First Trimester Recap

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Whew! What a blur these last few months have been! Back when I was pregnant with Sophie, the pregnancy updates were a lot more frequent and timely! πŸ˜‰ But now I’m chasing around a busy toddler and our schedule has been quite full lately, so it’s taken even longer for me to get around to blogging!

In today’s post, I’m going to share some of the basic highlights (and some of the more difficult things, I suppose) from the first trimester this time around! (PS – in case you missed it, here’s our little announcement post!) This post will be a bit more stream-of-consciousness, as I try to recall various things to share with you!

Our official due date is November 29, though baby has been measuring about half a week farther along! We may have this little one even before Thanksgiving!

Just like I did in my First Trimester Recap for Sophie, I’ll start with the ever-so-much fun topic: feeling ill! I felt a pretty heavy amount of morning sickness with this pregnancy ever since 6 weeks or so…all the way till about 14 or 14.5 weeks along. (I’m almost 20 weeks along now as I type this, and I’m grateful to say that now I only occasionally feel nauseous!)

I never did get actually sick to my stomach, but I came verrrrrry close so many times! Ugh. I loathe getting sick that way with a passion, so it was basically sheer willpower that kept me from throwing up every day. The hardest thing for me was changing dirty diapers, and also gathering enough courage to make meals. I ate a lot of Sour Patch Kids, which really helped me. My morning sickness was interestingly different this pregnancy – it hit me especially hard before suppertime, during supper, and in the evening all the way until I went to sleep. And often, I’d wake up around midnight or so, feeling terrible. Oftentimes, I equate the first trimester of pregnancy with feeling like you’re walking around with a touch of the stomach flu all the time.

I suppose that to sum up the first trimester, I was really tired, really nauseous, and really nervous. My energy level totally dropped. By the time Sophie and I finished lunch every day, it took ALL my energy to straighten up the house and do the dishes…and then I crashed into bed and slept for the remainder of Sophie’s nap (about an hour). Every day. For about two months. It was exhausting! And honestly, it was really discouraging. I like to get things done. I wanted to work on projects, I wanted to read, I wanted to blog, I wanted my house to be even cleaner.. But my body was BEGGING me to just lay down. So, it was back to the old “sleep while the baby sleeps” philosophy for a while there. I am glad I listened to my body, even though my productivity meter was running low. πŸ™‚

While I’m on the topic of energy, let me say that I have now done the entire first trimester of pregnancy in two really different ways: with Sophie, I was working (teaching) full-time that whole trimester. With this pregnancy, I’ve been a stay-at-home mom with a busy toddler. Guess which one is way more tiring? The pregnancy where you’re at home with a busy toddler! Haha! Who would’ve thought? I recall being SO tired during early pregnancy with Sophie, but at least I went home after work and crashed into bed. Motherhood is a 24/7 job, though, with no days off (or afternoons off), so even though Sophie is such a good, sweet little girl, I’m holding to my belief that early pregnancy was way more tiring this time around, actually not working outside the home!

The sweet part of all of this exhaustion is the fact that it resulted in a lot more intentional, slow time spent on the couch or in bed with Sophie, cuddling and reading stacks of books!

Lots of slower afternoons and resting!

As far as nerves go: you might remember me talking about anxiety these past 8 months or so. November 2018 was when anxiety really started to rear its ugly head in my life. After switching doctors and doctor’s clinics (to a more traditional medicine clinic), meeting with a therapist, and more, I’ve come to realize it was a combination of not caring well for myself (physically and emotionally), mental habits, and the crazy surges of postpartum hormones (and weaning off of breastfeeding!!!) that brought it to a head.

I’ve definitely still dealt with moments (and a couple longer nights) of anxiety during this pregnancy, although I’m determined not to let myself get to that low point again. My main fear in early pregnancy tends to be about miscarriage, since we miscarried our first little one back in November 2016, before getting pregnant with Sophie. (If you’re dealing with fear in pregnancy after miscarriage, I wrote a whole blog post about that journey.) Many of those same fears have still surfaced for me in this pregnancy, but I’ve been able to move forward using many of those same “strategies, if you will. No matter what, I trust God has the ultimate good plan in our lives.

(And if it does surge up again later on, at least I have way better tools this time around and an amazing team of people around me who I can immediately turn to! Mamas, make sure you know who your “team” can be – therapists, doctors, etc. – if you find yourself needing help later on. Don’t let yourself worry and struggle alone for long!)

