Where Have I Been? Life Update!

I’m back! The past 3 months have been so crazy for Randall and I. Emotions have been all over the place and honestly, I have had no motivation to do much of anything, much less come on here and write about my life. Now that the news is out and I don’t feel like a walking secret anymore, I am finally ready to share what has been going on since I last posted. Those of you who know me personally probably have some idea of what I am about to share, but other than our family and very close friends, we have not really talked about the full story.

So to start out on a happy note – I’M PREGNANT! Wow, I don’t know how people keep pregnancies a secret from everyone for their whole first trimester or even longer in some cases. I have been STRUGGLING to not scream it from the rooftops. I am a little over 15 weeks now, but I’ll get into all those details later.

First, I want to tell the story of how we found out that I was pregnant. To give some back story, I had a feeling that I was pregnant for a couple weeks before we found out. I was telling my friends my symptoms and I kept thinking there is no way I’m not pregnant, however I wasn’t late so I didn’t want to take a test yet. Flash forward to two weeks later, Monday, January 18th. For those of you who don’t know – Randall’s dad (Randall Sr.) had been battling with lung disease for about two years and when he got Covid on top of that it wasn’t good. The updates we received on a daily basis were a roller coaster, but overall it seemed to us that he was improving and I truly thought he would make a recovery and get to go back home.

When we were woken up the morning of the 18th with a call saying that we needed to say our goodbyes, we were shocked. Thankfully, Randall and his family were able to see him and say goodbye, but due to covid, spouses could not go into the hospital, but I knew that this was something that Randall needed to do on his own anyway. I love his dad very much and I knew he knew that, but I sent a voice memo just to let him know one more time.

Anyway, after Randall left for the hospital I was sitting on my bed about to go downstairs to get something to eat, and out of nowhere, a thought popped into my head telling me that I had a pregnancy test under the bathroom sink that I needed to take it right away. I didn’t really think much of it, but when you’ve never been pregnant before and you see that positive test it is the strangest feeling. As soon as I saw it I called Randall immediately and said (crying like a baby) “Did you get to talk to your dad yet?” and he said yes, so I said, “Well… I need you to tell him one more thing – I’m pregnant”.

Under normal circumstances, people typically wait until they are further along in the pregnancy (I was only about a month along) to tell people. However, in his best man speech at our wedding, my father-in-law literally told us that he was waiting for more grandkids. He loved his family and his grandkids so it was very important to me that he knew. So we both told our families that morning, and Randall Sr. passed later that night. Needless to say in my almost 24 years of life, I have never experienced such an emotional day, and it took quite a while to recover from.

On top of all of the emotion, this pregnancy has actually been a lot more than I was expecting. You always hear about the morning sickness, but no one ever tells you about all these other weird symptoms that you experience. Of course everyone’s pregnancy is different, but this is just my experience thus far.

My first trimester was actually a breeze for the most part. I haven’t had any morning sickness (knocking on wood) which I am SO thankful for because I swear I have a fear of throwing up… don’t ask me why but that is like the worst thing in the world to me. The only real symptom I experienced in my first trimester was fatigue and it was REAL. I didn’t even really feel like myself, and I had no motivation to do anything, which may have something to do with grieving a really hard loss on top of this. Oh and the meat aversions… also so real.

I was excited to start my second trimester because I had heard from literally everyone that it is the best… not for me. The fatigue is back, but also I have a “fun” new symptom. Gagging. I literally spent a whole day last week sitting on the couch gagging at ABSOLUTELY nothing. Which for someone with throw up anxiety is horrible. The stabbing feeling of round ligament pain is also really great (she said sarcastically). But overall, I know my pregnancy could be so much worse and I am so so grateful that I was able to get pregnant, and also that my pregnancy has been as “easy” as it has.

January and February were a lot to take in, emotionally for both of us, and physically for me, so we didn’t really do much of anything. The only exciting thing we did in February was stay in a cute little tiny home for our 5 month dating anniversary/valentine’s day – so I am excited to share that with you guys very soon! But, that is where I have been! Thank you to all of the family and friends who have stuck with us through all of this – we are so appreciative 🙂 I can’t believe Baby Gibson is due September 2021!