First Trimester Pregnancy Update via Chelcey Tate www.chelceytate.com

We've been keeping a bit of a secret, but as you can tell in the photos in this post it's getting a little bit harder to hide these days ... 😊 In case you missed it our big announcement over on Instagram, we're having a BABY! The symptoms have been crazy town over here from constant all day sickness (who the heck called it morning sickness, anyways?), total exhaustion, and a random breakdown over the fact that Steak & Shake forgot to put honey mustard in the bag with my chicken fingers ... The struggles been real, y'all. 😂

But for real, though. The morning sickness has been no joke. I've basically taken 6 weeks off of work just to try and get through the day, food aversions have kept me eating nothing but chicken soup (except for that week when all things chicken tasted totally spoiled!), and there's been a whole lot of Netflix binging lately. You hear about the intensity of the first trimester, but always think that you'll be one of the lucky ones. Well, friends ... no such luck over here. I'm finally (now at almost 15 weeks) feeling on the mend, and I'm SO ready for the beauty of energy that's supposed to come in the 2nd trimester.

I'm planning on getting into biweekly bumpdates from this week forward, but here's the scoop on what's been going on for the last few months!

WHAT ARE WE MOST EXCITED ABOUT NEXT?

It's a pretty close tie between being so thankful that I'm not feeling nearly as sick these past couple of days, and the excitement that comes with finding out whether this sweet little growing inside is a boy or girl! Sean is totally team boy, our family's are mostly team girl (hello, oldest of 5 girls in my family!), and honestly? I'm completely indifferent! I've always thought that I would be leaning way towards hoping for a girl since I grew up helping to raise my little sisters, but after our miscarriage in October I'm just thankful that this little one is growing strong and healthy!

WHAT I MISS

I may sound totally redundant here, but waking up not feeling sick everyday is something that I've been longing for over the last 6 weeks! Not being able to think about food or even brushing my teeth without getting sick is just not an ideal way to go about your daily life. Not being sick, and also not being able to sleep on my left side! Every time I roll over to fall asleep I feel a ton of pressure on my left side so I'm hoping that eases up as we get further along. If not, I'm totally making Sean switch with me for his side of the bed!

BABY MOVEMENT

None yet! Or at least I'm not for sure. I felt some totally weird fluttering a couple of nights ago when we were laying in bed, but without knowing really what I'm supposed to be feeling for I can't say for sure. At all of our ultrasounds though this little one has been bouncing off the walls! Kicking and bouncing and waving ... It's seriously the most amazing thing to see!

BABY SIZE

Our little one has gone from the size of a poppy seed to the size of a LEMON! Like, there's a tiny human the size of a lemon in my belly ... Seeing the different fruits change on the apps I'm tracking with has been so fun. At the start of each week I tell Sean exactly what size the baby is, and all the awesome things that they're developing that week. It's turned into a sweet little thing that we get to look forward to every Saturday morning. 😊

HOW I'M FEELING

I'm just going to skip over this one for the most part because I've pretty much covered it! Super sick, exhausted, and ready to not be feeling this way! I know that it'll be totally worth it in the end, but whew! This growing a tiny human thing is no joke.

CRAVINGS

At the very beginning of this whole adventure all I wanted was salt + vinegar chips and pickled okra ... Appetizing, right? 😂 That was obviously before the all day sickness kicked in! As I started to get more and more sick, the one thing that I found that never made me immediately throw up was a corndog and cherry limemade from Sonic! I was seriously grossing myself out by how often I was making a stop into Sonic, but hey! Whatever works, right!?

A funny story with this one ... So, we were sitting on the couch one night after dinner and Sean mentioned that Sonic sounded good (this was before my corndog obsession was discovered). We drove up there, and as soon as I saw the little picture on the menu for a corndog it was ALL I could think about!

Well, we went to order one and we were told that they were having electrical issues in their kitchen and couldn't serve any food. After not being able to eat my chicken soup from Panera, there was no way I was going to let something actually sounding good to eat pass me by. We drove to the next closest sonic (a whole 15 mins from our house, mind you), and pull up to order. I don't know who the heck was out to get us that night, but their credit card machine was broken and they were only accepting cash! Of course we didn't have any, so we drove across the street to the ATM (for a $2 corndog), and we got back they told us they were only accepting orders for drinks!

As Sean was about to pull away, I gave the poor girl on the other end of the speaker a little speech about our adventure that night and how we were JUST here and she said they were only accepting cash ... I told her all I wanted was a single corndog, and FINALLY we had one in hand. 😂 I know this story was crazy long, but if anything I wanted to have it written down to look back later when these memories of first trimester craziness have all but faded ...

AVERSIONS

Pretty much everything aside from greek salads + chicken soup! The thought of any other type of foods would immediately make me feel sick. I couldn't even scroll through my Postmates app without feeling sick! Especially anything with a ton of cheese like pizza, and chicken fingers were especially gross to me which is CRAZY because I live off of those things!

PHYSICAL CHANGES

I seem to be just like my momma when it comes to growing babies! I've been in maternity jeans since 8 weeks (if you're a momma-to-be you need these Madewell jeans in your life!), and I could clearly see a formed "bump" at around 13 weeks which is when we announced! I'm so happy to not just look like I've put on a few pounds, but to actually look like there's a baby in there! No weight gain on the scale yet, but I think that's because I've been fluctuating a bit since I've been so sick.

Thank you all SO much for following along on this journey with us! This post was especially long since it was covering a span of a few months so it'll be more short and sweet updates in the future. I read every single one of your sweet words, comments, and excitement on social media, and I can't even begin to explain how thankful we are for this awesome community! ❤️