First Trimester Recap (Baby 2)
Well hello, old friends! It’s been awhile since I’ve dusted off my editing page on here, and the familiarity of it all sure feels nice to come back to. If you don’t follow me on social media, you wouldn’t have heard the news, but as you can see… we’re expecting our second child!
Well hello, old friends! It’s been awhile since I’ve dusted off my editing page on here, and the familiarity of it all sure feels nice to come back to.
If you don’t follow me on social media, you wouldn’t have heard the news, but as you can see… we’re expecting our second child! We’re so very excited and feel extremely blessed to be welcoming this new baby in early October. I made mention of this on Instagram, but I’m not going to be sharing the infertility aspect this time around. It still took us a while, but I’m not going into detail… UNLESS you honestly are curious! I really am an open book, but just feel like by now, you know we have fertility struggles, so if you want the deets on this time around, don’t hesitate to ask. Even if you’re just feeling nosey! I really don’t mind and always feel like sharing these topics helps to normalize the conversations surrounding them.
Anyway, I guess I just sort of decided, why not document this pregnancy too? I’ve found myself looking back at my recaps of my last pregnancy to see what things lined up and so on or to remind myself what to expect. I’ll use the same format as before, so here we go…!
Symptoms
Nausea - oh boy did this hit me like a ton of bricks right off the bat. I was puking every day (sometimes multiple times!) until i started taking a combo of Unisom + B6 around week 7 or 8. The nausea didn’t disappear, but it did tame my puking which I so desperately needed. Though I did learn walking and eating for some reason really set me off. Once while chewing a bite of pbj, I gagged a little too hard, and THANKFULLY Tom scattered barf bags all around the house because I snagged one in the dining room and lost it right there. Haha.. definitely funny in retrospect!
Tired - there is nothing quite like first trimester exhaustion!
Sore boobies - I miss laying on my belly to sleep haha
Metallic taste - this was new and bleck!
Food aversions - it seemed like they’ve been a lot stronger this pregnancy. Almost NOTHING sounded good for the first mannnnnyyy weeks. Maybe until week 11? I mostly ate fruit, drank juice or chocolate soy milk, ate granola bars, and sometimes potatoes or eggs. So. much. gagging. Also lots of crying at the dinner table when I couldn’t stand to eat anything on my plate but was so hungry.
Sensitive to smells - oh the joys of dog food, poopy diapers, coffee, and the trash can.
Crampy - just occasionally. I remember feeling more cramping in the first trimester with Silas.
Spotting - this was a new one and a bit scary. I spotted in the 6th week and the 9th week. Thankfully it resolved and didn’t get serious, but I didn’t experience that with Silas, so I had an ultrasound right at 7 weeks to check things out. All was fine.
Emotional - hello hormones! All the cheesy things make me cry. Also a little more moody this time around. Had a harder time being excited and honestly felt sort of depressed for most of the trimester.
Acne - ugh such a bummer
Vivid dreams - I love this part of pregnancy. Such weird, insanely vivid dreams!
Cravings
Nothing I craved - just finally a break in the food aversions and something would sound good. Once it was my mom’s pot roast and potatoes (they were in town), and puddings and ice cream hahaha
First Trimester Journal
Weeks 4-8
I found out about this pregnancy REALLY early. I went in for confirmation bloodwork on week FOUR. In that bloodwork they check all your hormone levels, and they again put me on a low dose of progesterone to help support the pregnancy (my HCG was perfect, though). I was on it with Silas too. I spotted for a day or two on week 6, and promptly got in for an ultrasound on week 7. Baby was measuring EXACTLY on track based on my dates! It was such a relief to see and hear that tiny heart beating. Tom, unfortunately, was home with Silas so he missed the only ultrasound he could have been to (since Covid-19 restrictions started a few weeks later). They said the spotting likely came from an ovarian cyst that was resolving itself. Tom had a lot of travel during this time - a trip to Idaho, and another just a few days later to DC. This was honestly a lot for me just because of the timing and the intense nausea while taking care of a busy, needy toddler. Cooking food during this time was just horrendous. My parents were planning on stopping back through after spending the winter in Florida, but I called them up, spilled the beans, and asked them to come early and stay while Tom was out of town to keep me company and give me a break from Silas. Thankfully they were happy to oblige and my mom made us some delicious meals. We even snuck in a little date while they were here!
Weeks 9-12
Already started peeing all the time again - including in the night. We brought my lovely pregnancy pillow out of retirement (I cannot for the life of me stay on my side at night), along with all my old maternity clothes that I washed and tried on :) On week 9, I spotted again. It lasted a couple days and I tried not to worry, but it certainly crept in.
