If you have been around for awhile you might remember that I did trimester recaps when pregnant with our first, Avri. Being the second child myself, I only found it fair to do recaps for baby 2 also! If you want to check out my first trimester recap with Avri, you can find that here!
I will be 20 weeks this Friday, so I am a little late on the ball and going off of memory. Hopefully I don’t miss anything! When I was pregnant with Avri I made notes about everything! Not this time around… #secondchildproblems
Anyways, lets get to it!
How we found out:
So many people assumed this pregnancy was a result of quarantine, which is fair. But, we were actually trying to conceive. Whenever we chatted about possibly adding to our family we said we wanted about a 2.5 to 3 year age gap so yes, we were trying! It took us 5 months to conceive with Avri, so that was about the time frame we were thinking with this one. Boy, were we wrong! I got pregnant the first month of trying! We were both shocked! Nick was a bit disappointed that it only took one month, haha 😉 I think a couple things helped with getting pregnant so soon. For one, my period was very regular once it came back which I was tracking since getting it back just for curiosity reasons. Because of my regularly and tracking I knew I had a longer cycle which told me that I ovulated later than normal. Any two,I didn’t put any pressure on myself because I was prepared for it to take a little while. I think that was a biggie.
We conceived in April, but didn’t find out until May. The only indicator that I was possibly pregnant was my missed period. I was in a bit of denial because I didn’t think there was any way we could conceive so quickly. I finally decided to take a test, but it came back negative. I wasn’t discouraged because that is exactly what happened the month we found out we were pregnant with Avri and the fact that it has only been one month. I waited another few days and took another test. They always say to take a pregnancy test first thing in the morning because that is when your HCG levels are the highest, so that is what I did. I was still half asleep and I didn’t put my glasses on. I peed on the stick, so I thought I did. I looked at it and it literally did nothing and I even touched it and it seemed dry to me. So, I was like well, I’m a dummy and just totally missed the stick! I put it back in the closet to try again the next morning. A couple hours went by (I completely forgot about the test) and I went into the same closet for something and there it was, the two pink lines indicating I was pregnant! I actually laughed at myself because I truly was a dummy! Nick wasn’t home so I showed Avri the test and explained to her what it meant. I took a little video of her holding it and saying baby and that is what we sent to Nick to tell him the news. Like me, he was shocked it happened so soon, but very happy with the news!
Weeks 4-8
At my first 8 week prenatal visit with Avri we found out I was actually only 6 weeks pregnant. So this time around I was very confident with the date range we conceived because I knew I ovulated late. Well, I was wrong again. The exact same thing happened! I went to my first 8 week prenatal visit and my doctor told me I was measuring at 6 weeks. Like, what? I was so thrown off and confused of when and how we actually conceived this baby. Even though this happened with Avri and everything turned out completely fine, I still got my worried thoughts that maybe everything wasn’t okay.
I did have a reason to worry, though. At my first visit my doctor found a large cyst on my ovary. Cyst aren’t usually too concerning, however, it was so big that my doctor would consider removing it surgically if it didn’t shrink on its own. At this point of the pregnancy, the cyst was feeding my pregnancy since the placenta doesn’t take over until week 10. The most concerning part was if the cyst was to flip which could have cut off blood supply to baby and would have been excruciatingly painful. Until my next visit, my doctor had me take out all jumping exercises and sex. At that point of my pregnancy I was happy to oblige. I went back to the doctor two weeks later (week 8) and baby was growing and thriving and my cyst shrunk a tad. During pregnancy cyst usually go away on their own around 20 weeks, so my doctor said we can re-evaluate the cyst then.
During these weeks I was extremely bloated, felt nauseous always and extremely exhausted. I’d wake up bloated and nauseous and it would continually get worse as the day went on. I tried all sorts of things and nothing seemed to give me relief. I was home every day with Avri at this point which didn’t make things easier. I cherished her nap time and when my husband would get home from work! There were days, too many to count, I would pass out by 6pm. I had bloat and nausea with Avri, but nothing like this. At 8 weeks pregnant, by the end of the day I would look 6 months pregnant from all of the bloat. Cysts contribute to bloat, so I can’t help but think things would be different if I didn’t have the cyst.
My workouts stayed pretty consistent during these weeks despite my nausea and tiredness. It was better for me to get them in first thing in the morning, otherwise it wasn’t going to happen. Since it was the height of quarantine I did a lot of home workouts in our garage gym, core work and attended 1-2 F45 classes per week. Besides having to take jumping out for a couple weeks in the very begging, workouts felt pretty normal at this point.
Some fun things that happened during these weeks was celebrating Mother’s Day, my birthday, teaching Avri that there is a baby in momma’s tummy and just the overall excitement of adding another little to our family!
Weeks 9 – 13
These weeks were a blur. My bloating, nausea and exhaustion didn’t start wearing off until 12-13 weeks. My bloat is still an annoyance even at this stage of pregnancy (almost 20 weeks).
I have always had low iron levels and because of that I hemorrhaged after delivering Avri. A focus of mine this pregnancy has been to up my iron levels, so I started taking an iron supplement in compound with eating foods rich in iron. The iron supplement is not panning out! I started taking one during these weeks and it made me so constipated. I was already bloated, then add in constipation and it made for some very uncomfortable days. I tried taking it every other day and even every couple days and still no relief. I finally just stopped for awhile because I couldn’t take it anymore. I even tried a different brand that is supposed to be “non-constipating”, but it still backed me up. So, I am thinking I will focus on even denser iron rich foods like liver, which I am not thrilled about… So, if you have any good recipes of ways to hide liver send them my way!
Workouts were staying consistent at this point and still feeling good! I was still doing the same things I mentioned above.
During these weeks we told immediate family of the news and they were over the moon excited! Like I mentioned, these weeks were a blur! Some days felt never ending and other days I couldn’t believe how quickly this pregnancy was flying by.
That was my first trimester recap with baby 2 in a nut shell! Overall, my first pregnancy experience was better because I didn’t have the extent of bloat of nausea. But, I am extremely grateful and blessed to be fortunate to do this again. The second trimester has been treating me much better and I am excited to share that with you in a couple months!
