Now you know why I have been so absent here lately. Expecting our first baby has been taking most of my time, but I am ready to share my pregnancy journey so far! I want to look back at this blog and remember when I felt him (it’s a boy!) kicking while I typed these words.
Just before we start, I think its safe to say that I am no doctor and this is not me giving you medical advice. I’m just talking about my experience with pregnancy. But if you feel something from here might work for you, talk to your doctor about it first.
getting ready
I don’t share much about my personal life here, but I think in this case, we need a little bit of context. L and I have been married for almost 6 years, but have been dating since high school. We always knew we wanted to have a family someday, but we wanted to enjoy each other first.
When the time came that we felt ready, I started taking some measures to make sure that I was as ready as I could be to prepare for this journey. Sure I had no clue of what my pregnancy was going to look like, but I wanted to do what I could to “help” if that’s even a thing. Between reading and talking to my doctor, these are the things that I started doing:
taking prenatals
This was the very first thing that I actively started doing in order to prepare my body. I started taking them almost for a full year before I got pregnant. This is something my doctor told me I could start doing (she recommended taking them at least 3 months before getting pregnant), and since I was already planning on taking a multivitamin of some sort, taking a prenatal was a no brainer.
She gave me a vary vague recommendation (basically any prenatal will do). Well, if you know me, you know I was not going to roll with this. Having been reading and following some advice from other Board Certified Naturopathic doctors that I trust, I ultimately landed on Ova Moon prenatals. I loved that the brand is very focused on women’s health, from period issues to hormone balance. I knew I wanted a great quality prenatal, and I loved also that the price was not over the top.
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reduced caffeine intake
I had reduced my coffee intake from everyday to a few cups over the week since I moved to AZ. But especially the few months before we started trying I stopped drinking coffee. I would only have a matcha latte every few days. I had read that caffeine in the first trimester is not recommended, and so, as soon as I got a positive test, I stopped even my sporadic matcha lattes. Now on my second trimester, I have started drinking a bit of caffeine again. But I I only do a cup or two of coffee over the weekend, and maybe one matcha during the week.
zero alcohol
No clue if this would affect fertility or not, but we all know it can definitely affect the baby. So I just stopped altogether to avoid regretting it later. I am not a bug fan of alcohol anyways so this wasn’t really hard. Aside from the occasional white wine with pasta, I usually would trade an alcoholic drink for a kombucha.
Aside from these, the next step would’ve been switching my skincare products to non-toxic. But we all know that I’ve already done that years in advance, so we were good in that arena.
first trimester
It was a Friday morning when I got the positive result. It was before my husband was leaving for work, and so I thought it would be more exciting to find out together. We were so excited, a bit overwhelmed and confused, but so excited. I had been having very slight symptoms until then, like mild cramping and sleepiness.
Well, I think that weekend was the last time I had of peace. This trimester has been by far the hardest thing I’ve had to endure health wise. It started with me being super tired, taking naps after every meal. Then certain smells started bothering me, and that caused the morning (or all day I should say) sickness. Even brushing my teeth would make me nauseous. I couldn’t really do much and my mood was not very positive. Laying down all day was driving me a bit nuts. I wanted to eat where potato chips and bread all the time. I would try to get a salad in here and there but the thought of preparing it made me dread them.
During this time, I ended up taking some medication to address the nausea, which helped some but it never really went away.
Another thing that I noticed right away was that my body was wasting no time in changing. My boobs started feeling super sore and almost felt like inflating balloons. Then my pants just stopped fitting. Most girls take longer to show, but not me. I had to get maternity bottoms right away, even my underwear started getting tight. This was definitely an adjustment that took a while to kick in, and I think you never get quite comfortable with it all.
second trimester
Little by little, the symptoms started dissipating and I was able to start living my life again. It started around the holidays so I was able to enjoy that times, which I was very grateful for. During my second trimester I felt my energy kicking back and my mood shifting for the better. I was able to start getting a lot of the things done that I had to put on hold. We have been focusing on some projects around the house, because we know we’ll shift our focus once Bean is here. We are working on the nursery currently and are so excited of how it is going to turn out.
The only symptoms I’ve been having are getting tired if I’m on my feet for too long. Usually the pain goes away on its own but sometimes I get to the point of needing a massage. And lately, since the bump is getting bigger, my upper back is starting to get sore by the end of the day.
Food wise, I have gone back to eating a more healthy variety of whole foods. I’ve also added a smoothie first thing in the morning before my normal breakfast. I am the hungriest in the morning. But I have noticed my appetite has normalized and even decreased as the days go by.
Finding a good doctor
This was really something that had me a little bit nervous. I’m usually am very hesitant about doctors, and their obsession with prescriptions and band aid approaches. But I know my limits, and I just know that an at home birth is not something that I want. It may happen, but not because I planned it that way. So my best bet was just finding a doctor that was hopefully going to meet me at least halfway. I wanted to have the option to try natural alternatives before trying out meds, during the pregnancy. For the birth, I want everything. I want it to be the least traumatizing as possible, which I know is very hard as births are unpredictable. But for that, I don’t want to claim that I feel like this absolute ninja that thinks of labor like a fight that they can take on alone. NOPE.
So after meeting with my doctor of the past few years, I didn’t felt at ease. I felt so overwhelmed with questions and the situation in general, and I felt like she dismissed my feelings. She cut me off before I started asking anything and didn’t really seem eager to calm my nerves. And another thing that I didn’t appreciate was the pushing to get the flu shot. I’m not totally against vaccines but I had my reasons to not get it and she tried to make me feel guilty about it. But after a lucky mistake, I got my third appointment booked with another doctor. And boy did we love her from the beginning. My husband and I felt immediately at ease to make questions, and made me feel more confident about the pregnancy.
approaching the third trimester
So now I am starting my third trimester and I will be sharing about it as well along with my birth story, but that won’t be until after baby comes. I always find it fascinating when reading other people’s birth stories about how different they can be, so I wanted to add my voice to that and hopefully my experience can help somebody.
