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Ok, so here’s the story  how we found out I was pregnant.

{Disclosure: I didn’t really proofread this post since I had just enough energy to finish writing it, so please ignore typos and mistakes}

As many of you know, May was the first month we were given the self-imposed green light to start trying for a baby. Everything was in place and we were ready to go. Our plan was to try Shettle’s method for a girl. We both really wanted a girl first ( though of  course we’d be ecstatic to have a boy too), so we thought it wouldn’t hurt to use Shettle’s method in case it’d give us more of an edge. For those not familiar with Shettle’s method, it’s based on a theory that male sperm is fast but weak and female sperm is slow but very strong, so if you time intercourse to be very close to ovulation, the fast boy sperm would get to the egg faster, or if you stop intercourse a few days before ovulation, the strong female sperm will survive longer than male sperm. So it’s kind of some natural selection kind of deal. It also had to do with the alkalinity of the vagina and sperm, orgasms and a few other things ( i won’t get into the details, if you’re interested, feel free to google it).

{If you’d like to skip the ovulation timing part and go to the testing, click here }

So the plan was to start having sex a week before the big O and stop 2-3 days before it. It was going to be relatively easy for us, because my cycle has always been like clockwork, and I always ovulate on the day I’m supposed to based on the 14 day cycle. In addition to that, I had been tracking my basal body temperature ( BBT) for about 6 months, which would show THE day of ovulation as well as when I’ve ovulated. So I was pretty confident we’d know when to stop.

We were also very prepared for it to take 4-6 months for us to get pregnant and we determined to have fun and not focus on the goal. The week of baby making dance came and we, indeed, had a lot of fun. It was more fun than I thought it would be. We stopped the baby dance ( BD) 2.5 days before the supposed ovulation and just waited. I was very confident there was a very small chance I’d be pregnant that first month, hubby on the other hand kept telling me he was sure I’m pregnant. I dismissed his words as the usual macho man confidence in his sperm. Haha!

I kept tracking my temps and honestly was getting more confused. I always get a dip the day before ovulation ( some women do, others don’t). The dip happened a day early, but the temperature never rose up, so I figured that wasn’t it, then 2 days later, it dipped down again and the next day I saw the usual spike informing me that the ovulation has, indeed, happened. But what was confusing is it happened 1 day later than it was supposed to. We had already stopped having sex 2.5 days before my supposed day of ovulation and now it turns out I ovulated 1 day late. That was it, I thought. There’s no way his sperm could survive 3.5 days there waiting for the egg ( I know some sperm can live up to 5 days, but most die within 3 days). So that made me even more confident in the fact that there was no way on earth I could be pregnant that month. There was too long of a wait between last BD and my Ovulation, plus what are the chances of being pregnant the first month, really?

So I went on pretending like nothing happened and there’s no chance I could be pregnant.

I was still watching my temps and cramps very closely. On the 10th of May (5 days post ovulation {DPO}) I got very distinct cramps early in the morning, my temperature took a massive dip too ( some women get an implantation dip and this was a huge dip I’ve never seen before, that was followed by higher temps). I told hubby and he said “This is it!”. I was still very sceptical, and figured he was just saying that because all his info comes from what I tell him, so he doesn’t know that dips and cramps simply happen sometimes.

