Pregnancy Update: 19 Weeks

Today I am in the final day of the 18th week of pregnancy, so figured I'd begin talking about my 19 week pregnancy update! Here we go...

Doctor's Visits: I'll start with doctor's visits since I recently had my 18 week appointment last Tuesday. My health checked out great - blood pressure was in range and weight was healthy. I've gained about 6 to 7 pounds since my 8 week appointment, but 9 lbs since pregnancy test results. I will talk more about my gains in the "weight" section! We heard baby's heartbeat at 150 BPM. Doctor said baby was nice and healthy in there! I also had blood drawn for spinal bifida, which came back negative. Thankful for those results. To be honest, the appointment was quite uneventful. I mean, I was SO excited to hear baby's heartbeat because I get nervous between each appointment, wanting to know that he/she is healthy in there, so hearing the heartbeat made for the appointment, but other than that, it was a rather boring appointment ha! The doctor looked at me as if to say, "Do you have anymore questions?" I tried to think of something to ask her, but honestly couldn't think of anything. We did talk about my weight (of course), and I told her I was about 4 pounds heavier than I was with my last pregnancy at this point, but she insisted that my weight was completely find and on track. I will be seeing her at 22 weeks and at that point we will have the anatomy scan, so prayers for that appointment for sure!

Overall Energy: My energy feels great! I am sleeping like a rock, mostly 9 hours+ at night. The only thing that wakes me up is to use the restroom. I think I pee either once or twice per night, which. honestly isn't that bad. Sleep is great, so I can't complain, and on most days my energy is plentiful.

Workouts: Still working out almost every day, although last week I had a few hiccups because Rhett was sick with HFM for the first time! We had to take a hiatus from all of our routine daily play activities, including my trips to the gym. I was super bummed about this, selfishly, because working out makes me feel SO good, and I also love to workout first thing in the morning before we get our day started together. With him sick, we were mostly stuck at the house. I'm not great at motivating myself to workout at home and because of that, ended up working out a few less days than I would have liked to. Now that he is better, I am back on track. I have still been doing spin, but have found a newfound love for the body shred class. It is a thirty-minute tabata type class, and it is awesome. I still do most all of the exercises - burpees, squats, jumps, etc. The only thing I try to avoid is the ab portion, although I still do planks, which I read are actually good during pregnancy (correct me if I am wrong). I am still spinning on occasion, but am starting to feel a little uncomfortable on the bike. Second trimester is known for round ligament pain, and I'm definitely having some painful sensations in my lower abdomen if I workout too hard. For instance, I was running the other day and had to stop because of the pain. Just trying to pay attention to my body and switch up my routine when it's called for, but overall, happy with how active I have been this pregnancy!

Diet: My diet has been pretty good. I've noticed it is a little bit harder to dictate my hunger sensations and also my satisfied sensations. What I mean by this is that I am less in-tune with how hungry my body is and how full it is.  Generally, when I'm not pregnant, I am very in tune with this aspect of my body, which makes eat easy to eat when hungry and stop when full. However, when I am pregnant, something happens - whether it is my hormones or the increased energy used by my body to grow baby - that is making it hard to read hunger signals. That being said, I think overall I am doing a great job with my diet. I am not overly strict, and allow myself to munch on things maybe that I wouldn't otherwise munch on - like the kids' gluten-free pancakes in the morning or a spoonful of almond butter during the day, but I wouldn't say that I'm going overboard. In fact, I think I have a good balance when it comes to diet. The problem for me is that when I become pregnant, the weight sticks to me like glue. So I could be eating as I would when not pregnant, and if I decide to indulge, the weight sticks. I try not to beat myself up over this, but it can become disheartening when you feel as if you are eating SO healthy, and any sort of imperfection in my diet packs on like 5 lbs. I know this is part of pregnancy, it just feels a little unnatural. I've noticed that a lot of the weight has already packed on in my thighs, but and lower back, and even my arms - a place I generally seldom carry weight. Thighs are to be expected for weight gain, but in my arms?? Come on! Anyways, I've somewhat come to terms with the fact that as long as I make healthy decisions, I am making a good decision for my body and my baby. Other than that, there is not much I can do about pregnancy weight gain. God is for sure in control of this one, and my body knows what to do to keep baby healthy. Sometimes I just wonder how some women stay so effortlessly thin while pregnant, and also lose the weight so fast during the postpartum period. And no one can sit here and tell me that it is because of diet! While I believe that a healthy diet is a HUGE reason for pregnancy and postpartum weight gain/loss, I also think that are far more other important factors that play an even bigger part. For instance, I know some girls that drop weight like crazy while breastfeeding, and others retain or even gain weight while breastfeeding. It is the weirdest conundrum, and I wish I could figure out the reasons why it happens. I have been on both sides of the situation, having lost a ton of weight while breastfeeding my first son, and then having gained weight while breastfeeding my second son. I guess we will see what happens with baby number three, although I'm not holding my breath for rapid weight loss!

