Friday, November 8, 2013

Why this blog has been a lie lately...

My pants should totally be on fire, because a lot of my life has been a complete lie lately, both here and in the real world.
 
 
Let's face it -- the vast majority of bloggers lie. Or at least exaggerate the truth. We showcase the most interesting parts of our lives, publish the most beautiful photos of ourselves, and generally do our best to make our existence seem fascinating and fabulous. Ironically, I think it's often the down and dirty parts that people enjoy most... tales of our struggles, shortcomings, and heartbreaks allow others to relate to us, and make us seem more real. I try, for the most part, to be an open book here, showing you the good, the bad and the ugly, but let's face it... some days I'm just as guilty as the next person of sugarcoating my life.
 
The past couple months have been the worst... but hiding a pregnancy is tough!
 
Remember when I went to Port Townsend in August for a family reunion? I was pregnant, but didn't know it yet. And that whole weekend I remember being crankier than a 15-year-old with PMS. I could hear myself snapping at my relatives, but I literally didn't even care. Everything and everyone was irritating the crap out of me for two days straight, and I had no idea why. Oh, and that cider I'm holding? It was the last alcoholic beverage I had pre-pregnancy.
 
Oh, drinking alcohol... I'll miss it!!

I heard from my doctor the night before we left for the lake house for Labor Day Weekend, and Stew and I had a foolproof plan on how to hide the pregnancy from our friends. The first day went okay; Stew filled up empty beer cans with water and gave them to me on the sly to drink. But by day two, the girls had caught on. My excuses to get out of shots, beer shot-gunning, and my ability to make myself mixed drinks without breaking the seal on the vodka bottle eventually gave me away. So all those times it looked like I was drinking... I wasn't.
 
That beer can is filled with water.

Remember the weekend we went to a concert, a wedding, and a Seahawks game? I was absolutely miserable, and I puked the whole time. I wasn't used to morning sickness yet, and I was trying all sorts of random remedies that weren't really working. The tailgate was particularly agonizing, because I had to pretend I was drinking and run into a fast food restaurant to throw up. It sucked. In fact, I skipped the following week's home game against the Jaguars so I wouldn't have to go through it again.
 
Looks like I'm having fun, eh? There's ginger ale in that cup.
 
When I went to Denver with Brooke, I had discovered Zofran (but not it's side effects), which got me through the plane ride and the majority of the trip puke-free. However, I had an extremely terrifying episode of spot bleeding during our murder mystery dinner show that had us rushing back to the hotel early to call my doctor and spend a sleepless night tossing and turning. Spot bleeding is actually quite common in pregnancy, and everything turned out to be fine.
 
Behind this fake smile there is sheer panic.
 
It may have seemed like I had a blast at the Mill Creek garage sales, but my energy only lasted a few hours, and I actually spent most of the afternoon sleeping in the back of the van while my relatives were scoring cheap goodies. And the Saturday we crammed in four events, exhaustion literally almost killed me. Haley helped mix me fake drinks at the next tailgate, but boy did I hear it for not participating in the shotski fun (I feigned a hangover). Oh, and the week I worked 60+ hours, but no one at my office knew I was knocked up was not super fun. I fell asleep at my desk once, but no one seemed to notice.
 
I talked once about why I hadn't been blogging much this summer, but that was a partial lie as well. Really, the first trimester of pregnancy and all it's side effects were consuming my life, and it was hard to put together a post about anything else.  
 
Stew and I made the decision early on that we wanted to wait until the second trimester to reveal the big news. For us, it was just the right decision. So other than a few close friends and family members, everyone was probably wondering why I was so cranky, tired, and supposedly hung over all the time. I worry that some people were starting to suspect that I was an alcoholic.
 
So yeah... a lot of this blog has been built on untruths lately, but I can't really apologize. It won't be the last time I do something to protect my child, I'll tell you that much. But going forward I hopefully won't have any more reasons to stretch the truth, and I'm so happy to finally be able to openly share this journey with you. The good, the bad, and the ugly.  


11 comments :

  1. I don't reveal all the truths on my blog... mainly because I have some crazies reading it and I don't need to them to run with it, you know what I mean? But I think being preggo is a good reason to withhold the truth! :)

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  2. It's so funny that you posted this! I totally understand that you didn't want to reveal your pregnancy right away. When you did announce it to us, and I read your morning sickness post, I was thinking you must have been pretty miserable through some of those events you shared! Those posts sounded awesome! lol I especially find it enlightening now that we know the truth. ;)

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  3. LOL.. I had often wondered where one of my favorite people had been and when you finally annouced you were preggers, I thought to myself "yep, that woman is a damned liar"! I think it's okay to protect yourself, etc in times like these and I can't blame you. The minute I found out I was pregnant last time, I blasted text to over a handful of people.. showing them the positive test and now I regret it. Next time, I will wait. I FORGIVE YOU, My Little Bun Baker!

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  4. I can't imagine trying to hide it in the real world, that must have been tough. I think we are all guilty of sugar coating the truth. I know myself that I don't always detail everything just as it happened I think somethings are better left unsaid in the blog world!

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  5. I am SO behind on my blogs that this was the first post I saw about your pregnancy; a huge congratulations to both of you!! Being pregnant is a really good reason to hide stuff though- I don't blame you for not wanting to break the news sooner!

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    1. Well don't worry, we only announced officially on Halloween, so you're not too far behind! But I feel your pain... I have been way slacking about reading and commenting, but I've just been so tired and dang SICK for so long that it's been hard. But I'm finally starting to feel more like myself! :-)

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  6. Girl I have no idea how you were able to play all that off, I could only imagine how miserable you were! I'm also surprised you didn't just feign having the stomach flu and staying home ha ha seems like it would have been easier at times. At least you had a little fun, yeah? I don't blame you for waiting on telling people about your pregnancy until your second tri. But, CONGRATULATIONS!! That is so exciting!!

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  7. I love that you and Stewart strategized together on how to hide your pregnancy until you were ready - sneaking beer cans of water and everything! Such a great team you two are!

    - Jess @ The Odell Yodel

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  8. Oh sweetie, I can only imagine! Lucky for me I didn't find out until I was 11 weeks pregnant, so we just told everyone the next week. Haha

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  9. I know this is late, but I recently started following your blog. I often wondered how to keep it a secret that someone was pregnant. You did a pretty good job at it. We are trying to get pregnant and I keep thinking of how I will keep it a secret. Everytime I go out with my girlfriends, they are checking if I am drinking or not. It is going to be a difficult process.

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    1. Hi Danielle, thank you so much for reading! Honestly, most of my close girlfriends figured it out immediately when I stopped drinking alcohol and coffee. Plus, once my husband and I finally got married after five years, I think everyone was just watching and waiting for it to happen. But yeah, I somehow managed to successfully hide it from the majority of people! Good luck with your pregnancy journey and please feel free to get in touch if you ever have any questions!

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