So the next day we had plans to go celebrate a friend’s birthday that I had organized and then go boating the next day. We talked long and hard about the possibility of me being pregnant. I refused to believe it was possible, because Ovulation came late and because it was our FIRST MONTH, for God’s sake. Hubby on the other hand was SURE we have conceived and got really mad at me when I told him we’d be going out the next night and the next day. He accused me of welshing out on our plan to keep me safe and away from germs and smoke and parties the first chance I got. He had a point, but I really didn’t want to miss our friend’s birthday. We looked over all the books to figure out if I was pregnant what was happening now and if me being exposed to certain things would influence the baby somehow. Remember, we weren’t willing to take even a minuscule chance. The biggest concern for me wasn’t the germs or  people, since that early in the pregnancy my body hasn’t had a chance to lower my immune system yet for the pregnancy. Out biggest worry was the smoke. All our friends who were going to be at the party smoke, some smoke cigarettes, other smoke cigars and others stronger stuff. There was no way I could stay away from smoke. I tried to convince hubby that since the baby wouldn’t be attached to me at this point, anything in my blood stream would not get to it. I knew it was wishful thinking because from the 1st day of implantation there’s little capillaries that go into a mother’s system, but I just really didn’t want to skip our friend’s Bday. I kept repeating: “I don’t think I’m even pregnant, honey!”. The conversation was going nowhere, so we decided to see how things go tomorrow and talk about it then.

So on Wednesday, the day of the dinner, while working, I kept having a strong urge to test. I knew it was impossible to get a true result this early (6DPO), but I just wanted to know. I guess I was hoping that if it’d show negative, I’d have more leg to stand on trying to convince him to go to the party. At some point in the day I looked over at hubby and with a sly smile said: “Do you want to go test?”. I told him I knew there was no way it was going to show positive this early and that I just wanted to do it for fun. He shook his head in disapproval, but agreed and we ran to the bathroom.

Now you have to remember we were both going there KNOWING that even if I am pregnant, the test will show negative. The average time that tests show true positive is 16DPO. Some women get it as early as 8-10DPO, other get false negatives up until 18DPO.  I was still over a week from missing my period.

So we get to the bathroom,I do my thing, while hubby watches all excited, pull my pants up and walk over to him to look at the stick turning together. We naturally moved into the area with more light and stood there full of trepidation. “I know I am not pregnant”-I kept repeating. We kept twisting and turning the test while waiting for the line to appear. The control line was starting to get dark and then I thought I saw IT : “Honey, do I see something?”. I turned the test slightly to drop some light on it. I thought I was seeing the faint line behind the white, like the test was see-through, but not actually the pregnancy line…. Then the line started getting darker and we both whispered: “I think it’s there”. In a few seconds there was no doubt. We looked at each other in shock and disbelief!
- “I told you my soldiers did the job the first time through”- he said.
- “Hey, it’s not just up to you! There’s lot of things that go into the whole process and make it happen”
- “I just told you! I knew you were pregnant”

We just kept looking and grinning and repeating “Omg, I think it’s there” . To explain the kind of emotions that went through me is probably impossible. I remember a hot flash running through my whole body.

I still couldn’t believe it. The very first second we realized that the line is there, I felt an amazing mix of emotions:
FEAR – definitely fear of “What have we done? Now there’s no way back”
ELATION -  I can’t believe it’s happening!
DISBELIEF – How could it be? It’s out first month, my ovulation came a day late, we were doing Shuttle’s for a girl, which means we stopped sex 3 days before O.
RELIEF – Oh thank God, we can make babies (one of my big fears was that it would take us long to conceive)
HAPPINESS – We did it! We are complete!
and then finally, about 15 minutes later
UTTER EXCITEMENT – This is it. Something we’ve been preparing for almost a year and it’s here. 

WE ARE HAVING A BABY!

If you’ve ever planned a pregnancy or had an unplanned welcomed pregnancy, you must know exactly what I am talking about. If you’re still to create a family, just wait until that moment when you look at the line. It’s by the far most emotional moment of anyone’s life and until you experience it, you won’t know what it feels.

The shock wouldn’t wear off for a while. Even now as I am pre-writing this at 15DPO, I still cannot believe I am pregnant.

Of course, I immediately called my mom, who being an older woman, was very sceptical of how I could know this so early. They didn’t know until 2 months in.

At the party. Left to right: me, Chia, Elena

We also did end up going to that dinner. Now that we knew I was pregnant, we could tell our friends not to smoke around me. We wouldn’t go boating though.

