Well I’ve certainly fallen off the proverbial wagon in terms of keeping up with my weekly pregnancy blog posts this time around!! It’s been on my mind, but to be honest pretty much ever since I found out I was pregnant again, I’ve been in a constant state of survival mode, and finding a few minutes to sit down and write my weekly updates has been so tough!

Since I’ve missed so much ground from the first half of the pregnancy, I’ll sum it up for you in three words:

• Nausea
• Exhaustion
• Delirium

I was sick for a reeeeeeallly long time with this pregnancy, and still am sometimes, but the constant nausea is finally starting to settle down, and I’m able to enjoy (most) food again… hurray!! I never realized what a bummer it would be for most foods to make you sick, but man it was hard!! I’m very much conditioned to turn to food as a source of comfort when I’m feeling down and out, and man did I ever feel down and out for a lot of those first 20 weeks… but the problem was that food made things much worse, not any better. I’m still not really doing that well with very sweet things (here’s lookin’ at you Timbits), and things heavy in dairy (no Drumstick Ice Cream cones this time around…noooooo), but in general, I’m feeling much better and much more functional now, thank the high holy lord.

My energy levels have been a constant challenge, and still are at this point in the pregnancy. I’ve never felt exhaustion like I felt at the start of this pregnancy, it was all I could do to get through a day or to the next point where I could lay down and close my eyes. Keeping up with Austin has been incredibly tough (seriously, I don’t know what the boy runs on, cause it sure ain’t an overly healthy diet of vegetables and green juice, but he just keeps going and going and going!!!), but I’ve been doing my best to not let my slow-ass hold him back from the fun things that he wants to do.

Recently, Austin’s taken more interest in my belly and has started piecing together when we ask him “who lives in Mommy’s belly?!” that it’s not just a “BAAAAAABY!!” but “Austin’s baby brahhhhhther!!!” and it just melts my heart. I hope that he adjusts well to Little Babe (our nickname for this little man LOL), but think we could be in for some rough times as things settle into new normal once he’s born… although Austin is a total wild animal at home and with people he knows, he’s quite shy and reserved in new situations and around new people, and I think it might take him a while to get his head around a new little human being part of his world. We’ll see though, I’m hopeful that a little bit of prep work will make things easier for him… fingers crossed.

Aside from my symptoms, I’ve been freakin’ HUGE this time around compared to last time (so much so that I haven’t yet taken a bump picture… I just feel like a whale!!). I look at pictures from 22 weeks last time and think damn! I hardly look pregnant! This time I feel like I look 40 weeks already, have been in maternity clothes for the past month or more (please shoot me – the pants haven’t gotten any better), and just in general look like someone’s inflated me like a helium balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Mmmmm Thanksgiving… ❤

I’m trying not to worry about it too much, my activity level has been much lower then it was when I was pregnant with Austin, for three main reasons: 1) I’ve felt like garbage, 2) I’ve been exhausted and fall asleep pretty much as soon as Austin does and 3) Every minute that I have awake / functional, I want to spend with Matt and Austin and not at the gym. I’m still teaching BodyPump once a week, so that’s my one saving grace, and am trying to do some free weight stuff at home once in a while to keep some sort of muscle tone under all this flab. I figure I don’t need to actually be “in shape”, I just need to be in the same area code as “in shape” so that I can find it again after all is said and done with my pregnancy! I did get totally suckered in to buying this fit pregnancy program that I haven’t even opened yet (seriously, $40 well-spent Sara), and maybe one day I’ll get around to doing a few workouts from that program lol

We had our anatomy scan a few weeks ago, and for the most part things looked good with Little Babe, but there was one kind of scary thing that our OB mentioned, which was that there was a bit of swelling in both of his kidneys, most likely just because his system wan’t mature yet, and the valves needed to grow / develop some more. Apparently it’s a common finding, especially for boys, but I’m still nervous about it, and hoping that at our next ultrasound (September 12th!), things are looking better and less swollen.

I’m not sure if it’s because I recognize the movements more clearly now that I’ve been pregnant before, but Little Babe seems to be soooo much more active in there than I remember Austin being at this early stage! It feels like he’s constantly darting around in there and kicking forcefully, which I always get a smile out of. Austin was less of a kicker and more of a “pusher”… he would always puuuuush his little legs against my stomach like he was trying to bust right outta there… so much so that I could clearly make out his little foot print through my skin LOL… we’ll see as Little Babe gets bigger and stronger how his movement patterns develop, but for now, he seems like very much of a “darter” LOL

This week I did actually have a kind of scary episode that landed me in the hospital on Thursday. I was at work when all of a sudden I had this crazy spell of black spots and couldn’t see at all for about 20 – 30 seconds… felt like I was going to pass out… so did the only logical thing, which was to stand up and walk outside to my car and drive away from the office lol… (I am, of course, kidding, that was probably the dumbest thing I could have done *insert eye roll here*). I drove myself over to the hospital to get checked out for any scary blood pressure issues or anything like that, and got sent right up to Labour & Delivery which was a bit scary, but they quickly checked me out once I got up there and assured me that it seemed like an isolated blood pressure dip, and that all looked good with Little Babe and with me at that point… so off I went, and onwards we go. Pregnancy is weird, I tell ya.

Anyways, the long -weekend is coming up, and I’m sooooo looking forward to a few days with Matt and Austin without having to deal with work… work has been slowly sucking the life out of me over the past few months, and I’m really feeling like I need a break these days. Hopefully the long weekends will keep me going until I take a week off in October, and hopefully THAT will get me through to December… 😀

Anyways, happy long weekend to all – hope you have a great one and I’ll see you back for 23 weeks next week (mark my words!).

-Sara & Little Babe

xo

 

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