Soooo we’ve got some news.. I’m pregnant! It feels so surreal to be sharing with the world that we’re expecting a baby GIRL at the end of August! Dan and I are feeling so grateful, blessed and excited to start this next chapter in our lives together.

I’m 15 weeks along and have been comfortably settled into this new pregnancy thing! I’ve been incredibly lucky so far, somehow completely skipping over the whole morning sickness thing. Besides spending the first trimester in a state of next-level exhaustion and battling some early 2nd trimester headaches, I’ve felt pretty normal. And since I’m in my slower season of work, I’ve been able to take a lot of time to myself to sleep, rest, workout and eat healthy.

But let’s back up and answer some of the most common questions I’ve gotten so far…

How did you find out you were pregnant?

The weekend before I found out, I remember feeling so run down. I didn’t move from the couch all weekend long, hopping from movie to movie, and friends re-runs. I couldn’t even really focus on a book! Which is super unlike me. I shrugged it off as finally crashing after a busy Fall! I always sleep more and feel run down in December and January.

As the week went on though, I couldn’t help but notice I was feeling off.

On Thursday, December 20th around 4pm I was wrapping up work for the day and decided to take a pregnancy test. I still really wasn’t thinking too much of it. Honestly, I take pregnancy tests all the time because my periods are pretty irregular LOL.. I took a test and quickly saw two very distinct pink lines form. I immediately felt butterflies in my stomach. I took another test. And another. And another. Before I knew it I had four of those little test strips lined up in my bathroom. All very clearly positive.

I didn’t cry or freak out or jump up and down or have any overwhelming emotion that I remember.. I just remember being like “ok, that’s unexpected.” : ) I have this tendency to remain extremely calm when I should be freaking out, I don’t know where it comes from! Yoga?!

Were you trying?

Not exactly. I had been paying more attention to my cycles for the last year, taking prenatal vitamins for the last 6 months and trying to clean up my diet/get to know my body in preparation for starting to try. I was trying to do all these things ahead of time because, due to some body stuff, I thought conceiving would be pretty difficult for us. I’m feeling very grateful this wasn’t the case this time around.

How far along were you when you found out?

Since I have irregular periods, I had to go to the doctor to get a dating ultrasound the day after Christmas to find out how far along I was. The tech told me I was 5.5 weeks along, so 4.5 weeks when I found out! Baby C was most likely a 30th birthday (Dec. 4th) gift : )

How did you tell Dan?

After taking the positive test, I wandered around the house for a bit and then texted Dan asking when he’d be home. I had to wait three hours until he got home and it was the longest three hours! I don’t even know what I did to pass the time. When he finally got home, I sat him on the couch and just blurted out, “I’m pregnant”. Shocked, Dan wanted me to take another test so he could see. I went up to our bathroom and showed him all the tests and then took another test and, this time, he watched himself as the two pink lines formed. He immediately started to cry happy tears and told me this was the best possible thing that could have happened after a particular hard day.

How did you tell your family?

We told immediate family over Christmas two days later, which was really nice timing since everyone was together. For each of our parents, we got them an ornament to open that said, “We’re expecting!” and for my sister, I had Max write out “Cousin 2019” on a piece of paper and he gave it to her to open at the same time as my parents. They all had suspicions that I was pregnant the weeks leading up to this because I wasn’t really drinking – but that was just a coincidence!

I was much more nervous about sharing the news with friends and others than I thought I’d be before I got pregnant. It was surprisingly overwhelming to tell our immediate family- I think because it made the whole thing much more “real”- so I held off telling anyone else. Because I felt so “normal” all of January, I started to convince myself that something was wrong. But after we heard the heartbeat for the first time (BEST SOUND EVER) on January 29th and then saw the baby at our 12 week ultrasound, I felt much more comfortable telling friends. I actually really loved having a month to process everything on my own before telling more friends, more family and clients.

How did you find out the gender?

My older sister, Kelly, surprised us last week with the gender! When I got home from Florida, Dan & I went to her house where she had bought a hockey puck online that would explode with pink or blue color when I hit it. It burst into pink and that confirmed my suspicious that I was carrying a little baby girl!

I have no idea how I knew it was a girl but I had been convinced pretty much from the start. Before I got pregnant I was dying for a boy. My sister has two boys (5 + 2 yo) and so I had gotten pretty comfortable around boy babies. I’m active, athletic and competitive so playing around with my nephews has come very naturally. The idea of a GIRL who might one day like playing dress up and wanting me to do her makeup terrified me. But as soon as I got pregnant, I did a complete 180- I wanted a girl and was convinced it was one. I found myself wandering through TJ Maxx gushing over adorable girl clothes and saving girly nursery inspo on Pinterest. I am completely over the moon excited for a little girl, whether she grows to be a complete tomboy like me or a super girly girl or something in between.

Now, I’m so excited to finally start showing (still waiting on that…) and dressing up the bump. I can’t wait to hear from all of you and am looking forward to hearing your experiences, advice, and tips! Here on the blog, I’m planning to recap each trimester and am excited to be able to sprinkle back in some personal posts again!!

As always, thank you all for reading and your continued support over the years!

((Also THANK YOU to the lovely Lindsay Connors for the photos!!))