16 Weeks Pregnant - can you sleep comfortably while pregnant?
Ahhh...sleep in pregnancy! Quite the topic! It can be more challenging than non-pregnancy sleep for so many reasons… Before my first was born, I spent probably the second half of the pregnancy trying ALL sorts of pillow combinations to get comfortable. I would get SUCH sore hips, and it seemed I spent all night rolling from one side to the other to get some relief. And when I say “rolling”, of course I mean, “picking up my belly, managing to manoeuvre onto the other side, and putting my belly down again” 😂
15 Weeks Pregnant - I felt my baby move!
During the week I ran a poll on my Instagram stories asking for votes on when I might feel baby move for the first time. For reference, I said that I felt my first moving at 19-20 weeks with anterior placenta, and my second at 17-18 weeks with anterior placenta. This time I have a posterior placenta, and I asked if people thought I was likely to start feeling movements from 14-15 weeks, 15-16, 16-17, or 17+.
14 Weeks Pregnant - the second trimester
So when does the second trimester start? There’s quite a bit of variation here. Some people say the first trimester is weeks 1-12, some say 1-13 and some say 1-14. Logically, since “trimester” means 3 months, I think 13 weeks would have to be the closest (there are a few days more than 4 weeks in a month, so over 3 months it adds up to an extra week). But I can also see the sense of going with 14 weeks, since that is only about 12 weeks from conception... But you know what? I don’t really care any more! For me, the first trimester ends when the placenta takes over and I start feeling more normal again!
13 Weeks Pregnant - the blessing of health
This week we had a visit from our midwife, Haylie — the official booking-in visit. She was apparently shocked to see the results of my first trimester blood tests with all levels in the recommended ranges. Apparently I’m abnormal 😂 I have to say I do feel like a bit of a boring character at these booking-in appointments, not having any of the possible medical conditions they have to ask me about! Jokes aside, I am very thankful for good health!! It is such a blessing, and I don’t take it for granted…
12 Weeks Pregnant - the first ultrasound!
We got to see our baby!! Clearly there could be no other highlight this week! The 12 week scan showed a happy health baby, developing well and with a good strong heartbeat. We all went as a family, and the girls were thrilled to see. L (14 months), said “bebè” for the first time (the Italian for baby). She’s not saying many words yet, so that was really special. And then she couldn’t help herself as she watched the baby move around and let out an “Awww!” 🥰 Made my heart melt 🥰
11 Weeks Pregnant - the “in-between phase”
Just an ordinary busy week! It seems a bit crazy to say it so soon, but I feel like I’m already entering what I call the “in-between phase” of pregnancy, where the first trimester symptoms are diminishing or gone, but you can’t feel the baby yet, so you kind of don’t feel pregnant except for the fact that your belly is growing (especially if you’re a third-time mum and everything remembers how to stretch so easily 😂). I wasn’t symptom-free till 13-14 weeks with my last two pregnancies, and technically I do still have symptoms now, but they’re not really impacting my daily life too much. I found this in-between phase pretty challenging with my second pregnancy (first after loss), since naturally the first pregnancy there’d been a negative connotation to loss of symptoms. But last time and this time I’ve been a lot more relaxed about it…
10 Weeks Pregnant - crazy dreams!
It’s crazy how pregnancy affects your sleep! I don’t remember it starting so early my other pregnancies, but maybe that’s just my brain blissfully shutting off those memories 😂 If I wake up during the night, I’m wide awake. And what seems like at least half the time I’m sleeping, my brain is going crazy with calculations. Why calculations? Nooooo idea. Maybe this baby is going to love maths? A couple of nights ago my brain was figuring out the right sizes for wedding cake tiers to serve all the guests (an actual thing I was working on during the day in preparation for making a couple of family wedding cakes). All while I was asleep. Last night my we took it up a notch and invented a new client who lives 2 hours and 20 minutes away (yes, I remember looking it up on Google Maps in my dream, and seeing the exact travel time!), and I was trying to figure out how on earth I was going to fit in a home visit of an afternoon with all the driving time factored in as well. For the record, I do not take clients that far away, it was just my brain having fun 😂