Pregnancy / Baby Q&A

It feels so good having everyone know I’m pregnant! I’m so excited about this next chapter for Alex and I and I already can’t wait to meet little Baby Buonassisi. I wanted to take this opportunity to answer some of the questions I’ve been asked both about the baby and my pregnancy so far, so today I’m sharing a little pregnancy Q&A.

Q: When is your due date?

July 14, 2022. I’m 20 weeks tomorrow! Baby is now the size of banana 🙂

Q: Did you have any trouble conceiving?

I was hesitant about whether I should answer this as I know it’s such a sensitive topic and my heart goes out to anyone struggling to conceive. However, in the interest of sharing all fertility stories, I can say that we were very lucky and had no trouble conceiving. We actually were a bit (okay, a lot) shocked that we got pregnant on our first month of trying! If you read the TMI at the end of my wedding 2.0 post, you’ll know that was exactly two weeks after our second wedding lol.

Q: How are you feeling / what have your symptoms been?

I’m feeling pretty good! I was so lucky in that I had almost no morning sickness. I was sick three days total in my first trimester, though I must say 2 of the 3 were terrible timing – one I was in court in Prince George, the other I was in court in Prince Rupert. I’ve joked with my colleagues that I am unfortunately puking my way through the courthouses of British Columbia lol.

The main symptoms I have are terrible acne and a stuffed up nose. My acne was not great on my face first trimester but thankfully that has no cleared up entirely. The bigger issue is the acne all over my back which is really painful cystic acne. My OB tells me this is normal for someone who has dealt with acne in the past (I did two rounds of Accutane when I was younger) because of the hormone imbalances during pregnancy. She thinks it will unfortunately last the entire pregnancy but should get back to normal after baby is born.

The stuffed up nose is a symptom that no one told me about! None of my friends or sisters experienced this but again my OB tells me it’s not uncommon.

Oh and also I can’t get over how sore my boobs were first trimester and how giant they are getting lol. Sore boobs were definitely the first sign of pregnancy for me – I’ve never got them with PMS before (I know some women do) and in the week leading up to my missed period my chest was so sore I could barely move! The soreness got better with time but persisted for the whole first trimester.

Q: When did you tell Alex? When did you tell family/friends?

I actually found out I was pregnant while working up north in Prince George. The morning of my last day of work I took a pregnancy test in my hotel bathroom and it was positive! When I flew home Saturday morning I knew I needed to tell Alex right away because I am the worst at keeping secrets. I actually have a video of how I told him – I’ll share it with you guys on instagram soon!

As far as friends/family, we didn’t tell a soul until I was 12 weeks. And honestly, it’s my only pregnancy regret. I am a very private person when it comes to going through hard stuff and so my thought was, if I lost the baby I would want to deal with that privately and not have other people involved. But, looking back now I do feel like I missed out on having support and excitement that first trimester and wish I had at least told my best friend Maddie and my mom. If I’m lucky enough to have another baby after this one, I’m  definitely telling at least my closest people way sooner.

Q: Are you going to find out the gender? Will you do a gender reveal?

We actually already found out!! Eeee! We did the NIPT blood test to check for chromosomal abnormalities and we had that done at 15 weeks. The NIPT also tells you the sex, if you want to know. We got out NIPT results from the OBGYN (baby is healthy!) but told her not to tell us the gender. We took the results to a local bakery and had them make us a small sex reveal cake. The following Saturday we had a nice brunch and ended with the cake to find out our baby’s sex. We didn’t want to do any sort of party or big thing, but we did want it to be a special moment between us, and it was lovely.

I’ll definitely announce baby’s sex here on LLB in the next week or so!

Q: What are you most looking forward to?

Such a tough one! I’m honestly looking forward to so much – just being a mom, and getting to know this little person. Seeing how much they are like Alex or me, seeing what their personality develops into, etc.

Q: What are you most nervous about?

I am so nervous about giving birth. As a type A control-freak any time I have to do something I’ve never done before I get really anxious and childbirth seems like the epitome of a new, cannot be understood until you’ve done it type of experience.

Q: How did you know you were ready to start a family?

Great question! I’ve also known I wanted to be a mom, it’s the one constant I’ve had since I was a very little girl. I knew that once I found my partner I’d be eager to have kids right away and luckily Alex felt the same way. I don’t think you ever really feel 100% ready though – we certainly didn’t/don’t – but we just knew we wanted to take this step and begin this journey and we felt both emotionally and financially ready.

Q: Is this the first grandchild on either/both sides?

Ha! I wish! lol. This will be Alex’s parent’s third grandchild; his brother has two daughters, and this will be my parents NINTH grandchild haha. They’re still adorably excited though which makes me happy. Plus my nieces and nephews are excited as well!

Q: Do you have a name picked out yet?

We don’t have a for sure name, but we have a current front runner! We’ve started calling baby by that name sometimes just to see how it fits. I think 90% we’re going to go with it!

In the meantime, we’ve been calling our baby “Noodle” lol. It started because right around the time we got pregnant we got into watching Noodle the Pug on TikTok every morning! 🙈 If you don’t know, Noodle is a 13 year old pug and his owner Jon does “readings” with him every morning to show whether he stands up when lifted or whether he flops to the ground, ie. whether it’s a “bones” or “no bones” day. Somehow watching this led to us calling baby Noodle and it’s really stuck.

To celebrate our first ultrasound at 8 weeks, Alex actually surprised me with a gift – he had Jon and Noodle make a cameo video congratulating me on our pregnancy. It was the sweetest gift and the video was awesome. I’ll share it to instagram stories later!

Q: Is this why you’re house shopping?

Haha yes and no. We’ve been talking about moving from our condo and getting a house basically since the pandemic started. We felt like all the fun benefits of being right downtown were kind of lost with the pandemic and just felt like it didn’t make sense anymore to pay crazy downtown prices. We started talking about moving in the fall of 2020 but then we got engaged, then planned both weddings so moving kept getting put on the back burner. Once we found out we were pregnant though, it definitely lit a fire under us to get moving on the house hunt. We’re hoping to be in a new place by May at the latest. Wish us luck!

Q: Do you plan to take a long maternity leave?

I plan on taking 6 months at the minimum. I’ve been working on closing up my files and planning for being off starting July 1st. I plan on being off until at least January 1st 2023. Closer to that date I’ll decide if I want to extend that for longer or if I want to start back at a part-time style practice picking up just a few clients here and there. I’m lucky to have an incredibly supportive network of criminal lawyer colleagues who are stepping up to take over clients for me and are willing to help send work my way when I come back.

Q: How many kids do you want?

Three! I love big families and would love to have three. Alex’s answer is ‘two or three’ so we’ll see what the universe has in store for us. 🙂