1st Trimester Recap - Wells

My first trimester was uneventful. I mean extremely uneventful. It was... quite boring really. Even if I tried, I don't think I have enough "material" to fill each week with, which I suppose is actually a very good thing. Although, a small part of me does wish that there were exciting weekly changes, riveting updates and happenings. But honestly, just a few small changes and symptoms to note. So rather than do my normal thing with writing about each week separately, for the first trimester I will just document those few little changes I have been going through over the past 10ish weeks or so.

So here's a few things that I have noticed...

- I forgot how SOON the whole "having to pee every hour" thing starts! Literally DAY 1 of being pregnant, I was already getting up at least once per night, usually more. (Blood begins to flow much faster through your kidneys. This is also due to the increase in blood volume - your body goes into overdrive immediately to begin filtering all of the extra blood. Pregnant women have about 50% more blood than they did prior to becoming pregnant!) Baby also is surprisingly WAY low at this point - We actually had a hard time finding baby's heartbeat at my 12 week appt. because he/she was practically inside of my bladder. Maybe, if I'm lucky, I will get a little bit of relief as baby grows up and out of my pelvis... although I will never be ungrateful for low low babies!

- No nausea, morning sickness, cravings or aversions. I have had moments of feeling yucky, but nothing major. (Feelings of general crappiness, but not really able to put my finger on any sort of specific source. Just moments of feeling gross.) I do HATE the smell of fish and can hardly stand it when we are preparing even simple things like salmon. *GAG*

- I have noticed that with this pregnancy, I have been much more moody early on than before (or at least, if I was this moody with my first pregnancy I was unaware of it ;)...sorry Ryan!) Luckily I think (??) this seems to have somewhat balanced out...maybe...hopefully. 

- Vivid dreams. MAN those hormones make my dreams INSANE. This also makes it difficult to feel well rested when I wake up because often I am so stressed out in my sleep!

- I have been very tired. Quite exhausted. However, at this point it is hard for me to really know how much being pregnant is contributing to this and how much it is just being a person. I mean, isn't everyone tired all the time?

- Stomach cramps - this time my growing and stretching uterus hurts. You would think after doing this already the thing would just know what to do no problem, but I can definitely feel the pain and discomfort of it growing and stretching. Subsequently, the pressure from my uterus has also cause a LOT of intestinal discomfort. Almost on a daily basis, I get intense intestinal cramps - it always feels like I have major indigestion and am about to be sick. Fortunately, this is not ACTUALLY the case... but it sure sucks.

- Right around the 12 week mark, I noticed that increase in mucus production as I started to feel my nasal passage swell at night time, making it much harder to breathe when I sleep or am lying down. 

- The "fun" pregnancy hormones have also made their comeback sometime during the 3rd month of pregnancy so yes, I now have the sex drive of a 12 year old boy again. Party time.

- Also, those suuuper sore, painful tender growing breasts that happened during my first pregnancy are not there (making my runs much more comfortable hah!) They have definitely already increased drastically in size and occasionally I will notice the tiniest amount of soreness, but for the most part I have had no discomfort in that area. 

- It's also very strange to realize (again) how LONG it takes to start showing! With minimal nausea and other pregnancy symptoms, I really have hardly felt pregnant at all. I am still maintaining a normal activity level (running/training for a half marathon, yoga, etc.) diet, etc. I feel almost completely myself 90% of the time. 

- With regards to activity level/running... Now that I have been through this once before, I feel so much more confident during my runs. I know that I am/would be able to differentiate between normal aches/cramps/discomfort and if something were to feel wrong or that I needed to stop. For me, this means continuing to push myself. I am comfortable still focusing on speed, setting pace goals, etc. With my first pregnancy, I just went as fast or slow as I wanted and just focused on completing my runs. I must say... I feel amazing. My training for this half is going just as well (better actually) than most of my past non-pregnant half marathons. I am excited to see how these next few months go! (More on this later!) Yoga has been so nice also because I don't have to worry about modifications or not being able to bend in the middle yet...it's only a matter of time though so I'm trying to enjoy a squishy mid-section as much as I can right now!

So that's that! Nothing crazy. Grateful that I have been able to enjoy this time and take advantage of our limited time as a family of 3. It's already going by so fast! Slow down time!!

First glance of Baby K #2 at 9 weeks.

13 week pic of baby.