It's a Wynn-Wynn Situation: the beloved bump

"I kind of miss being pregnant."-me to Jimi just two nights ago.

It's true. It's no secret that there's something magical about being pregnant. How incredible that human life is forming inside us women? For me, pregnancy was magical AND enjoyable. Hallelujah! Here's a look into those wonderful 9 months:

First trimester:

EXTREME fatigue. Good grief, night owl Sarah was quickly replaced with falling asleep on the couch at dinner time.
Peeing. ALL. THE. DAMN. TIME. This one confused me. I thought this was supposed to happen when a melon-sized baby was crushing your bladder. Why was the appleseed-sized baby doing this? Upon further research, I discovered it's hormone related. If you don't know, now you know.
Starvation Nation. I would wake really early starving. So hungry I felt sick. Several times I asked Jimi to bring me something, ANYTHING to eat, so that I could get out of bed. Well, not anything actually. More like, gimme carbs honey!
Food aversion. I never had much sickness or nausea. I only got nauseous thinking of the foods that sounded disgusting, which interestingly enough were all of the foods I enjoyed pre-pregnancy. Two weeks earlier, I was talking about how I could eat Chipotle all day, every day and be happy. Now, the thought of Chipotle made me wanna hurl. Grilled chicken? BARF. Any chicken? VOM. Unless it was Chick-Fil-A, and in that case, I'll have a 100-piece nugget tray please.
Cravings. I only wanted bagels for breakfast and lunch and fruit for dinner. Snacks? Sour Patch Kids. I'm half kidding. I ~~wanted~~ needed Sour Patch Kids or any fruity candy I could get my hands on but alas, I couldn't feed my unborn child that in full doses and feel good about it.

Our 8 week-old little peanut

Our announcement: Baby Wynn, University of Tennessee class of 2037

Second trimester:

Feeling AMAZING. Everyone said it would happen, and it's true. Second trimester and into part of the third is most def the honeymoon stage. My energy was back, and I was back to going to CrossFit regularly and feelin' good.
THE SECRET IS OUT! One of the beauties of getting out trimester numero uno is that I felt more confident and comfortable telling the world the good news. I told close friends and family almost right away, but Jimi and I made the choice to tell the social media crew after our 12-week appointment. What a relief! All the well wishes and congratulatory messages are just the best. I am so grateful for people who are able to be so generous with their words.
Travel. I took a few trips during this time: Nashville, Phoenix for Emily's 30th birthday with Amanda, Knoxville for a football game, and Jimi and I took a trip to Seagrove Beach, Florida for a little babymoon. Best trip ever!

Jimi and I celebrating 5 incredible years of marital bliss at Bolete!

I think this was around 14 weeks preggo

Trip home to Nashville

celebrating Em in Phoenix!

Baby Wynn at 12 weeks

Baby Wynn's first clothes- of course they're UT gear. Thanks Emily!

Baby Wynn at 20 weeks

a rare and bare bump pic while in Phoenix || 19 weeks

Jimi and I enjoying babymoon || 23 weeks

Third trimester:

Still feeling pretty good-the beginning part at least! Best part: THE BUMP! So, I planned on taking these cute, set-up, weekly bump pics. I was pretty good about it until week 16 or so. Funny thing is, I hardly had a bump. I just look like I'm taking pictures of my beer gut. Gross.
Holy swollen-ness. My goodness. 2-3 weeks before Baby Wynn was born, I joined the Swoll Patrol, and it ain't the good kind. It was the I-can-only-wear-slippers-to-work kind. Wedding rings were off and baggy as hell sweatpants were on.
Middle of night bathroom trips and insomnia were my enemies. The maneuvering it took to actually get out of bed or off the couch became my workouts.
More travel. Towards the end of the second tri and into the third, I went back home to Nashville for baby showers. Ah, the joy! I have the BEST friends and family and family-friends a gal could have. Then, I went to Vancouver for the annual leadership conference. SO AWESOME. Baby Wynn was quite the little jetsetter.

