My Big Fat Belly 2.0 - Weeks 8-11

How far along:  Weeks 8-11

Symptoms:  Nausea peaked at week 8.  Justin and Carter and I were supposed to go to Pensacola to visit Justin’s grandparents and the night before we were leaving, I had a date with our bathroom floor from about 1-3am.  Needless to say, a 4 hour car drive wasn’t in my future, so I stayed home while they went to Florida.  Week 8 was so bad in the nausea department that I finally caved and called my doc to get some zofran.  It helped  A LOT.  The nausea even started to decrease at the end of week 9 and I only needed the zofran every other day or so.  With Carter, my predominant symptom at this point was just sheer exhaustion.  I was sleepy ALL the time.  That’s not really the case with this pregnancy.  I think it may be  because I work out 5-6 days a week this time and with Carter I barely worked out.   By the end of week 11, the nausea was almost non-existent.  THANK GOD.  Other symptoms – boobs still hurt like crazy, peeing more than usual but not too frequently, the insane hunger has decreased a bit, and I’m starting to have those round ligament pains if I stand up too quickly or turn too sharply.

Maternity Clothes:  I’m still baffled by this.  Not only am I not wearing any maternity clothes yet, but I also still very rarely wear the belly band.  I usually wear it with my nice pants that I wear to church, but that’s about it.  My jeans still fit decently, though they are starting to get snug, but usually I can just use a ponytail holder to loop around the button to fix that.  At this point with Carter, I was consistently wearing the belly band because none of my pants fit and starting in week 12 with him, I stuck to dresses and skirts.  I just always thought you showed so much sooner with a 2nd one.  I experienced that around week 9 in this pregnancy and was shocked when I started showing, but then I didn’t grow very much from there and I even think that some of that was just the bloating you experience in the first trimester and to some extent, it went away after a couple of weeks.   

Weight Gain:  So far a little over 3 pounds.  The nausea isn’t really helping with this.  If I begin to feel nauseous, I try to eat something with carbs and that helps a lot in the throwing up department…but not so much in the weight gain department :(  I was so obsessed with my weight gain with Carter but after having lost one baby back in December, I will say that I could hardly careless about how much weight I gain.  Trust me, that doesn’t mean I’m eating everything in sight.  I’m a healthy person and stick to healthy foods for the most part.  I just don’t beat myself up if I want mexican one night and a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream another night.  During week 11 with Carter I was only up two pounds but I’m still ok with that because my overall weight is still about 9 pounds less than it was with Carter at 11 weeks.

Sleep:  Sleep is relatively normal right now.  No major issues other than just peeing in the middle of the night.  Sometimes I use unisom, sometimes I don’t.  Just depends on how tired I am.  I will say that it’s starting to get harder to wake up early to workout.  I just have to force myself to do it.  But sometimes I will cave and just lay in bed and watch some TV.

Cravings/Aversions:  My hunger is higher than the non-pregnant version of myself, but I try to control cravings and not give in all that often.  Pre-pregnancy, I’d eat a small meal every 3 hours, but now I’m eating about every 2-2 1/2 hours.  If I’m eating that often, I try to make it lower calorie snacks.  This “being hungry extremely often” phase started fading around week 11 and I’m getting back to normal eating now.

Gender:  Still thinking pink, but will be ecstatic for either.  There’s pros for both genders honestly.  With pink, I can finally have a girl to teach to dance and wear hair bows.  And seriously, who doesn’t want one of each?  My husband-that’s who.  He wants a house full of boys to outnumber me.  With blue, I’ll never have to buy clothes!  He could have all Carter’s old clothes and his old toys.  Recycling would be key!  And lots of people see me as a mom of boys.  Maybe because I’m not extremely girly.  Either way, I will be happy just to have this sweet baby in my arms.

Exercise Routine:  Same as before.  Usually go to one Pure Barre class a week, one Mommy & Me Time Fitness class a week (I can bring Carter to these so it’s convenient) and I do a P90X workout at home about 3-4 days a week.  Yes, that means I workout about 5-6 days a week.  I didn’t really workout much with Carter at all.  All of this is much easier now that I stay at home!

What I Miss:  I wasn’t expecting this with a pregnancy with a 2nd child, but I miss picking up Carter whenever I want.  I know I’m only 11 weeks along now, but Carter weighs over 30 pounds.  I can’t just pick him up and swing him in the air to play with him anymore because I get those round ligament cramps.  And soon, I’m going to miss the crib, because Carter will have to go to a toddler bed in about a month or two.  I can’t keep bending over the crib rail to get him out with a belly!  Trying to hold out on getting the big boy bed until we know the gender of this baby.  What we will do is move Carter’s crib and his changing table to the baby’s room (most likely will be painted, particularly if it’s a girl) and we will buy Carter his own toddler bed.  We have seen one at Buy Buy Baby that we like and we will let Carter pick out his own bedding sheets, though Justin and I already know which one he will pick.  There’s one on display there that is of Elmo and Cookie Monster as firemen with a fire truck.  100% sure he’ll pick that one.

What I’m Looking Forward To:  Our next appointment is April 18th and that’s our 12 week appointment so I’m really looking forward to hearing the heartbeat on the Doppler.  I told Justin we can announce on social media outlets once we’ve heard the heartbeat again at that appointment.  Some of my family members are getting impatient with us keeping it on the down low but I know they understand why that’s important to us.

Baby Size:  During week 11, baby was the size of a lime!

Who Knows:  Most of our close  friends and family and our church know by now.  I haven’t exactly been calling people up that I don’t see on a normal basis and telling them though, so there are a few people that we still need to inform.  Basically we’ve been rolling with the “if we see you in person, we’ll tell you, but if we don’t see you often enough, you probably don’t know yet”.

Other Comments:  I got my fetal Doppler back that I lent to a friend during her pregnancy because I wanted to see if I could hear the heartbeat.  I tried it at 10 weeks and 1 day but heard nothing other than my heartbeat and the placenta.  With Carter, I first heard his heart beat at 12 weeks on my own Doppler, but that was because that was when I ordered it on Amazon.  Supposedly you can hear it on a Doppler at 10 weeks, so I gave it a shot at 10 weeks 1 day.  I didn’t hear anything (and surprisingly I didn’t freak out about it).  I waited another couple of days before trying again.  At 10 weeks 4 days I heard that precious sound!!!  I was so grateful and prayed my thankfulness to God as soon as I heard it.  I’ve been able to hear it every day since then which has been a nice convenience for someone who has experienced loss. 

Pictures:  I began taking pictures at 9 weeks because that was when I noticed a small bump.  Here I am at 9 weeks.  And Justin was out of town a lot of these weeks so I just took bathroom selfies…sorry.  I am an avid hater of selfies, but at least these selfies serve a purpose!  I thought to myself “holy cow if I look like this at 9 weeks, what will I look like at 12?!?!?”  Well there wasn’t much change between 9 and 12 weeks but here you go for comparison:

And at 10 weeks:

 

And finally at 11 weeks:

So as you can see, not a huge difference in the three weeks.  I guess I see more of a difference in week 11, but still not a big difference at all.