13 Weeks Pregnant

13 weeks pregnant and little babe is the size of a lemon! It’s hard to believe I’m already in the second trimester. When I was pregnant with Ellis I didn’t do much to document the pregnancy or take photos of myself as my belly grew, which I regretted after he was stillborn. I want to do things differently with this pregnancy but it’s already going by so fast.

Ideally I’d like to give an update each week about how things are going.

At 13 weeks I’m starting to feel less fatigue, though now I have other symptoms such as headaches, occasional round ligament pain, and hip pain at night while sleeping (I had all of these with Ellis, too). My bump is really starting to pop out and I’ve begun the hunt for modern/versatile/affordable summer maternity clothes, which has proven to be a challenge. Any tips are welcome.

My favorite foods lately are almond butter toast, tortilla chips and cashew queso, and strawberries with dark chocolate.

For the past three weeks I’ve been doing a prenatal strength training program called Expecting and Empowered. It was created by two sisters, a physical therapist and a nurse/personal trainer, and is specifically designed to strengthen areas that are especially affected by pregnancy and birth, whether “natural” or c-section. I’ve never done consistent strength training before and I can already tell it’s going to be a game changer for me.

Emotionally I’ve felt pretty even keeled, mainly because I haven’t had any doctors appointments for the past three weeks. I’ve noticed I tend to get anxious leading up to each ultrasound. I’ve also been doing Parijat Deshpande’s Pregnancy Brain course to help with anxiety during pregnancy after loss—I highly recommend the course!

I “graduated” from my daily progesterone shots and estrogen pills, which has been so awesome. We did about 100 shots with this pregnancy, including the blood thinner injections I was on for six weeks. Now this feels more like a “normal” pregnancy. And I’ll take any bit of normalcy I can get.

That’s the update for this week!