But that meant actually telling our friends this early on. Yikes!  One of them, Elena, called me 20 minutes after us finding out, like she felt something… I couldn’t help it but tell her- I had to tell someone. I also told the birthday boy right away, because he’s an amazing trustworthy sweet man. The tough part was my two guy friends that were in town from NYC and Miami and were going with us. One of them, Robbie, used to be my best friend when I worked in NYC- we had so much fun together. Since me quiting modelling and moving back home, we’ve been slowly growing apart. He’s very judgmental and can be really rude, too. So I just wasn’t sure I wanted to tell him yet. The other guyfriend was, Alex, one of my photographer friends from NYC, single guy always looking for chicks, who’d also not understand the whole pregnancy thing, though would always be nice about it. So I was a little bit worried about telling both of them.

As the dinner was progressing, Elena kept throwing me dirty looks and telling me in Russian, so that noone understood, that I needed to tell Robbie, that he’s be very upset if I didn’t tell him or if he were to find out some other way. I kept telling her I needed time and I would tell him when I can. And that was happening while Robbie was making fun of us for being vegan :) hahaha Like hell I was going to tell him then.

My very first test

Hubby also thought I needed to tell Robbie, because he just wanted him off our back for the whole “not going boating” thing. So I was under freaking pressure :)

So finally I couldn’t handle the dirty looks anymore and I shoved my cell phone with a pregnancy test picture on it into Robert’s face.  His reaction was great: “You’re preg nant? Seriously? Guys…I couldn’t be any more happy right now! Congratulations!” I loved his reaction, mostly because I expected something snide from him.

The rest of the evening went great. They all smoked outside, and I’d just stay inside while they were doing that. So I didn’t get even a whiff of smoke.

The next day we were finally able to slow down and digest the news. I started reading on chemical pregnancies, which of course freaked me out. I was determined not to get to attached until at least the blood work was done, but hubby made it impossible, with his “Everything is going to be great- I know it!”
After reading some forums, we started realizing that getting a positive at 6DPO is not quite the norm. Most women get a positive at around 13DPO and most get a very faint line. I went back to my chart to make sure I ovulated when I thought I did and there was no mistaking it. The ovulation happened on the 5th, I tested on the 11th. There was this overwhelming urge to make sure I was still pregnant, that it’s not going to fail implantation or what not. I’m sure a lot of you understand. SoI started testing daily to make sure the line gets darker which it did day by day until at 9DPO it was the same color as the control line and the next day much darker than the control line. I stopped testing then, but I continued taking my BBT to make sure my temperature stays up.

As many of you know, this early into pregnancy there’s this huge fear of miscarriage, that’s the reason most people don’t even announce the pregnancy until 12 weeks. I am still worried about it of course, but I’m hoping everything will be ok.

I kept reading about early positive tests and one of the things that jumped out at me was the fact that in you’re pregnant with twins your HCG grows much faster than if you’re carrying a single baby and it shows up earlier on a pregnancy test due to the increased HCG.
Hubby got super excited at the idea of having twins. I LOVED it too, but I am a bit more realistic- we have no family history- the chances were small.

So on Monday 1 day before I was supposed to miss my period, I went in for blood work. My progesterone came back at 38, and my HCG was 587  ( the HCG range for that week is 72-426 and according to most women on the forums, their progesterone was in the low 20s). That was screaming twins. A later HGC test showed my level raising to 18,000 in week 5 (normal range: 18 – 7,340). My levels explained the early positive test, but we were definitely very curious about twins and had to wait until our first ultrasound which we were determined not to have too early and wait till the standard 8 week one.
Next post about ultrasound, symptoms, blood work and doctor’s visit…

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I’ve been postponing this announcement for way too long. So instead of trying to gear up for a long post with all kinds of details, I’m just going to throw it out there.

