Hi friends! I’m thrilled to share some happy news with you today: Riese is going to be a big sister!
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Due Date + How far along I am
I am 15 weeks as of a couple days ago! It has been hard to hide this from you friends, although it’s been easier during these weird times where we all stay at home and don’t do much vs. last time when I was out and about a lot. 😉
Our little spring baby is due on May 26, 2021. I think it will be nice to have a baby in the spring so we have the summer to be out and about (vs. with Riese being born in late November, it got cold fast). We will just have to be careful to keep the baby cool enough in the hot weather!
All my friends said that with second (and subsequent) pregnancies, you show a lot faster, and that has definitely been the case for me this time!
Literally the week before I found out I was pregnant some of my tighter shorts stopped fitting. I basically had to wear maternity or larger size shorts right away because regular stuff was uncomfortable!
Now that the weather is colder, I’ve mostly just been wearing leggings. The lululemon Align leggings have been my favorite – last time I didn’t wear them when I was pregnant because I didn’t want to stretch them out (they aren’t maternity, and they aren’t cheap), but I’ve since learned from others that they are apparently amazing for pregnancy and don’t stretch out, so I’m giving it a shot! So cozy and they fit much better than the maternity-specific leggings I have, which tend to ride down or be kind of awkward in the belly.
I thankfully have a ton of maternity clothing from last time; I got a lot of hand me downs from friends, and then I lent out the clothes a lot over the past couple years and they always came back with more stuff included.
That said, a lot of it is the opposite season (tons of summer stuff) or work-appropriate nice clothing (lol, remember when we used to dress up?) so I may need to get a few more casual tops in particular, like sweaters. Last time I didn’t really need sweaters or a maternity-specific coat because it didn’t get that cold before Riese arrived!
Here’s a picture of me a few weeks ago at 13 weeks – the bump is getting quite obvious from certain angles, especially now approaching 16 weeks – I’ll share more pics soon! I’ve been able to hide it in photos from the front up to now but from the side and in person, not so much. 🙂
How I’ve been Feeling
Pretty much like garbage, to be honest. Let me preface this by saying that feeling like garbage in the first trimester obviously 100000% pales in comparison to wanting to be pregnant and not being pregnant. So if that is you, I see you and I am thinking of you and sending love and hope. <3
That said, not feeling good is no fun, especially when you have a toddler to chase around. The first trimester was a lot tougher this time than it was last time simply because I couldn’t chill when I wanted to!
Last time when pregnant I was working full time, but by 5 every day I could basically park myself on the couch and not move the rest of the night, and weekends I could do whatever I wanted. But this time, we have a very active toddler in the mix!
Matt has been amazing, though; there was a couple month stretch where he was basically single parenting every night from 5 on – making dinner, cleaning up, and getting Riese to bed, too. I feel incredibly grateful to have such a supportive partner who has made this phase more manageable.
The main things I’ve felt are crazy exhaustion (but weirdly coupled with some insomnia which is annoying) – for a couple months it would be 9 a.m. and I’m like, okay, literally all I can think about is crawling back into bed right now. I’ve also had a lot of nausea/food aversions that started around week 5 or 6.
I had the same constant nausea all day last time, too – I don’t actually throw up (though I get close sometimes) but it just makes choking down food tough. It’s a catch 22 because if I get too hungry I feel 1,000 times worse, but I never want to eat because nothing sounds good.
For awhile this baby was basically 75% grilled cheese and tomato soup and 25% yogurt and fruit, but thankfully I’m able to eat more normally again nowadays. I’m still not super excited about food, and the nausea is still there a bit, but it’s a lot better.
They other key is eating right before I go to sleep, even if I’ve just had dinner – I’ve most been eating perfect bars or my peanut butter oatmeal cookies right before bed because otherwise I wake up hungry nauseous at 2 a.m.
The other thing that’s going on is my emotions are all over the place. I am sure some of this is due to the general state of very high anxiety in the world right now, but I had forgotten how the pregnancy hormones, for me, tend to make me feel like I’m teetering on the edge a lot emotionally. It’s weird and unsettling to not feel like yourself, you know?
Anyway – obviously this is all 100000% worth it, but I am grateful to be in the second trimester now, not only from a how I feel standpoint but also from an anxiety standpoint – Matt and I were both more nervous this time about something happening than we were last time. We aren’t out of the woods now I know but being in the second trimester makes me feel less nervous.