Week 10 on the dot, I had my first regular OB visit. Tom came along with Silas and we all got to hear the heart together. Always a relief - especially after spotting the week before. Silas got too squirmy, so the boys left and I got to have a great talk with my OB. She is seriously just the BEST and I’m so incredibly grateful a friend referred me to her when we moved here! The following weeks were more of the same with food aversions and nausea and just trying to survive while taking care of Silas and getting us fed without throwing up. I stopped taking progesterone at 13 weeks, and we announced around this time.
This time around was in many ways the same, but of course, extremely different too (is anyone surprised? Different pregnancy, different baby, etc…). I think the biggest difference this time around was how irritated I felt. Maybe not irritated… but… I can never find the right word or description. I just wasn’t very excited. I was excited, of course, but the overarching feeling I had was frustration. Frustrated that it kept me from being a “good” mom to Silas and we spent too much time watching shows while I was curled up trying not to vomit. Frustrated that I wasn’t grateful enough. Frustrated that I felt like such a shell of myself.
So then on top of all these feelings, Nashville schools were shutting down over illness, so I stayed home to avoid getting whatever everyone else was getting.
Then the horrific tornado ripped through and they asked any extra people to stay off the backed up roads, so I stayed home.
And then Covid-19 hit. And I’ve STAYED HOME. I’ve stayed home for nearly two months by now.
It’s a weird time to be pregnant. We have our anatomy scan in May, and Tom can’t come. It all feels very anticlimactic. Like I got pregnant, and have been home practically ever since. Our church family doesn’t even know! So when we get back to worship, they’ll all be in for an obvious surprise - haha!
Anyway. It feels so much better to be in the second trimester, now. My weird/sad mood has lifted, I’m starting to feel movement, and Silas now sticks his finger in my belly button when I ask him where the baby is (haha it HAS to be directly in my belly button, not just my belly - it kills me hahaha). But he gives the baby kisses already and the thought of him being a big brother is super sweet and exciting. Though also a little sad he won’t be my only baby anymore! He’s such a mama’s boy and he is about to get the shock of his little lifetime!
That’s all for now! See you at the end of next trimester ♥️
First Trimester Recap
As you've probably heard by now, Tom and I are expecting our first baby in May! After two years of infertility and all the fun (sarcasm)...
As you've probably heard by now, Tom and I are expecting our first baby in May! After two years of infertility and all the fun (sarcasm) doctor's appointments and so on with that, we were somehow blessed with this little miracle. All babies are miracles, of course, but really... God is pretty darn awesome to have made this little baby possible. We have been singing His praises ever since, let me tell you!
Instead of doing the whole weekly bump-date thing that, (no offense) is a little overkill in my opinion, I'll just do them by trimester for those of you who might be curious about all things baby. I hope that didn't sound mean, but plenty of people have babies and each and every week isn't honestly that different from the next, or from each person. So I figured this would be more efficient. Anyways, here's what weeks 1 - 12 looked like. I'm going off my notes at this point, as I'm currently on week eighteen.
Symptoms
Nausea - everyday until after lunch! A few bouts of actual puking, but mostly just queasy all the time.
Tired - Oh was I tired. There truly is nothing like that early pregnancy exhaustion. I haven't been a napper for a few years, so it was really weird to suddenly start passing out all the time.
Sore boobies - Yup! So uncomfortable! As a tummy sleeper, this was sooo sad.
Dizzy - It may have been part of the sleepiness, but I would get crazy dizzy spells and need to sit down. Water intake was certainly helpful because it's so much easier to get dehydrated while pregnant too.
Food aversions - Europe was awful. Didn't want bread, pasta, coffee, pastries, etc.. so I basically lived off of yogurt, fruit, and crackers. Beyond Europe, meat and veggies were also not favorites.
Sensitive to smells - Europe, was again, terrible for this. Cigarette smoke makes me dry heave just thinking about it even now, perfume, farts (haha), dog food, leftover food in the fridge, etc...
Crampy - I have felt my uterus growing from the beginning. Maybe I'm just one that's more annoyingly in-tune with my body, but I always notice cramping (which feels like it's happening a lot). This has always alarmed me because they resemble period cramps sometimes. More water always helps!
Emotional - I'm not a big crier, but holy moly. Every slightly adorable/sweet/sad/whatever made me a sobbing mess. I had to switch to exclusively waterproof mascara early on.
Acne - womp! I had such annoying breakouts!
Vivid dreams - The weirdest, most vivid dreams! I'm not usually one to dream a lot or at least remember them, but I was having crazy dreams every single night. I actually loved this.