We’ve known for a month now. I’m currently almost 7 weeks. And I promise all the details ( every single one of them) are coming. I just need to learn to find the motivation to blog with this yucky nausea (which, believe me, is hard). So I figured that if I keep waiting to write a big post to announce it, it’ll never happen. Instead, I’ll be taking it step by step, with this being the first one. YAY!

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How and when did you find out about your pregnancy?

What were your first emotions? How did you tell your husband/boyfriend?

Feel free to link up to a story on your blog – I love reading those!

My one and only experience with pregnancy tests happened just this month.

In the beginning of the month, right after my ovulation, we figured we’d finally ditch the condoms since my April ovulation has passed, so next time it comes around we’re good to go. No need for birth control anymore.
It was scary and exciting at the same time, because I’ve been on the pill for 8 years and then used barrier methods for the last three months as we were getting ready. For 8 years every time we had sex, I’d always have this fear of pregnancy. My mind would always rush to “Did i take the pill?”

Now we have decided that it is ok but my mind hasn’t been exactly clued in.  Both hubby and I had this nervous laugh as we were going at it :) lol

But you know, we both knew that I can’t get pregnant since it was past my ovulation. Everything was fine, until about 7 days later I got some spotting ( implantation spotting, anyone?), so I went back to look at my BBT chart and realized that possibly we might have done it closer to the big O than we thought. I shrugged that off and we spent the next few days having fun in Orlando. Until this one evening when i got a really strong wave of nausea that wouldn’t go away for a day ( I don’t normally get nauseous for no reason)

Hubby insisted that we go into Walgreens and buy a pregnancy test ( MY VERY FIRST ONE IN MY WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE), because if I were in fact pregnant, he’d drive me straight home rather than spend the night at his mom’s house and then go to Disney the next day. {The reason for that is that we feel very strongly about the fact that during the first 2 trimesters the baby is very vulnerable to all sorts of germs and infections and disruptions and that we’d rather shield it from anything and everything possible since we are able to do that, while the brain and the neural tube develops along with other organs, because any little mess up could result in things like dyslexia, ADD, personality disorders, learning disorders and etc. So my first two trimesters will be a super quiet, calm time without exposure to germs or toxins.}

I really loved that he took it so seriously that he wanted to drive me home if we got the BFP ( big fat positive). I was ready to say: “I’m not pregnant, let’s just wait until I get my period” and continue having fun. But he was really serious about it, which I love ( considering I am the one who is usually all about making everything perfect).

The funny part was that it mattered to me WHERE I’d take the test. I didn’t want it to be a hotel room, or someone else’s house. I wanted it to be in something that’s ours. I was ready to pee on a stick in our car :) But then figured I wasn’t really pregnant, so there was no need be picky about a place to get a big fat negative.

So that was my one and only experience with pregnancy tests, but I absolutely LOVED how protective of me and the baby my husband got.

Update: Sorry if I didn’t make it clear, but I was NOT pregnant. We definitely missed the ovulation date and all is good. Now starts the real deal- the TTCing.

Looking forward to reading your REAL stories about how you found out

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Traditionally, one of the first steps of  planning a baby is going off Birth Control. Granted, with me, it takes a bit of a different course with all the pre-conception care and preparedness.
However, last month was my time to unleash the power of natural hormones. Oh boy, did I NOT know what I was getting myself into!

In order for you to understand what I am about to describe and not to schluff me off as one of those hypochondriac-y hysterical pregnancy prone chicks, you need to know this:

I have been on THE PILL my whole adult life. I started when I was 18 and have NEVER been off of it up until now, 8 years later. In addition to that, when I was working as a model in NYC, I had consulted with my doctor and he agreed that it’d be just fine if I were to take the active pills non-stop without making a break for the white placebo pills, thus skipping my period altogether.

I went on living my life without a period for two years, happy as a clam not to experience any side effects of having one. By the end of the 2nd year I was starting to wonder what having a period felt like – I’d completely forgotten. I could not  fathom why girls, who are already on the pill, would even bother putting themselves through the wringer that we call “mothernature’sgiftoallwomen”.
At that point I was completely unfamiliar with the PMS and period symptoms that most women experience monthly.