Anyway, on to the good and surprising news: my anxiety has DRASTICALLY lessened ever since I got pregnant in March! This leads me to truly believe that I was dealing with anxiety brought about primarily by crazy ups and downs in my hormones. These current pregnancy hormones have steadied me out so much – what a blessing. Thank you, Lord. Obviously, the ongoing or permanent solution with my anxiety cannot be to “always be pregnant,” hahaha! So, we’ll take it one day, one month at a time. For now, boy am I grateful to feel naturally leveled out again.

We found out in a super casual way, haha! Of course, it’s always fun to dream up cute ways I could tell Bjorn the news. But now, I’m not sure that’ll ever happen! I’m way too bad at surprising him. I didn’t tell him in any fun or cute way when we found out we were pregnant with Sophie. Bjorn and I are so close. We share everything. (And honestly, after having that first miscarriage, we were just so grateful and excited to be pregnant again that I didn’t feel I needed to keep any secrets from him.) This past March, he knew that I was feeling awful, and we both thought for sure that I was pregnant. So, one afternoon, I found an expired pregnancy test in our house, took the test, and it came out IMMEDIATELY with a strong, pink line. I thought, “Well, there you go!” Neither of us was surprised in the least, haha!

Baby’s first bump photo! 17 weeks along here. I feel like I looked even more pregnant in person than is showing in the photo!

My body immediately remembered what its job was. πŸ˜‰ I started showing so early! I soon brought out the maternity jeans I wore when pregnant with Sophie, but I quickly learned I am no longer the size I was when pregnant the first time around – those old maternity jeans gave me such stomach aches! I bought two pairs of maternity jeans from H&M this time around, which I REALLY recommend!! I also have a pair of maternity jean shorts from Target – they’re great, too. I look so much farther along at this point than I did at this point with Sophie. That’s often how it goes! I was able to feel this baby kicking at around 17 weeks or so, just like with Sophie! I love tiny little baby kicks!

I’ve already gotten comments like “You’re pregnant AGAIN?” or “You’re pregnant ALREADY?!” Ha. Actually, it’s not that close together! I get it, though – time does fly! But Sophie was born in October 2017 and this little one is due at the end of November 2019 – they’ll be a little over 2 years apart!

I’ve been to the doctor a few times by now for various checkups. I’m grateful for my doctor – he answers all of my questions thoughtfully and takes extra time to talk with me. I have a good friend who had this doctor for her first pregnancy, and really liked him as well. The first time I saw the baby on the ultrasound screen was at about 10 weeks. I had to wipe away a tear – those ultrasounds are so dang special!! It’s such a miracle. Baby has been consistently measuring about half a week ahead of the November 29 due date.

Sophie’s excited. We’ve found that she understands so much more than we may give her credit for. Every night, we pray for “the baby in Mama’s tummy,” and she always pulls my shirt up to lean on my belly, to give it a kiss, and she gives her sweet little loving sigh. <3 It makes my heart so full! One of my prayers is that these two little ones have a special, strong relationship, and it’s so wonderful to already see her love and care! We have ultrasound photos on our fridge, and Sophie points to them and says, “Baby!” and then points to my belly. πŸ™‚

I would love to say that I’ll be sharing perfectly scheduled biweekly pregnancy updates here, but…let’s not kid ourselves! πŸ˜‰ I’ll share as much as I’m able to! For now, you can expect to see me announce baby’s gender pretty soon here – we found out about a week ago!!

This little one is so, so loved. Bjorn and I are currently in that parent camp of “how can we possibly love another little one as much as we love our Sophie?” but we keep hearing from seasoned parents (and we know in our hearts) that our hearts will expand and we’ll love this precious little baby just as much.

Definitely follow along with me on Instagram if you’d like to see more day-to-day moments and more frequent updates. I update my Instagram Stories quite regularly. In fact, I’ll probably be announcing the baby’s gender even sooner over on Instagram! I also try to share a bit of photos, etc. on Just Bee’s Facebook page.

One Comment

  1. Love hearing Sophie’s reaction and prayers and thoughts about a little sibling. And even though I’m only about to have my first one, I enjoy reading your thoughts on what it is like to have all the pregnancy things going on WHILE taking care of a child… that makes me a little anxious. Mostly because when it’s the first, you can lay out on the couch whenever you need to… when there’s a little one running around, you can’t check out.

    God provides! I believe that. But thanks for sharing your thoughts. πŸ™‚
    You’re beautiful!

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