Pregnancy Updates, Part 2

Thank you for the very encouraging comments regarding my first round of pregnancy updates. I hope you will notice a marked difference in my updates in the second trimester thus far (below). This is where I start to feel physically better and feeling well physically has always been a large help to me mentally. I have mentioned before that I sometimes have a hard time with the beginnings of things, it takes me some time to get used to things. Pregnancy was no different for me. It was very hard for me to get used to. I still have my bad days now… Eric can definitely vouch for this. But I think even he would agree that in the last few weeks he has seen much less of Emo-Kelly and Rage-elly and much more of an optimistic, and even sometimes excited version of myself. I am very grateful for this. I am very grateful for a lot actually… and I'll be blogging about all of that later. I decided it deserves it's own post. 

Week 13

It's really weird for me to divide my weeks on Wednesdays, I'm just not used to that. So my FIRST part of Week 13 was not my favorite, not my favorite at all.  I think my expectations were too high. Friends have told me that I probably would not start feeling a lot better this early, but I'm still really annoyed by the general understanding that "things get better" in the second trimester. They are not better yet. This week alone I've had several near throw up instances, usually involving brushing my teeth or waking up in the middle of the night. I also got my second terrible headache. I miss Advil just as much as I always thought I would. But, on a positive note, I did swim a mile twice this week. My swimming buddies and I have been building up to crossing the pond we swim at, and this week we did it twice. Pregnancy, for me, has been one thing I can't do after another, so it's nice to accomplish something brand new in fitness. And, in a second positive note, the second part of Week 13, I've started to see a very small light at the end of the tunnel. Time actually passes where I don't feel pregnant, aka exhausted and nauseous. I'll add a plus one for that :) 

Week 14

My newest problem (isn't there always one?) is prenatal yoga. The other night I enjoyed yet another pregnancy symptom, a painful early morning calf cramp. I hadn't exercised that day or the day before, so I think part of it was slightly less activity (though I was active both of those days) and less stretching. I always thought I'd go to yoga consistently when pregnant but I never realized how impossible it would be! My studio only has one prenatal class and it's on Sunday in the middle of the day. Even when I am home on a weekend, most of the time I can't go in the middle of the day. I've been twice all summer. Many other studios around don't have it at all, or their times are equally absurd. I've tried some of the online classes, but another dilemma is the absurdity of prenatal classes. Two days after I found out I was pregnant I tried my first video. Sometime around the seventh "point your baby towards the ____" I had to shut it off. Still trying to process having a baby!!! Now I'm past that, my the newest video I downloaded was okay until we get into tree pose and the instructor says "this pose reminds me of the placenta…" WHAT?! JUST LET ME WORKOUT. End rant. 

Actually Week 14 was a good week, minus the calf cramps and painful headaches, I'm starting to feel like a normal human again. I even felt the need to google what people actually like about pregnancy (rather than my usual google search of "I hate pregnancy."). I still completely don't agree with any of the things there are to like (people do shit for you… yeah great, I could just feel good and then do shit for myself…) but at least I felt the need to search it. 

 

Week 15

Let's get a little more optimistic about pregnancy here, shall we? I spent the vast majority of this week at the Cape, and as I've probably mentioned before, this baby loves vacation. I am slowly taking less frequent naps, and feeling better overall. The bump is starting to grow, which is a good thing (yay, baby is growing!), and a bad thing (yikes, how am I going to hide this at work?). 

 

Week 16

I had an uneventful 16 week check in with the doctor. She said I can most likely go to Florida in December, wahoo. Everything looked and sounded good, and I get an ultrasound in 3 weeks. Wahoo. Seriously, pregnancy is like living one ultrasound to the next. I'm very thankful that thus far all of my appointments have brought good news and everything is going well. I'm very realistic about all that can go wrong, so I'm always thankful when I learn that nothing has so far. I'm really starting to feel like a normal person again now. Hours go by without any clear symptoms, and I enjoy every minute of that time. 

 

Week 17

Since way back at Week 5/6, Week 17 marks my first week of full time teaching. In a lot of ways it went better than I expected, I think I ran on adrenaline for most of the week. I did barely move most of the weekend in recovery. I don't know how I would've done it if I had to teach full time during that first trimester, but now it's feeling very doable. I have plenty of energy, and my patience level is basically at normal levels I think. It was definitely not in those last few weeks of last year, even before I knew I was pregnant. 

 

Week 18

For the past few weeks I've been feeling *possible* baby movements, but nothing I was really convinced was an actual movement. On Day 2 of Week 18, I felt what I am 100% was baby flutters. I know from the 12 week ultrasound that Baby H loves to move (it's gotta be a boy ha ha) so I'm excited to continue to feel it. And also not call it IT anymore, because we will find out in Week 19 if this baby is a boy or a girl, wahoo! Also, I feel great, like a normal person again. Can we just stay like this until February? Please?