It was a beautiful March Monday afternoon.

I had sat around all day doing a whole lot of nothing, and finally got off my butt to go run. If you’ve ever run, you know going to the restroom before leaving is an important part. Joe and I had been trying for a baby, but only for a few weeks so I figured the likelihood of being pregnant was slim. But thought I would check anyway. Why not? We had tests on hand for just that purpose. I stared at the pregnancy test in disbelief, the word “Pregnant” looking back at me. We were having a baby! I felt so shocked but so excited at the same time, and so incredibly blessed at the opportunity of carrying our child. I left for my training run, and took a second test when I got home. Ya know. Just to be sure. I told Joe when he got home from work a couple hours later, and thus began our pregnancy journey. It's been a roller coaster! A whirlwind. And a blessing.

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect with pregnancy. I know it’s so different from person to person and even from pregnancy to pregnancy. The first couple weeks after I found out, I didn’t feel different at all. I continued marathon training with little to no change (except - all the sudden I had to pee wayyyy more lol), nausea was not an issue, and everything seemed really easy. I should’ve known it was too easy. A few weeks after finding out, things began to shift. The nausea took over, the food aversions were next level, and I could hardly walk outside without being overwhelmed by smells that made me feel awful. Marathon training became a lot more difficult, and many of my training runs were on the treadmill from that point forward. My doctor was able to give me some nausea meds that helped tremendously with race day, and Boston went off pretty much without a hitch.

Thankfully, our baby girl, Zoe, has been growing healthy and strong by all accounts. The nausea eventually subsided sometime around the beginning of the second trimester, but we’re 19 weeks in and I still can barely eat anything. Smells still bother me beyond anything I could have imagined, and my diet has changed significantly since becoming pregnant. Joe and I are not the poster children for healthy eating, but we cook most meals at home, we try to eat fairly balanced, and we typically only eat dessert twice a week. When the food aversions came into play, all of that changed for me. I can’t eat meat, peanut butter, chocolate, some veggies, anything with tomato or onion, or anything with any sort of interesting spices. My meals pretty much consist of buttered noodles, cheese, peach rings, pringles, strawberries and strawberry flavored things, oatmeal, bagels, pop tarts, the occasional blueberry muffin, and grapes. I have also found sparkling ciders taste yummy and are a nice switch up from water all day. I wish I could just get past this part and eat normal food again, but Joe and I are counting our blessings that Zoe is growing, that she’s healthy, and that other than eating the same things over and over, the pregnancy has been fairly easy-going. I can still run, which is huge (although running feels a lot harder than normal right now!). I seem to be gaining weight at a healthy rate. Any abnormalities we’ve found throughout the pregnancy have turned out be nothing. And seeing Zoe on the ultrasounds has made it so worth it. I can only imagine the love we will have for her when she is here. 

Next week we go in for our 20 week anatomy scan, and we are stoked! I’m looking forward to the day I can go back to “normal” with my diet, but in the meantime I’m trying to focus on the blessing it is to carry this child. Here’s to the next 20 weeks of pregnancy, and to #momlife after that!