Weight: 139/140 lbs. I am holding onto the 130's for dear life!! Since I hit the second trimester, I have been gaining at a steady 1 lbs per week, which is what every single doctor would recommend during pregnancy. I guess the annoying part is that given my past history with pregnancy weight gain, I generally gain the MOST in the third trimester. And sometimes in the second trimester, I even lost weight or held onto the same weight for a long period of time. For example, when I was pregnant with my second, I was 135 lbs in the second trimester until like 22 weeks or so. This time, I am already pushing 140 lbs an I'm only 19 weeks. I know I shouldn't be concerned, I know how much I gain in the final trimester of pregnancy, so I try to keep the weight underwraps until then. Maybe I will gain less in the third trimester this time around? I guess we will see? I have a theory, also, that the reason my weight held so steady in my second pregnancy is because my pregnancies were back-to-back and also because I was still breastfeeding my first son through the first several months of my pregnancy with my second son. This could have impacted by hormones, thus causing a lower weight gain in the second trimester. Just a theory :)

Baby Movement: Feeling baby move is SO exhilarating! The movement started around 17 weeks and I try to track it and feel at least some movement daily, which I have. I obviously am not at the stage where you can see the movement from the outside, but I can certainly feel the movement from the inside. This baby is active, but I can't tell how active. My next door neighbor just had her third boy and before she gave birth (they didn't know the gender), she predicted it was another boy based on how active he was, and surprise, it was another boy. Based on how active this baby is, I think it might be another boy, but I guess we shall see!

Boy or Girl: No idea at this point. Most people think a little girl is on the horizon, which would totally shock my heart. We still don't have a girl name that totally blows my mind away, but again, we do have our boy name and it does blow my mind. I remember having this vivid moment when I was at the end of my pregnancy with Rhett as I was walking to class on the Georgetown campus, about his name... on my walk it hit me in that moment what his name was going to be and it was almost like it was predestined. At that point, we loved our boy's and our girl's name, but for some reason the boy's name stuck out so vividly. I love our current boy's name so much and would love to use it - so weird. I just need to find a girl's name that I am equally excited about! I guess when you don't find out the gender of the baby, the next best thing to feeling close to your little one is knowing what his or her name will be if it comes out that gender. Knowing the boy's name almost makes me feel a little closer to the baby if it were a boy; while not having a girl's name makes it hard to fathom. Not sure if that makes sense. But, I would LOVE a little girl (especially if she looks like me haha!!). If she looks like Ryan I would be so confused!! The desire for a girl was somewhat solidified this weekend when we were at the book store and all the boys wanted to look at were superhero books or Star Wars book or fighting books or Pokemon books. In that moment, I considered how fun it would be to have a little girl who I could take over to the princess section! While I always wanted a family full of boys, sometimes there is no room left for girly stuff - although my boys do make me feel like a princess every so often :)

Belly Size: so it felt like my belly popped right at 8 weeks and since felt like it has grown. Even the other night, my husband commented on the fact that I looked pregnant in my belly! I asked him if I really looked pregnant or if he was just saying that. And he was like, wait do you want me to tell you you look pregnant. This time, I was like, yes!! I want to look pregnant! At least in my belly lol. Then literally this morning I woke up and it felt like my growing belly has somehow disappeared! Maybe the baby just switched positions on me? Honestly, I don't know how I look so not pregnant today and looked so huge yesterday. Such a weird conundrum.

Final Thoughts: Overall, I am so happy that I am pregnant with our third baby. I took the boys to the zoo this morning and as we were driving home, I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by happiness. I thought, I am so lucky that I have two beautiful little boys in the back of my car and a belly full of another on the way. I am one lucky mama. I also had another thought that I can't imagine not being pregnant again, but whooaaaa, I need to stop myself way ahead of the game. I'm pretty sure that three will be plenty for the home and heart to handle.

Until next week!

​xx