Holy shit, we are pregnant!
November 2020
July 25th 2020 – we found out we were expecting our first baby, although we kind of had an idea a few days earlier that we were pregnant.
I was driving to see Luke who was fitting a laundry for a friend and I remember I had this wave of nausea come over me. It was lunchtime and I had an iced coffee in hand and just assumed it was the caffeine hit. As I was helping him with the laundry, I remember just thinking… something isn’t right. When I went to go and get him some lunch I ran into the pharmacy and got a box of pregnancy tests. We went home and I did a test and it seemed negative at first glance. After a few more minutes there was the faintest second line, which to me was still a negative (maybe it was the shock) and to Luke was a positive. It was so faint you almost had to squint to see it. The next morning, I was exercising with a friend and I noticed I was running out of breath and exhausted a lot faster than usual. Shit. Could I be? Surely not? I went home and we did two more pregnancy tests – one of which was a digital test because surely, they can’t show up a false negative or false positive? After a few minutes, there it was. PREGNANT.
Holy Shit, we are pregnant.
I ran down the hallway and Luke was on the phone to a friend so I yelled “GET OFF THE F***ING PHONE”. He looked at me and he knew. He knew exactly what I was about to say. We just stared at this pregnancy test for what felt like half an hour. You couldn’t wipe the smiles off our faces, we were so shocked, happy and excited. The first thing we did was call my sister. We had to talk to someone because we had no idea what to do or what to say or what the next step was from here. Her reaction – priceless. A lot of screaming and jumping. We then started scheduling everything as expecting parents would do. Blood tests, scans, doctors appointments. We had it all lined up and ready to go and ready to take the next step in our lives together as a family.
Then the downward spiral began…
Firstly, I want to make clear how blessed, lucky and proud we are. We are few of the lucky ones in the world who have been able to conceive and to this day, have a beautiful and healthy growing baby. I think I was just in “lala land” thinking that pregnancy was going to be this beautiful period of glowing skin, happiness, love and positivity. I blame Instagram for this false idea of what pregnancy is really about.
The first week we found out we were pregnant, before we could confirm with blood tests and scans, my grandmother passed away. She was my second grandmother to pass away over a period of 4 months during Covid-19. We knew it was coming but it didn’t make it any easier. I guess the saying is true, when you lose one life, another one arrives. It made it hard for me to celebrate and concentrate on myself because I was so heartbroken and sad. This is life though, and I knew I had to prevent myself from getting into a dark space because it wasn’t just me who I had to look after anymore.
The weeks started passing by, and because we found out we were pregnant so early on, it felt like my first trimester was going to be the longest in the world. We hadn’t told many people our news and we wanted to keep it private for as long as possible. It is such a personal and private experience and I think we have really learned and started to respect the journey of becoming parents. The nausea, vomiting, and migraines started. From about 7 weeks it got pretty awful. Pregnant women – I respect you on a whole other level now. I could handle it, this was fine. I was so lucky. I was growing a little bub, I work from home and I could take it easy.
Then the next hurdle arrived…
When I was around 8 weeks pregnant, we got some pretty awful news. Luke’s beautiful mum had been diagnosed with a brain tumour. It shook the entire family, as it would. These things don’t happen in our family, or to those we love… so we thought. It was a whirlwind of a couple of weeks. By the time it had kind of sunk into our minds what was going on, she was taken to Townsville for brain surgery. We spent some time down there with the family, all taking turns to sit next to her bedside in the hospital. It was a really rough week in ICU after her surgery for everyone but she is now doing incredibly well and on the road to recovery. We can all breathe a little easier now knowing that she is okay. She is the rock in the Struber family and the glue that keeps everyone together. For that period of 3-4 weeks our pregnancy took a back seat. I was still feeling nauseous and suffering headaches but I didn’t really listen to my body or concentrate too much on it as my mind was always on Luke. I needed to look after him and make sure he was emotionally and mentally well. We were also running a business that we had to keep afloat while spending most of our time in Townsville. Also, a lot of people we love were suffering. It seemed that 2020 was being cruel to everyone and close friends were suffering loss and challenges in different ways. In that period, we found out the gender of our baby, and that the baby was growing beautifully. We probably didn’t celebrate as much as we should have because it just didn’t feel right. We knew that the baby was okay, so we just kept going.
Luke with his mum and dad on the Block
Our family is now all healthy, our business is busy and the planning for our dream home is underway…. We tend to do things that way. All or nothing. Surely everything was going to start getting better and we could enjoy our time together with lots of lunches, dinners, movies, catch ups with friends and holidays planned before our little household grew by one. That infamous “glow” that you hear about surely was going to come my way any minute now. The first trimester was anything but glamorous, so surely, I was going to just bloom for my second trimester?
Oh Tess, you are so naïve – pregnancy is nothing like what had been sold to me on social media. Hurdle after hurdle just kept coming my way and I want to be as honest and open about every single detail of my pregnancy with you. Buckle up!
xx
