Welcome to my first blog post, I saved it to introduce someone very special… Bubs! We have named our fetus Bubs and as I write this at 25 weeks, Bubs is kicking around, so I think that means she or he is just as excited as I am to share this news.

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I waited a long time to share online, so we have a lot to catch up on. Since it seemed like too much to share in captions and blog posts, I made a vlog on YouTube. In that video, I start at the beginning and discuss how we decided to conceive and how the COVID pandemic impacted that, how I found out I was pregnant, my thoughts on when to share your pregnancy with loved ones and on social media and why we waited so long to announce.

https://youtu.be/72dfq44dfI8

Although it may be surprising I didn’t share on my public platform until 25 weeks, aren’t you also kind of glad you didn’t have to endure my very tiny bump pictures in the first trimester when I didn’t even look pregnant? Like this one at 17 weeks… I thought I had a bump but it looks like a normal day to most people, and even to me in hindsight.

I’m going to have a full post dedicated to the first trimester, both sharing my experiences and giving some advice on managing common symptoms. I talked about this more extensively on YouTube, but I found it very hard to bond with the pregnancy early on, since as an OB-GYN, I am constantly caring for women with pregnancy loss, lethal fetal anomalies, and delivering some of the worst news families can receive. I was pretty much convinced that I would have a first trimester miscarriage. Instead of increasing anxiety, this actually gave me a sense of peace, because I felt that I had already accepted that if it happened, I would handle it. But of course I wanted to be and stay pregnant, and having very easy access to an ultrasound every day at work made it tempting to take a quick check for a heartbeat. I did do that, but I limited myself to once a week or less. I think that if I had checked more, I would rely on outside reassurance to manage anxiety instead of using my own coping mechanisms. This is the caution I give to patients when they ask about purchasing dopplers to have at home – they’re not entirely good or bad but they may be a less-than-ideal way to start managing the worries that will flourish in pregnancy and parenthood.

I’ve been pretty creative keeping it a secret on social media. I’ve used some old posts but also taken advantage of angles and looser clothing (thanks, poor fitting hospital scrubs!). Here are some stories or posts you may remember and their associated “bump” I was hiding.

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We’re not going to find out fetal sex until birth! I’ll go more into why we made that choice in the future.

Finally, I would love to hear your experiences or questions in the comments both here on the blog, or any of the other platforms.

Be sure to go to the homepage and subscribe to my email list. I won’t send emails out very often, but now that there are a few different platforms, I want to make sure you can stay up to date with educational content.