Meeting Olivia Josephine White while home in Nashville in November || 27 weeks

The hostesses of Baby Wynn's shower- they are so good to me! We played games and everyone took their stab at guessing the gender of Baby Wynn. Just about everyone thought boy :) Hehe.

Hard to see, but yes, dancing on stage in Vancouver. Had to show Baby Wynn that Mama likes to get down

Hello Bump! Week 30 maybe? I don't know

Happy Thanksgiving! We stayed in Allentown and ate at The Hamilton- delish!

Our awesome CrossFit friends schemed with Jimi to throw me a surprise shower! They got me good.

I wonder why I gained 40lbs...#typical

Christmas with my true love! We stayed in Allentown for Christmas. Reeeeeally missed our families, and we also treasured our last, quiet Christmas just the two of us.

Ringin' in the New Year! Bring it on 2015!

Her Royal Puffiness (who was trying to figure out what to do with those damn bangs) and His Royal Husband Awesomeness at the Sam Smith concert

My 30th Birthday! Great dinner at The Hamilton and in bed by 10! #winning

Remainder of third tri...
The week of Christmas, Jimi and I went to get our 36-week ultrasound. We hadn't had one since week 20, so we were excited to see our little nugget again. The sonographer lubed up my belly and did her thing. She was frustrated because lil Wynn was head down (YAY!), but sunnyside up. She couldn't quite get the measurements, and then she finally got a few things, but was kind of quiet. "Hmm, the baby is looking a little small, measuring 3 weeks behind. I'll be right back."

Um, what? Should we be scared? Is something wrong? What did I do? Did I eat too many Sour Patch Kids?

She came back in and told us to go back to the waiting room, so that we could see a doctor after she reviewed the ultrasound findings. Dr. called us back, and she talked to us about Baby Wynn being small. Jimi joined me in this private room where they hooked me up to the fetal monitoring system in a quiet room with these awesome, squishy recliners as we watched Maury help people get their shit together. Jimi was in heaven.

All jokes aside, it was little scary. They wanted me in every week to get ultrasounds and monitored. Fortunately, they were great at reassuring us everything would be ok. And then around week 38, the doc wasn't too impressed with lil Wynn's growth. I honestly tried to eat more to help my baby grow better inside me, but it just wasn't happening.

"We will check you next week to see if you're dilated, do a membrane sweep*, and schedule an induction at 39 weeks. For some reason, your baby isn't growing any more inside you like we'd want to see."
*Stripping membranes, sometimes called membrane sweeping, is a method used to try to start labor. The health care provider puts her or his finger into the cervix -- the mouth of the uterus -- and uses the finger to gently separate the bag of water from the side of the uterus near the cervix. It is easily done in the office during a regular pelvic exam. Hormones are released when the bag of water is separated from the uterus. These hormones may soften the cervix and prepare the uterus to contract. It may start contractions and help the cervix open. (www.medscape.com)

INDUCE ME!? Oh hale nah. I got a doula, and I've read my Hypnobirthing book, Ina May Gaskin's books, Mindful Birthing, and one thousand natural childbirth articles on the internet. THIS IS NOT THE PLAN. All along in my pregnancy, I desired to have a natural, drug-free birth, but I told everyone, that I'm flexible and it's ok to veer off course, and it's ok if all things don't go according to plan, but ummm THIS WAS NOT THE PLAN.

I was much more attached to my plan that I thought. Now, of course, anyone can still have an all natural, drug-free birth with an induction, but from what I read on the ever-so-accurate internet (and the internet doesn't lie, right?), contractions resulting from being induced are horrendous. And now that I know what contractions feel like...forget about it. Bring on the drugs. I was, however, very grateful that my doc was willing to try a membrane sweep first to induce instead of the use of pitocin.

But in tears, I nodded my head and signed the form that would put me in the hospital on January 22 at 7am to be induced.

"You're baby could easily come before then since it's (we didn't know the gender) so low. So, there's still hope," my fabulous doctor said.

And so, the next 7 days passed slower than molasses as I entered week 39 of my pregnancy knowing that our child was coming into the world sooner than later...