Living a Public First Trimester Pregnancy

So I've been very quiet here. I've lost my routine. A large part of that is because I have felt so tired and sick the last few weeks that I just didn't feel like writing. Another part of it, is I haven't known how to put the thoughts in my head into words.
Today I have reached my 13th week*. While there is some debate as to when exactly the 2nd trimester starts, the Mayo Clinic says I can count from today and that I have left the riskiest part of my pregnancy.
Most people I know would have waited until after today to announce their pregnancy. And based on the reactions and comments we have received over the past few weeks, I can understand their reasoning. Since I am still struggling with the formation of my words, this post won't be as organized as I'd like but more of a summation of what the last 8 weeks has been like and what has crossed my mind.

• Before we got pregnant, we hadn't put a whole lot of thought into when to announce our pregnancy. I've never blogged abut this before, but at the beginning of the year I experienced a false-positive test along with a 3 month period absence. There was lots of various testing and some heartache. But we didn't tell anyone until after we had a clearer understanding of what was going on with my body. Shortly thereafter some close friends also experienced a false-positive but had announced their pregnancy before getting it confirmed. They were crushed. So we knew that no matter how many positive lines we saw, we wanted our pregnancy confirmed by a doctor before we told a soul.
• Leaving that appointment a little shell-shocked and giddy, we made a list of who to tell right away. It included our parents and grandparents and other close family members. Then we'd wait a bit and tell our close friends followed by the world. We never decided how long to wait and in the end it was only a couple days because some friends in our congregation point-blank asked me when we would be having a baby of our own. I swore them to secrecy so we could tell the rest of the people on our list, but my MIL beat us to the public punch by posting it on Facebook and Instagram as soon as we gave her the go ahead to tell her friends.
• I feel blessed to live in an area where pregnancy is a common and celebrated event. So no one we see on a regular basis even batted an eye when we announced our Minion at only 5-weeks. But where most of our family and long-time friends live, they buy into the notion of waiting out the first trimester before announcing. So we have dealt with some less than supportive comments on that end.
• A hurtful comment I wasn't prepared for was after we'd tell someone we were expecting and they'd ask how far along, "We'd respond with 8 weeks," since that was the time period we were in Dallas. Their faces would then drop and they'd go "Oh!" slightly dismissively and change the subject. I know that in their minds they are coming from a place of loving concern. That they wanted us to be prepared for the possibility of losing this baby within the next few weeks. But what I don't think they realize is what comments like that communicated to me.
• To me I felt like I wasn't allowed to be excited about my baby until I was past this magic number of time. That I wasn't suppose to get attached because I might not end up with a baby after all. And maybe for moms who wait to announce it's not like that at all. But I felt like by holding back, I was expecting something bad to happen. And that if it did, I wouldn't be allowed to be sad about it because I should have known better than to announce my pregnancy so soon. And in the end I have held back in voicing my reasoning and feelings because I wanted to speak from a place of freedom. That I did successfully make it through my 1st trimester publicly.
• But at the same time, I want everyone to know that I don't for a second believe I am in the clear. In the last couple weeks, while discussing my pregnancy with older women in my area, I have learned that 3 of them experienced post-1st trimester miscarriages or stillbirths (for those who don't know, a stillbirth is defined as any pregnancy loss after 20 weeks). One was all the way at 8 months. And as a blog reader, I know of the countless women who have experienced loss at any point in their pregnancy or delivery. One who my heart goes out to every day is Aspiring Kennedy who lost one of her twins shortly after delivery.
• I write all this to say that at no point do I feel like my pregnancy or Minion is invincible. I am so grateful for each day that I have been blessed to experience this journey and everyday I pray that I will eventually get to hold my baby in my arms and that he or she will be as healthy as they could be.
• But I also live with the knowledge that loss could strike at any moment. And whether it would have happened at 6 weeks or at 17 weeks, I would be devastated. And that is my right as a mother. I learned the term "grief hierarchy" today. It was used by a mother who has experienced 12 miscarriages and yet has learned that there is very little support for women who suffer pregnancy loss before 20 weeks. Why is that? Why do we as a society feel we have the right to say when one person is allowed to grieve and another isn't?
• For me, pregnancy loss is a very emotional thing and I pray I never have to face it personally because I know I will be crushed. Ever since I was a very little girl and had my Grandmother explain her stillbirth at 42 weeks to me, I want to cry anytime I hear of a loss. I cried at 11 when a family friend experienced a 6-week ectopic pregnancy. And I cry today when a read a blog post about the subject.
• So for me it didn't matter if I announced my pregnancy early or not. The only reason not to, I found was that it might end badly, but if it did end badly, it would be out of my control and I'd have the right to feel that loss anyway I needed to. And at least publicly, people would know why I was suddenly so emotional.
• In the end, I don't regret our decision to announce early one bit. I wound up so sick at 7-weeks that I don't think there would have been any way not to explain my sudden absence from commitments. And my belly literally popped at 8-weeks, so at least people know why I'm suddenly looking fat and not that I've just blown my diet hardcore :)

*The due date tracker at the top of my blog is 2-days off from what I consider my pregnancy timeline to be. At some point I may share our conception process, but because I was tracking my cycle, I know exactly when I ovulated, we conceived, and Minion implanted. Therefore I know that I do not have a textbook 28-day cycle and had I not been tracking, we probably would not have gotten pregnant so easily. So Minion started developing 2 days before the 28 day cycle dictates he/she should have and therefore I count each gestational week as starting on a Wednesday which is the day Minion implanted. But my midwife is sticking to the 28 day cycle to calculate my due date since we want to avoid an induced labor and this will afford an extra 2 days if Minion decides to take longer to come out ;)