In Full Color: Open Houses, A First Prenatal, and Feeling Like Myself Again

It’s Sunday afternoon, and I’m sitting at my desk, drinking ginger tea and admiring my peony flower. This post is going out a bit later than usual, but it’s been one HELL of a week.

Pregnancy is WILD.

This was my second full week of knowing I’m pregnant, and surprisingly, it went a lot better than I expected.

It’s been a whirlwind week (and I suspect much of pregnancy will feel this way), and I’m learning to embrace all of it: the hard, the uncertainty, the joy, the excitement, and the ups and downs in between.

Surprisingly, I was still able to function pretty well this week and spent quite a bit of time on Imperfectly Planned client work. Between new client consults, design meetings, site visits, finalizing timelines and details, and reviewing quotes, it was a full week.

My marketing has taken a bit of a backburner, which is completely fine for this season of business and life. Right now, I’m prioritizing the work that truly needs my attention.

One thing that has been unexpectedly grounding during pregnancy is staying connected to freelance event work through my part-time role as a City Host at Base. They’re making City Hosts more integral to event programming, so this week I had the opportunity to work on event planning again, and I loved it. It reminded me that there are still parts of my professional life that energize me.

Food has continued to be a bit of an adventure. Most mornings started with my now-standard sourdough muffin, an egg, cucumber or avocado, and a side of kiwi. Throughout the week I rotated through smaller meals including sushi rolls made with tinned sardines, bitter melon soup, and even pizza bites (which remains one of the stranger cravings of my life - and funnily enough, now Nick is eating my pizza bites too!).

I also started my FullWell prenatal this week, and to my surprise, it tasted much better than I had feared.

I ended the week with a Tesla test drive, a trip to Lockhart to look at land, and a spontaneous stop in Bastrop to tour open houses. The property in Lockhart was especially interesting because it already had some structures in place. The only downside?

ALL THE MOSQUITOES.

We also stopped at Elmo Brewing for aguas frescas, tater tots, and chicken sandwiches (for Nick), and I found myself genuinely enjoying the day.

Perhaps the best part was that I felt like my old self.

I laughed. I explored. I got excited about possibilities.

And for most of the trip, I barely noticed the pregnancy at all - which was a pleasant surprise.

On another positive note, I received encouragement from both a midwife and my endocrinologist. I also scheduled my first prenatal appointment and ultrasound for this coming week.

PHEW.

In between it all, I’ve been doing my best to stay grounded. Fresh flowers, journaling, my Pregnancy Support Deck (coming soon to Etsy), podcasts, books, blogs, and gentle movement have all helped tremendously.

I’m still taking things a bit easy and haven’t really been socializing much this month. I think I’ll feel more ready to re-enter the world after my first trimester and upcoming appointments. For now, I'm trying my best to take it one day at a time.

The biggest lesson from this week is that life keeps happening, in unexpectedly joyful ways.

For years, I built pregnancy up in my mind as something overwhelming, terrifying, and all-consuming. And while it has certainly been challenging, emotional, and uncomfortable at times, it hasn’t been nearly as hard or scary as I always imagined.

In fact, in between the nausea, uncertainty, appointments, and fatigue, there has still been work I love, delicious meals, exciting future plans, meaningful conversations, yoga classes, fresh flowers, and quiet moments of joy and peace.

My life is still here. I’m just learning to bring pregnancy along with it.

Read the original post on Substack here.