Last time, I started feeling better about 11 weeks; this time, I just started feeling better slowly around 13/14 weeks and it’s still a bit hit or miss. I still have some nausea and aversions, and by evening most days I’m still completely done and in bed before Riese, but it’s definitely better than it was and I am so grateful to have some energy back!
Boy or Girl?!
When I got pregnant with Riese I was super sure right away that we were having a girl and as you know I was right. This time, I thought boy initially, but then I kept going back and forth for awhile, not sure. Finally the day before we found out I decided to stick with my boy prediction.
We found out with these super cute little fall-themed scratch off cards from Etsy that my friend Karen ordered for us – fun, right?
I had my doctor email her our results and she ordered them for us so we could all be surprised – I did the same for her a couple years ago so it was nice of her to return the favor! We scratched them off when we were together last week with both my parents and Matt’s parents, and I sent extra cards to our siblings so they could join in on the fun via Zoom, too.
Turns out I was right: Riese is going to have a little brother!
Matt and I were both somehow not surprised and also completely surprised when we saw “it’s a boy!” on the card!
I feel more nervous about having a boy for some reason – probably because it’s different than what we are used to (I mean, obviously it’s not really that different when they are babies except for potty training stuff later on), but you know what I mean.
We are really excited, though – as much as I know Riese would have loved to have a sister, it will be fun to have one of each!
Do we want more kids?
Matt and I feel our little family will be complete with two children, so if everything hopefully continues to go okay, this will be it for us.
Once we found out we were going to have a boy, I felt really motivated to go through the stockpile of baby/toddler girl clothes we had saved. It made me a little weepy to see all the sweet and TINY little outfits Riese has worn over the years that I now know we won’t use again, but for the most part it was nice to declutter and organize. There was a decent amount of stuff from the first year we are going to reuse, but after that we had mostly super girly stuff.
We ended up having almost 10 big bags of clothes to give away! Luckily a neighbor on our street just had a baby girl a few weeks ago, so they got most of the first year stuff, and the older stuff got passed on to other friends.
I’m glad it will all go to good use and that we’ll get to see some of the outfits around town, too. 🙂
How does Riese feel about all this?
She’s excited! I mean, of course she doesn’t really get it, but in theory she understands the idea that “there’s a baby in mommy’s belly” and that the baby will come out when it’s ready. She keeps asking: “Is my baby ready to come out NOW?”
Riese is definitely an extrovert like me so I think she’ll like having a sibling, and we always knew we wanted her to have a little buddy. Of course it will be awhile before they can actually play together, but she’s been sweet in the past with friend’s babies so hopefully she’ll be at a good age to “help” with the baby a bit once he arrives. We’ll see!
I’m sure there will be some jealousy but I think the fact that she’ll be 3.5 years old should maybe make it a little easier vs. if she were 2? Maybe it’s just wishful thinking… we’ll see.
How fitness has been going
Fitness has been hit or miss!
Part of it is that I like working out with other people and going to in-person classes and there hasn’t been much opportunity to do that lately for obvious reasons, and part of it has been that I’ve just been so freakin’ exhausted.
Walking has still felt good, so I’ve been keeping up with that, and now that the weather is cold and I have a little more energy running has actually been feeling good, too. Last time with Riese I stopped running around this time because it was getting really hot out and I don’t love running in the heat when not pregnant let alone when pregnant.
But this time the timing has been better with the second trimester energy return (ish) coinciding with cold weather, which is my favorite for running.
I actually just bought a new pair of running shoes on Black Friday that have more support which I think will help because my ankle has been bothering me and I’d like to keep running as long as it feels good/I feel up for it this time because it always lifts my mood.
In terms of strength training, I’ve been continuing to do my brother-in-law’s virtual workout classes once or twice a week, when I feel up for it, and just modifying them as it feels appropriate. We’ve also been doing a private virtual training session once a week which has been nice because he’s been able to tailor it to me and do more slow strength stuff and pregnancy appropriate moves vs. the higher intensity jumping around stuff in class.
I was really enjoying outdoor yoga until a couple weeks ago, but that’s pretty much done now due to the weather being too cold. So, I’ll continue to keep up the at-home strength training and will continue to get out for walks and runs when I feel up for it!
Exercise does usually leave me feeling better after doing it, the exception being if I try to make it happen when I’m too exhausted.
Thank you for reading!
I’m so happy to finally be able to share this news with all of you! Thank you for reading and for sharing in this exciting time with us.
If you have any other questions for me, I’m happy to answer them!
