I can’t believe I am now half way to having Alexis, and at the same time I cannot believe I have  that much more to go! 4 months seems like so little but at the same time it’s too long to wait to meet our precious daughter.
I keep reading about women who lost their babies at 36 weeks or later and it just breaks my heart so much and scares me at the same time. How do you recover from that? From carrying the baby for 9 months, dreaming and waiting for it and then “bam!” in one second, it’s gone. All the possibilities and potential of a new life- just gone!
Really makes me want those 4 months to go by fast and have Alexis safe in my arms, where I can protect her. That’s on my mind 24/7. Literally.
I did a little collage of the body changes I went through since getting pregnant.
A few weeks are missing:
week 3 when I found out we were pregnant ( a week after conception), because no changes were apparent yet;
week 7 because that was the worst week of my morning sickness.
You can see the photo large if you click on it.
The first half of the pregnancy was hard, mostly due to nausea and tiredness and general food aversion. It’s difficult to eat perfectly for the health of your baby when even looking at food is the last thing you want to do. I am very proud I got through it with perfect nutrition. I can’t say it didn’t leave any scars, though. Those weeks of forcing certain nutritious foods down my throat, rather than chewing on bland and empty crackers, left me gagging at the thought of them. I am over it now, I think, but it took longer than normal, because of the “emotional trauma” of it all.
No regrets though – I’d do the exact same thing all over again. Only the best for my baby even if I have to “torture” myself.
But I think we underestimate how easy our life is because we are made so that we “like” food and how difficult it is to eat well when you don’t. I wonder if there’s a disorder where all food makes you queasy… A person with that disorder must have a miserable existence. It makes sense that nature and evolution made it so that we enjoyed eating, because otherwise…well it’s just sad and difficult.
Below is the front belly shot. I stopped taking them after the ninth week for some reason. Probably because there wasn’t much change from the front. Now that my belly is really growing though, I’ll resume the front belly shot.
One thing I can say though: “Whew! I’m glad I’m in the 2nd trimster!”
It’s glorious! Well, as glorious as pregnancy can be…. with fatigue and weird hunger spells and aches and pains, but still glorious compared to the horribleness that the first trimester represents. Certain days I almost feel normal, I go about doing “normal” things, only to be reminded an hour later that there’s a baby inside that requires “mommy” to take it easy. And I do. Because I have the most caring and understanding and involved husband in the world who will do all these things for me ( well, almost all and with a lot of nagging) that I am unable to do, so that I wouldn’t “strain” myself too much.
I’m still wondering when the uncomfortable part of the second half starts… Do I have a month or so of feeling good? Is it supposed to start now? Luckily, I have no ligament pains, no back pains (unless I overdo it), sleep is somewhat comfortable.
I am happy I’ve been able to take conceptual photos throughout the pregnancy. I want to do a pregnancy book. Not your typical book with belly shots, but a true depiction of our journey through pregnancy via conceptual images – things we did, events that happened, places we went to, along with a message to our little one, who’ll hopefully be able to read it on day.
These are some of the shots I have for now.
1,2. The day we found out Alexis was there
3. The day we got proof she was real
5. The 3 months I spent miserably nauseous
6. The day we heard her heartbeat on our home doppler
7. The day I hoped she was a girl
8. The months we spent walking every morning
9. The time you could finally see my belly
10. The day I started planning the nursery
11,12,13,14. The day we found out she was healthy and a “SHE”
15,16. The time our first baby gifts started arriving.
There are still many more concepts swirling in my head:
Reading pregnancy books shot
Being ravenously hungry shot
Painting her nursery shot
Assembling the crib shot
The visible kick shot
It seems like forever ago that we tested “for fun” and saw that faint line on the pregnancy test mere 6 days after conception.
We couldn’t be happier though! She’s what we planned, she’s all we wanted!
My main complaint about the 2nd tri was hip pain. I had a couple really bad weeks where my hips were spreading and it was VERY painful to do much of anything (besides swim, swimming was wonderful). I also don’t remember that as much from my first pregnancy. I’m 36 weeks now, and the last two weeks have been pretty rough. A lot more uncomfortable, more tired, more irritable. I’ve been having a lot of cramps/contractions lately but that’s not even it, just uncomfortable in general, hard to move and so on. I’m very grateful I’ve been able to enjoy so much of this pregnancy though.
What a fun post! To answer your question about how much longer you have of this “feeling good” part of pregnancy, I’m sure it all depends on the person (like everything else, right?). 🙂 It was around month 6 that I started feeling really lethargic and working out became difficult (but felt great other than that). Then I started feeling awesome again a few weeks later…I felt great up until week 36 or 37 and that’s when I started slowing down, feeling sore, getting terrible heartburn, peeing a hundred times a night (approximately, haha) and feeling ready to have Abigail! 🙂
LOve your photo gorwing! Can’t wait to see the next 4 months! 🙂 When you have your baby I will probably be obsessing over your blog… with all the beautiful self portraits you will be able to capture with you and your baby, will be so amazing!
The end of week 33 became my miserable feeling week. I’m super uncomfortable, all the time. Especially now that she’s dropped into my pelvis and I feel like she’s going to fall out. However, I felt mostly great from week 21-33. I was terribly ill until 20 weeks.
Oh well, it’s all worth it in the end, right? 🙂
What an awesome photo post! I just love how you formatted the weeks 1-20 belly pics – how amazing to see the progression. (Wishing here I would’ve taken one per week…I’m more like 1 per month.) You look great – keep on happily growing that sweet little one 🙂
Love the recaps! I thought the second trimester was definitely the best. Although I guess I had a totally easy pregnancy overall. I’m glad that you aren’t sick anymore!
Wow! You really popped from 14-16 weeks and again majorly from 18-20! I popped from 14-16 weeks then again majorly from 34-36 weeks. https://m.facebook.com/#!/media/set/set=a.2374773976809.2136464.1474350042&type=1&__user=1474350042
Ok that didn’t work quit like I wanted.. Oh well!
PS if you can’t tell, I’m creeping in your archives lately :]
You pregnant? 😉
Hahaha no. Just enjoying browsing through the archives. I didn’t come across your blog till you were well into your 3rd trimester so I’m just looking to see what I missed.
Amazing photos….what did you do to not gain weight. I’m a slender woman and am 9 weeks in. I’m bloated most of the time and going to the gym has been difficult because of my tiredness and nausea. I’m trying but so tired. Any advice
Nothing special! I was in a super great shape to begin with, so it held up for quite a while. I gained a ton actually! But it was what I was supposed to gain.
I ate really well making sure it was full of vitamins and minerals and well rounded, I didn’t indulge (much at all), I exercised a little bit. But mostly what did it is the fact that I was really fit before going into pregnancy. I think that was key. In fact, I was in a better shape after giving birth than I am now after 2 years of sleepless nights and no time for work outs with a toddler.
If you eat healthy and do just a little bit of exercising, you’ll do great!
Oh and I didn’t do anything when I was nauseous. It hit me bad, so I was in bed all day.
I’m so glad you replied so thank you very much. I’m slender and active not as fit as you though, but healthy enough. I miss the gym and feel exhausted all the time. I just hope it gets better.
It does get better, but then you’re too big to work out comfortable. It’s a lose-lose 🙂 haha
Your only hope is that when the baby is born, you’ll be able to find enough time to work out. And then if you’re naturally slender you can quickly get back into your normal shape.
Plenty of women do it. The issue is time and often energy. Good luck, Melissa!
Thank you so much!