Emma's Journey

January

The very start of 2024.
Right at the beginning of the year we stayed on top of constant testing of Mia's ovulation periods. We honestly didn't really know what we were doing LOL. It was the start of the new year, so we were eager to get the process started and to learn as we go. Long behold, within just a week our first positive pregnancy test came.

Then the second.

Then the third.

Then it was confirmed with our family doctor's bloodwork results. At the time, it did not even feel real and we were so excited.

Unfortunately, at the time Mia was still recovering from a lung infection she developed over the holiday break, so we were trying to be very cautious of taking care of her health and making sure we weren't putting the pregnancy at risk.

To say it was a rollercoaster of emotion is an understatement.

February

Baby Emma is confirmed!

We were preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. Mia was still recovering from a lung infection at this time and was going under a course of antibiotics and other medication to improve her health. We knew the risks so early in a pregnancy so we tried our best to be prepared.

To finally see Emma for the first time and to confirm that she was real and to see the little flicker that is her heartbeat, made us so happy and SO RELIEVED. For us, this is when we started to become parents.

Mia's health was starting to improve, but of course the morning sickness and food aversions began. Everything made her sick. Anything that had a strong smell of onions, garlic, soy sauce.. so pretty much eveyrthing.. she could not eat. We were stuck with pizza for a lot of the meals. Sometimes, she was able to keep it down. Eating healthy? Not a chance!

Finally a big milestone this month was buying a new car that can support our new family. Mia's beetle just wasn't going to cut it. We were lucky to be able to get Marco's dream car so quickly.

March

She has a head!

Last time we saw baby Emma she was just a little flickering ball. This time, we see a full head!

We had to consider all our options before we went to our NT scan. A few uncomfortable conversations and a lot of anxiety and mental preparation from us. Is this what parenthood is all about? I guess so... We're starting to get used to it? Maybe...
The sense of gratefulness and relief when we hear good news is so overwhelming. We are so lucky that results have come back normal, we can now worry a little less.

Mia's morning sickness and food aversions are improving, her health has now completely improved. We can finally start eating healthier meals. Ofcourse, some not so healthy, hehe.

Our family doctor knows Mia's family history with daibetes, so we try to be cautious about this risk. The bloodwork shows she's healthy, so more good news so far.

It was around this time we were so excited and so nervous to tell friends about our news. I don't know why we were even nervous, everyone was more than supportive and excited for us!

April

The nursery milestone and officially the second trimester!

It seems like the worst is over. Morning sickness no more, Mia's energy is back and we're ready to start preparing our house for Emma. We had a spare room in our house, which we recently turned into a home gym. It was a very well loved home gym.. iykyk ;)

We don't quite know what the gender is yet, but we knew we wanted the room to be neutral with gender specific decorations. (Mostly because Mia was really impatient..)
We figured, paint now, decorate later.

This month, we enrolled in our first Baby Academy class for newborns. To say that we have no idea what to do is an understatement. We don't even know what we don't know. We learned so much in the first four hour class and have enrolled in a few more classes in the future.

We now realize we don't take enough photos.. we're gonna really need to improve our photo game!

May

It's a girl! + Lung infection round 2..

After 20 weeks of waiting, we finally found out it's a girl! Mia's mom had to accompany us to our anatomy ultrasound to make sure we didn't peak at the envelope hehe. We were quite glad for the surprise since we had a fun little gender reveal brunch a few days after. We were very quick to agree on the name, Emma, nicknamed Em, which is both of our initials.

Short list of good news this month since shortly after, Mia started getting sick again. It started off mild then turned into a full blown lung infection. We ended up spending some time in the hospital to make sure she was getting enough oxygen for her and baby Emma. More antibiotics, inhalers and asthma medication shortly after.

We've decided to take extra precaution to make sure her health wasn't getting compromised especially as she gets further along the pregnancy. Poor baby Emma has gone through 2 courses of antibiotics already :(

June

New beginnings & Carb Counting!

All aboard the gestational diabetes train! 2 glucose tests later (both of which knocked Mia out at the clinic lol) and we're officially diagnosed with gestational diabetes. It's a learning curve to figure out what she can and cannot eat but we're lucky to have members of her immediate family who are experienced in the topic. I guess it's one of the few pros of diabetes running in the family. We're mostly controlling it with diet, but have started to take insulin at night. Mia's fear of needles definitely makes this experience a little more interesting :)

Other than that, we've planted a tree dedicated to baby Emma. We're looking forward to watching this tree grow alongside her in our home. Small coincidence that this tree blooms pink flowers in spring to early summer. By its first bloom Emma should be around 8 months old! Crazy!

Her nursery is nearly complete, just final organizations we'll do slowly over the next few months. Early thank you to everyone who have sent gifts so far. We're so grateful for all the love and support from our friends and family! THANK YOU!

July

Nesting for our little kicker

It feels like the month went by slowly and fast at the same time. Emma's little kicks get stronger and stronger every week. She definitely lets us know when she's awake and when she isn't! In our last ultrasound we were lucky to have a few recordings of her kicking and yawning. We got a little preview of what was going on inside Mia's belly! Emma seems pretty happy and comfortable in there.

We struggled A LOT this momth to diet control Mia's blood sugar levels. It was getting to a point where even meals that had no carbs were spiking her blood sugar! Her dietitian and doctors have advised that not eating carbs at this point in the pregnancy is worse for her and baby Emma so we've had to resort to meal time insulin in the latter half of the month. More needles.. yay!

We know for sure that Mia will have to be induced either in the 38th or 39th week of pregnancy so we're sure that Emma will be home sooner than Septmber 24. We're as prepared as we can be for the day to come so bring it on!

We've been so blessed to receive packages in the mail for baby Emma. At this point we have everything we could ever need for the first 12 months with her. THANK YOU TO EVERYONE who helped us with our registry! We really can't wait for everyone to meet baby Emma...