bull for 8 months.

Around 26 weeks, the itching began. It wasn’t like a dry skin, get me some cocoa butter type of itch, but a deep, insatiable “this isn’t normal” itch. Ryan made me summon the on-call nurse at my OB office over the weekend. “It could be Cholestasis, but we usually don’t see that this early.”

I got bloodwork done that Monday morning. It was Cholestasis.

Cholestasis is a liver disorder unique to pregnancy. Basically, your liver processes hormones in your body, estrogen is particularly hard to process, and your body produces a lot of it when you’re pregnant. Sometimes, for genetic or a million other reasons, or no reason at all, some livers struggle more with this. It results in high bile levels in the blood, which is dangerous and life-threatening to the baby and causes extreme full-body itching for mom that can’t be treated topically (because there’s nothing to treat on the skin - it’s your blood). Normal range for bile levels are 1-10, 40-99 is bad, and anything over 100 is severe. Mine were at 125.6.

They started me on a 3X daily medication to bind and balance the bile levels. They were not optimistic about the medication working or my levels dropping below 100. They talked about the possibility of me being induced at 32 weeks (end of December).

The next few weeks were scary. Doctors were concerned because they don’t usually see numbers this high so early in a pregnancy (more of a late third trimester diagnosis), so there were a lot of precautionary tests and an ultrasound for scarier things like tumors, hepatitis, and a laundry list of other things. Everything came back clear and negative. Praise God.

After a few weeks of being on the medication, they did more bloodwork. My bile levels dropped from 125.6 to 15. Read that again. 15!!! A week later, they dropped to 13.8. Two weeks ago they were at 7. My body is responding incredibly well to the medication. We are monitored weekly with ultrasounds and blood tests, and everything has been coming back best case scenario. She’s passing growth and function tests with flying colors. We’re optimistic and breathing much easier these days.

Which brings us here: about to enter week 33. Because Cholestasis and how it affects babies in the womb is still largely a mystery, and because babies become more sensitive closer to their delivery date, I will be induced in 4-5 weeks. We are in the home stretch.

God willing, we will be meeting Miss Eleanor Anne Lancaster by the beginning of February. Ellie, for short.

We’re scared to become parents (who wouldn’t be), but more than anything - we are so, so excited. We talk about her every day: We daydream about who she will be, what she’ll look like, and all the ways our lives are going to continue to change for the better with her in it. She is already deeply loved by so many people (you should have seen her pile of Christmas gifts this year, and she’s not even here yet).

In the same vein, to say Ryan and I are well taken care of by our family and friends would be a gross understatement - I could go on for days listing all of the ways we have been supported by the people in our lives and we are deeply humbled by the generosity that has been so freely given time and time again.

I don’t know how I would have made it through this pregnancy without Ryan, for so many reasons. He listened to me beat myself up and then offered me grace and instead. He grounded me and pointed me back to God when I was stuck in darkness. He went to the Smoothie King off 1960 and I45 at 10PM (a dangerous feat in itself) when I was in the throws of nausea and that was the only thing that sounded good.

He runs errands, massages the knots in my back, ties my shoes now that I’m took big to reach my feet, and jumps at any and every opportunity to serve me - never once complaining. He even stopped cooking steak because the smell of beef cooking made me vomit (if you know Ryan, you know this was a big sacrifice to make).

Pregnancy deepened our marriage and created a new channel of love that has been rich with mercy and gratitude. I’ve found myself somehow falling more in love with him, something I hadn’t realized was possible (ain’t that cool?). Watching him grow into fatherhood has been a privilege to witness, and I am so excited to for our little duo to become a trio.

Third trimester seems to drag on day-to-day and fly by week-to-week, especially with the early induction on the horizon.

Ryan is hard at work, building everything in the nursery and tackling all of the suddenly very urgent feeling projects around the house that we’ve procrastinated for over a year (yes, cleaning out the garage absolutely needs to be done right now). I lay awake at night thinking about pediatricians, safe sleep, and wondering if I ever really knew how to do CPR on a baby. Nesting mode is in full throttle.

These days I am fueled by Tums and holiday leftovers, and you can usually find me on the couch in ratty mens sweatpants with a heating pad on my lower back. I am huge and it hurts to sit, stand, bend over, and lay down. My belly enters the room before I do. Everyday I look more and more like that “daddy’s home kitten” meme. It’s all been rather humbling.

Pregnancy has been a wild, yet profoundly beautiful ride. It has challenged me in every way, but in doing so has shaped me more into the kind of person I want to be for my daughter. I’m learning to slow down, to lean on others, and to give up control and find trust in the unknown.

The truth is, I’ve wanted to be a mom my entire life. There aren’t many things that I’ve ever been sure of. In every season, at every age, I’ve been confused about who I’m supposed to be and who I should become. This is the first time in my life that I know I’m exactly where I need to be.

I still have so much to learn and motherhood often still feels like a daunting journey, but I’m comforted and inspired thinking about all of the mothers who have come before me: the generations of women who have faced greater challenges and created more with less, who have become homemakers and teachers to the most innocent of humanity, and whose ministry is found in sticky hands and sleepless nights.

What a privilege it is to join them.

Cheers to a Cinnamon Toast Crunch, modern medicine, and a truly life-changing pee.