Good Morning! If you haven’t seen yet, I announced the gender of baby #2 on Instagram on Saturday morning. We are having another boy! I cannot believe it. I honestly thought it was a girl, but it wasn’t for any specific reason. I just kind of thought we’d have a girl after having a boy, but I was wrong. Actually almost everyone was wrong haha! Both of our families thought girl and the majority of you guys vote girl on my poll on Instagram. So surprise! A boy it is. I am SO excited! I’d love to have a girl at some point, but now that I know it’s a boy I cannot wait. I think it’s so incredibly special that T will get a brother, especially so close in age. I have two brothers, and they are so close & I pray that my boys will have that kind of relationship too!
So, I’m officially 21 weeks now and I’ve made it to the halfway point. It still doesn’t even fully feel real that I’m pregnant haha. It’s definitely so much different on the second baby. I’m so busy/ focused on T that the weeks just keep flying by. I almost want it to slow down! I haven’t done an update since 11 weeks, so I’ll give up a quick overview from now until then.
At the end of the first trimester, I definitely was still getting nauseous in the mornings if I didn’t eat with my coffee. I pretty much have lived off of wegman’s organic sourdough bread topped with peanut butter (my favorite peanut butters are: Costco Organic PB, Teddie’s Super Chunky PB, and Trader Joe’s Organic Creamy PB) or a MUSH overnight oats (AKA my obsession & you can use the code RESTORINGRADIANCE for 15% off on their website) with peanut butter. With T, I had a pretty strong aversion to eggs, and again I was the same way at the beginning with #2, but now I can eat them again no problem. Before having kids, I lived off eggs and avocado toast almost every morning. Now, I seem to prefer sweet in the morning so I’m going with it! Especially oatmeal, which I rarely ate before kids, but there’s something about it that’s just so cozy and satisfying to me these days. My regular appetite has definitely come back, and I don’t have any aversions to anything at this point. I pretty much love everything I did before, so food is back to the usual! No serious cravings other than the fact that I feel like I could eat Indian, Thai, or Vietnamese food pretty much anytime!
Week 16
Onto my body changes, as you can see in my photos I’ve definitely popped & need to take another update because I’ve popped even more. I was so surprised how quickly I grew with this second one, but I know they say you show faster on round 2. That couldn’t be more true. Honestly, I had a hard time with body image at the beginning. Until about week 16-17, which is why there are no photos before that, I felt really blah and just not super comfortable in my own skin. Honestly, I wish I wasn’t saying that and I wish I could tell you I handled it a lot better, but I’m just being honest. I really had to keep reminding myself that my body was growing a human and that it really wasn’t about me. That can be hard to remember! I think it was a mix of just feeling like I was constantly bloated instead of pregnant, I was still so tired, and I wasn’t being very active overall so I felt sluggish. Not until about week 17 did I really start to feel like myself again!
I finally have more energy, and have found myself craving movement. I started going back to Pure Barre, which is my favorite exercise. I did it all throughout my pregnancy with T and I swear that’s why I felt so good. I also have a gym membership near our new house, which I haven’t gotten to too often because it’s 30 minutes away. But one of my best friend goes there too and brings her kid so I like to go with her when I can so T can play with his little buddy. I also understand why parents have gym memberships now, because CHILDCARE. Whether I go to take a class, or literally just go walk slowly on the treadmill it’s a great way to get a little break and T loves playing there! So it’s basically a win win 🙂 He used to cry the first few times, but now he really likes it so I’m so thankful for that! Back to having more energy, I’ve found myself doing stuff I love again, like baking/ cooking, going on walks, meeting up with friends, etc which makes me feel way more like myself. For awhile, I felt too tired to even get out of the house so I feel like I was starting to go a bit stir crazy, especially with a very busy toddler!
Week 18
So you can see in the photos that my belly has definitely grown pretty quickly! Now that it’s at the stage where I actually LOOK pregnant, I like it haha. I never thought I’d be a person who liked being pregnant, but I really do. There’s something about having a bump, and knowing there’s a little baby in there that makes me feel so grateful. So grateful to get to be the carrier of that little life and just so much more. At this point, I’ve really started embracing my body changes & have let myself enjoy it. Plus, I started feeling baby boy around 16 weeks, and now he moves all the time. That’s definitely my favorite part of being pregnant. It makes everything start to feel real and takes my mind off of me and puts my mind on baby.
As far as supplements, I’d use whatever you’re comfortable with, but I’ve literally just been using Ritual Prenatal Vitamins and that’s it. I’m sure there are plenty of great prenatals, but I’ve been loving these! I also have Primally Pure body butter (love the vanilla + almond) and I rub that on my belly when I remember, which isn’t everyday because I totally forget all the time. Other than that, that’s about as fancy as I get!
Week 19
We recently had our 20 week ultrasound for baby, and my midwife said everything looks great. I am beyond thankful for that. He’s measuring at average size, just like T, and is healthy and active. I do have to get one extra ultrasound this time just to double check my fluid levels. My fluid with T was low, which is why I had to go in 2 days before my scheduled induction (which was already at 42 weeks haha so I was ready!) So just one more for routine just to make sure everything looks good, but no cause for concern so for that I am grateful! If you’re interested in reading T’s birth story, I linked it here!
Around here, life has been crazy with our house renovations. We hoped we’d be in by Thanksgiving, then beginning of December, and now we’re just praying that we’ll be in before Christmas so we can have our first Christmas there! We are actually waiting on permits from the city for our gas line and meter, which has delayed the process, but other than that everything is so close to being done! We are so excited and ready to get moved in, and now that I know baby #2 is a boy all I want to do is go hang up all of T’s old clothes in new baby’s closet. I’m SO ready to organize, and get all situated. I am thankful that we will at least have some time before my due date (April 5) to get all move in!
Last thing, as far as baby #2’s name we have two in mind! We are really praying about which one to use, because we believe names are important and hold a lot of meaning. So it’s also important for us to agree with the meaning of his name. So that’s where we are right now and we won’t be sharing his actual name until he’s born just like we did with T 🙂 Thank you so much for reading if you got this far! Your support means more than you know!
Xoxo,
Lex
