{letter board: Letter Folk // tunic: Old Navy (old)}
{week 18} With the exception of Sunday my energy levels are back up & I am feeling really good. Sleep is still really good & luckily I have a huge bladder and am not up at night to pee (yet). I didn’t have a pregnancy pillow to sleep with last time, but I HIGHLY recommend it for any of you mamas-to-be!
I was back at the acupuncturist this week too & it has helped with my headaches so much! She also did some immunity boosting since we are heading into cold & flu season which has apparently made an early appearance. Boo. I don’t have any more regular appointments scheduled since my headaches are few & far-between these days (wahoo!) but am really happy with the results, even if it meant more needle pricks.
I am finally starting to feel like I am looking like a maybe pregnant lady. And looking back at my last pregnancy (see link below) I am basically exactly where I was the last time! Growing out of regular pants but too small for maternity. I know its just a matter of time (weeks) & am hoping a rubber band & stretchy jeans will get me thru.
Last time around I did an almost halfway there FAQ that I thought would be fun to answer this time too, so here you go!
{question one} how are you feeling?
The second trimester isn’t called the “sweet spot” for nothing. It is the time where your energy levels are back up, nausea has (mostly) subsided, & your belly isn’t too large yet. And I am definitely feeling really good. I have occasional back pain these days, but Pure Barre (& stretching) really seems to help!
{question two} how much weight have you gained?
I will echo my previous answer by basically saying that my weight gain is healthy. I am super weird about numbers on the scale so I never know how much I weigh which is absolutely true during pregnancy. I step on the scale at my appointments, but the nurse just takes the notation and doesn’t tell me. I know my midwife will tell me if my weight gain is too much or too little, so it’s best for me to just focus on eating healthy & staying active!
{question three} are you having any cravings?
Really similarly my early cravings were strawberries & bagels. Luckily for our bank account strawberries were actually in-season during my first trimester which means we weren’t paying $9 for a small pint of not-even-good strawberries. I also have to have my water ice-cold & have also been loving lemonade.
{question four} are you feeling the baby yet?
Yep! I have been feeling the baby for a few weeks now which is pretty fun. Baby Foot isn’t super active yet, but I feel a flutter here & there. Since I had an early ultrasound this time around, we know that my placenta is posterior (which is was last time as well) which makes feeling the baby & hearing the heartbeat so much easier.
{question five} will you find out the gender?
Just like last time we are going to leave the gender a surprise! It was really fun for us last time to not know what the gender was & even though it drove some people crazy, we are going to do it again. Honestly, there are so few surprises in life & nothing is going to change for us based on whether Baby Foot is a boy or a girl.
{question six} how many more kids are you planning on having?
Aaron & I both knew that we wanted to at least try to have two biological children, & we feel very lucky that we’ve been able to do that. While we have mostly agreed that two children makes sense for us & our little family, I am not in a place in my life to say that we are completely done having children. That said, this is more than likely my last pregnancy.
{question seven} have you picked out any names?
Yes, sort of. We have a boy’s name picked out which is actually different than the boy’s name we had picked out for Eloise. A girl’s name, on the other hand, is where we are sort of at a loss. Many of the more traditional names that we like are super popular, & Eloise was honestly the only girl’s name we picked out last time around! I always joked that if we had another girl, it would be named Eloise since that is the only name we liked and could agree on. But we tend to like French names, so I will be scouring old French baby names for the next few months!
{question eight} have you started designing the nursery?
I would like to tell you that it is all designed in my head (like the last time around) but it is sort of just in pieces and parts. We are using a lot of Eloise’s old nursery furniture & will actually keep the nursery in the same room (switching Eloise to the old office as her big kid room) so some of the planning has already been taken care of. The good news about that is that a lot of the big ticket stuff we already have so I have more budget for the fun stuff! I am thinking of using the (loose) theme of maps, globes, & travelling which I feel like is a good gender neutral theme (much like the safari theme was for Eloise’s room). I have picked out a few things but need to sit down & figure out specifics, including if we want to keep the layout of the nursery the same.
And then as an off-shoot of the nursery design is the fact that Eloise will also be getting a big kid room at the same time. We are planning on moving all of the decorations & the rug over to her new room, so really it is mostly a gallery wall & some other decorations that are needed. And we just picked up a cute little bed for her once she makes the transition from her crib (any advice on that is welcome!).
If you are curious, see Week 18 with Eloise here!
Happy 18 weeks!
M
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