So when time came to go off my pill, I  cheerfully tossed my used pack in the trash and ignored the annoying daily calls from Target to remind me that my auto-refill prescription is ready.
Condoms became our friend # 1 and I went on to live what I thought was going to be a normal life.

The craziness started with light spotting on day 4-5 after I should have ovulated. I didn’t think much about it until I realized that day, that I had VERY SENSITIVE boobs… Like,the  not normal “can’t wear a shirt without a bra”, “do not touch me” sensitive boobs. I thought back and remembered that we had sex about the time that ovulation should have occurred. My thoughts started racing:”OMG! No way! We used a condom! I don’t have maternity coverage yet! I CAN’T BE PREGNANT YET”! I realized that it wouldn’t be the end of the world if i were to be pregnant, but i would have preferred to have maternity coverage and have my wisdom teeth out, etc etc…

My husband, of course, calmed me down saying that I am silly and there was no way i am pregnant. Ok, so I calmed down. For now. We all know how unreliable condoms can be, but he’s right, I can’t be pregnant.

A few days went by, I kept complaining about how strange it was that my boobs were SOOO Sensitive!!!  And then the emotions started acting up. I think I cried a few times in one day…and more than a few days that week.
“Oh Gosh! - i thought, Here’s the pregnancy emotions! Am i really pregnant? I have never felt that way!” At some point I remember crying in my husband’s arms, complaining about something, and then both of us laughing about how stupid what I am crying about was, which would send me deeper into my weeping hysterical non-sense fit.
“I must be pregnant!”- i thought. I don’t cry, I’m not a cry baby. My friends who know me well are well aware that I don’t cry.

That day I had to do my pre-conception bloodwork and urine test and they discovered some protein in my urine which can be a sign of pregnancy ( strangely enough no pregnancy test was performed), which further proved my fears/hypothesis.

To make a long story short, I waited for my next doctor’s appointment and asked them to do a pregnancy test which came back negative ( of course!) and life went back to normal leaving me wondering why on earth I was experiencing pregnancy symptoms without being pregnant. My husband’s guess was “hysterical pregnancy”, a made-up pregnancy where a woman is so anxious to get pregnant that she thinks she’s feeling the symptoms. I hated this “diagnosis”, because one – I am not anxious to get pregnant, i’m not ready yet on any of the fronts, not until all things are in place; and two- I really felt those things.  I mean, I was crying like a baby over something stupid like forgetting to brush my teeth, then laughing that i was crying over that, then crying because it was …all…. just….sooooo…saaaaaaaaad :) ahahahaha!

When my period finally came, once again proving (Thank God!) that I am not pregnant, a light bulb went off in my head:

I WAS FEELING NORMAL PMS SYMPTOMS!!!!!

The normal hormonal fluctuation and imbalance most women experience monthly and are very used to.

This was absolutely hilarious to me. I hadn’t had a period in so long that I completely forgot what it feels like: the mood swings mid cycle, the sore boobs, breaking out, crying, cramps, bleeding. It was so foreign to me that it never once occurred that what I was feeling could be normal. Most girls were very used to feeling this way and therefore didn’t pay much attention to it. For me, on the other hand, it was all new!

It was very satisfying to tell my husband that I really DID feel those things ( I’m suspecting he thought i was one of those crazy people), that i didn’t invent the symptoms.
We laughed, we cried, it was better than “Cats”, but at least now I know that if I am not supposed to get pregnant, I probably won’t, and it’s just my period :)

As far as protein in my pee, that was something completely different and is another story that you will hopefully hear soon.

Now, make me feel more like a normal (read: not crazy) person and tell me your own pregnancy scare stories in the comments! ( it’s a good time to introduce yourself if you’d like, too)