 Now that the first trimester is over, I wanted to blog an update to remember all of the wonderful & weird things that happened during these last few months. This is my first pregnancy and reaching the second trimester is such a gift. Not only because I'm hoping the morning sickness will fade, but the pregnancy risk is much lower and something I won't need to continually fear. Praising God for the protection and continual prayers. But the last couple months have been exciting ones! On a hot day in August of 2005, I met Ryan Antos. We were friends at first and then some years later, he told me he liked me. We were 14 years old, little and awkward, but even in those years, we knew we loved each other so. It's been almost 10 years since the day when we confessed our affection to each other. As a teenager, I was terrified of the day we would separate. I was a realistic kid and I knew it had to come....young love never lasts. And so everyday I would write in my journal that if God could give me anything, I would ask for him. At 19 years old, Ryan asked me to marry him and my faithful prayers, scribbled in a worn journal came true. We've been married over 4 years, and it has been everything I could have dreamed. We've walked through hard things like everyone, sure. But I have been loved enough to last me a lifetime and I have loved enough for a lifetime, and to know we still have a lifetime yet to love one another brings me so much joy.
 our wedding day In June, we had started to talk about kids, but weren't sure if we were ready yet. We were both really enjoying our careers and adventures. We traveled so much and I had this weird, irrational fear that once a kid came, all of it was over. So we decided that maybe we would wait another year. At the end of June, God woke me up in the middle of night and told me that I needed to start praying for my future baby and for the faith to not believe my irrational fears. I don't often have midnight God experiences (though I wish I did!), so this was pretty significant. So I committed that every morning, I would take a good chunk of prayer time and pray for our one day child and that God would prepare my heart and my faith for that time. I knew there'd be fear, but I prayed an end to the fear that kept stopping me from even considering becoming pregnant. I was praying all of this with 2018 in mind of course, so we weren't taking any big risks and it was all purely for the future. ;) Fast forward 3 weeks.... On a Tuesday night in July....on the way to a photoshoot, I stopped at home because I felt sick. I had a weird thought that I should take a pregnancy test....fully knowing there was no possible way to be pregnant. But lo and behold.  I didn't really believe it when I saw it. I thought I had taken it wrong. I kind of just pretended it hadn't happened because I was alone and freaking out, I told my dog, filmed a quick video just in case it was true, and went on my way. When Ryan came home later, I dropped the news, he was so shocked and overjoyed, and then we went to Target, where I took a bunch more tests. All positive. It felt a little surreal. I didn't know how to respond and was just kind of in shock. Especially because only Ryan and I knew what I was praying for. (and of course, I've always prayed for our future kiddos, but this was a much more specific type of prayer that I was coincidentally beginning to pray WHILE I was pregnant). God is cool and weird sometimes. Check out our pregnancy announcement video here.  I wish I can say the fear went away after that, but the fear carried on for about 3 weeks. I stuck with my faith prayers and worked through it. I blogged about some of my specific fears and how I conquered them over at this blog post. And I know you never stop being fearful, but I believe in big faith and targeting specific fears that cause anxiety, so that's what I did. This is something I learned after dealing with trauma and I've taught myself (with some help from good friends) how to heal (continually and in every new season) from the kind of fear that crosses into unnatural anxiety. It isn't easy, but it's possible. My fear eased up and faith and confidence started to kick in as we moved forward. Our month was a little crazy after that. 6 days after finding out, I hopped on a plane to host a 500 person event with Trades of Hope and my team. I had many speaking roles and hosting duties, and it was a little overwhelming with my new-found pregnancy and the onslaught of morning sickness. But all of our Compassionate Entrepreneurs were SO sweet to me and made it the BEST experience.
 A couple months later, we were hit with Hurricane Irma and our entire town shut down for a week. Everyone was hunkering down, boarding up windows, and buying enough junk food to last them to the end of the world. It was a little crazy, but we got through it and were not negatively impacted other then some flooding on our street. Our poor town is still recovering though!
Around this time, I began to start to feel super comfortable being pregnant and was starting to really understand my body and it's needs. I found that, at least for me: - I had morning sickness and the throw ups every morning, but it was not as bad as I thought it'd be. Honestly, you get used to everything. As long as I didn't let it interrupt my day and get me down, I could deal with it fine. (TMI: Also, drinking a TON of water as soon as I got up helped me throw up clean and easy without vomiting important calories. I just replaced the water later). - Swallowing and digesting harsher food was a lot harder, so I need to drink water with every meal or I'd get indigestion. (Something I never had before). I wasn't exhausted or overly emotional like many said I'd be. Honestly, other then feeling a little bloated and having morning sickness, I felt pretty much like Chelsie. And I liked that. So far, so good! Not trying to diminish anyone else's experiences, but I like to share the good just in case it encourages someone too. - Gaining weight is a lot harder then everyone told me it'd be, just because of my body type. So I have to intentionally go out of the way to eat more foods. I just really like my fruit, guys! - Exercising helped being sick, but lifting weights made me dizzy so walking helped a TON. - Getting good books to research pregnancy INSTEAD of googling (and seeing all those terrifying, fear mongering things) was SUPER helpful in managing fear. So maybe those will help you! Or maybe they'll just be for me to look back on and remember. ;) Right at the end of the first trimester and the tailend of Hurricane Irma, we hopped on a plane to Washington D.C. I'm helping homeschool my brother this semester (#homeschoolkidsunite) and we planned a fun trip to help him learn some history. (Plus, it was nice escaping to some AC as we were out of power for a good part of the week). So Ryan and I had fun galavanting around D.C., visiting our friend Elisabeth, seeing the historical sites, and visiting Mount Vernon. It was here that I was certain I saw my belly bump for the first time. I'm kind of lanky, so it's hard for others to see, but there is definitely a little something going on. Apparently, I'm now 15 weeks this week, instead of the 14 I thought. We went in for our 2nd appointment and heard the baby's heartbeat again and scheduled our appointment for finding out the gender, which is exciting!  Mount Vernon
Anyway, that's kind of a recap for you and somewhat for me. I want to remember all of my experiences and I love blogging, so I figured I'd let you in on some of the updates as well. For the next few months, we have lots of exciting things planned including a trip to the mountains to see the leaves, a birthday/costume party, a gender reveal party, and a Harry Potter marathon. And of course, we are still adamantly praying in big faith for our baby and all that he/she will be one day. Until the next update. Thanks for reading, sweet friend! Chels P.S. The formatting is wonky in this blog post. I spent forevs trying to fix it and finally gave up, but so sorry if it was weird to read because of it. <3
2 Comments
Fatima
9/30/2017 11:30:03 am
Adorable, thank u for sharing. So exciting to watch this new chapter unfold in your life.
Grandma
9/30/2017 12:23:32 pm
you made me cry. These memories will be so special in the future - especially when your little "Kiddo" gets to read them Leave a Reply. |
Hey, friend! I'm Chelsie!
Stay a while and get comfy. <3
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