Cravings
I can't really say I had cravings in the first trimester, as much as I had moments when something FINALLY sounded good and we would take advantage. If I "craved" anything, it was always fruit. But really, I was so nauseous the first trimester, if a burger suddenly sounded good, we'd hop to it because it was usually short lived. Like a lot of women, I lost a few pounds in the first trimester because eating was hard. I ate a lot of grilled cheese, fruit, ice cream, granola, yogurt, cereal, cheese, and salad. Warm foods sounded far less appealing than cold.
First Trimester Journal
Weeks 5-8
We found out I was miraculously pregnant NINE days before our long awaited Iceland/Europe trip. The week we found out, I rushed in to the doctor for confirmation because this was so hard to believe. My bloodwork all came back normal and on par with gestational age, but to help support the pregnancy, my doctor did put me on oral progesterone. I'm super thankful she did, but it definitely heightens those pregnancy symptoms!
Also, to be transparent, we had actually planned this trip to get our minds off our infertility and take a break from doctors appointments.
SIDE NOTE: If you've never been through infertility, there are months where you honestly don't think about it much, and months where you do. You just take it a day, a week, a month at a time. It's always in the back of your mind, and many things can certainly trigger your thoughts and emotions, but you have to find distractions or you'll go crazy. Please do NOT comment below and tell me we got pregnant because "we relaxed" or "stopped thinking about it." We didn't think about it the first few months, and that didn't get us pregnant. We had an actual diagnosis and tests to prove there was clearly an issue, so please, spare me. Sorry, it's just another WRONG thing to say to people who go through this trial... I mean it in love and in hopes it helps outsiders understand.
Anyways, during our three week trip I was 6, 7, and 8 weeks pregnant. Basically the worst possible times to travel while pregnant and probably the most difficult (*see: tired, nauseous, and sensitive to smells). I. was. miserable. Grateful... but miserable. We saw nothing in Paris because it smelled so awful and I was so exhausted from our red eye. I had to take a nap break almost every day so I could function later, mornings had to be slow because of the morning sickness, and poor Tom had to be our legs and fetch me what few foods I could stomach. One of the times I puked on the trip, was in Northern Italy. I had opened our fridge to get some milk out for cereal, and caught a whiff of the leftover pizza. I had to RUN to the bathroom!
As a positive, though, I learned how to say "I'm pregnant" in Italian and it got me into a lot of restrooms without a hitch. Even in France, where we met a lot of rude people, once they figured out I was pregnant, they had a tendency to be more gracious and were suddenly willing to speak English..? The Italians were so cute when I'd spill the beans and were always super thrilled and happy. (I need to write about France and Italy, by the way!) Overall though, our trip had amazing "highs" and some yucky "lows" purely because that much travel at that particular time in pregnancy was not exactly enjoyable. Soooo many planes, trains, and cars!
Once we landed in the U.S. we stayed in a hotel with a luxurious king sized bed and slept (mostly) well (*see: jet lagged). I immediately felt better. So much so, most of my symptoms actually seemed to disappear and I felt a little worried. Thankfully, the day after we arrived home, we had our first ultrasound and baby was measuring right on track with a beautiful heartbeat! Shortly after that, I came down with an awful cold, and was down for the count for quite a while. But it was so good to be home!
Weeks 9-12
On week 10, I had my first OB appt. My blood pressure was high when I got there, and just fine when I was leaving. So they had me start checking at home. From checking at home, we narrowed it down to office nerves :) In that same OB appointment I got to hear the heart again. I thought it was just going to be blood work, so I had told Tom he didn’t need to come. He was bummed when he found out I heard the heartbeat - rookie mistake! They always listen to that heart!
During this time, Tom also accepted a job in Nashville (week 12) and we had to start the process of getting that moving. As it was early-mid November, it was looking like we’d be in house limbo during Christmas which was too bad, but we were so excited for these new adventures, it didn't rattle us. We had loved our visits to Nashville, and with a baby on the way, it was nice to be a few hours closer to family in the Midwest.
I stopped taking progesterone at the end of week 12. I remember being worried about this - as if it was my safety blanket - but my doctor assured me that the placenta would now have taken over! There was a little more cramping, but it soon evened out and I transitioned off of it just fine.
As many women have observed before me, the first trimester was not very fun! Things have been far better in the second trimester and I'm so glad for it. Those first weeks are mostly a game of figuring out how to manage your nausea and nap the day away while still continuing your life as normal. I dreaded Sunday mornings because I feared getting sick in church, and I felt so bad whenever Tom was eating something that stunk and I was gagging at him - haha!!
Of course, with the first trimester behind me, I'd gladly do it all again for the privilege to carry a life. We longed for, prayed for, and waited for this baby for seemingly ages, and we could not be more excited for him/her to arrive in May! Even on the hardest days of the last two years, God was good. He is good all the time - in the happy and the sad - but of course, we fail to see it in the sad, don't we?