My First Trimester Experience - Round 2

I had so much fun documenting my pregnancy with Finn the first time around, I thought I'd do the same for this one. I can't tell you how many times I've gone back and re-read the weekly bump-dates from my first pregnancy. I've never regretted sharing that information. It's like an online journal that I get to revisit whenever I want.As I said in our announcement, this pregnancy has felt a lot different - both physically and mentally. For starters, this baby was planned. We made the decision around Christmas to start trying, and it didn't take long to see a plus sign on the pregnancy test.

How We Found Out

I had been tracking my cycle with several pregnancy apps since about Thanksgiving. I learned a ton about the time period between when you're fertile and when you may have a positive pregnancy test, only because I was reading everything I could online! The "two week wait" as they call it is full of anxiety and watching for every little symptom. When we went to the Bahamas, I was due to take a pregnancy test the day we got back. I was so sure I was pregnant. We were even talking about it at dinner the last night we were there. I barely drank anything just to be safe. However, the day we were traveling home I got my period and I was so bummed. I only experienced that feeling once and it was heartbreaking. My heart goes out to those who feel that month after month.In March I started buying pregnancy tests the day my app told me that there was a slight chance at a positive. Of course it was too early and the first few turned up negative. Finally, two days before my period was supposed to start, I took two pregnancy tests, both with pretty faint lines on them. David wasn't convinced, so I waited another two days and took the last one. It was a Monday before work. I got up early, took the test and showed it to him. We were both thrilled!

Stress & Symptoms

Pretty much from the moment I found I was pregnant our lives became completely crazy. We had to start packing up our apartment, finalizing paperwork for our house, figure out a living situation since our closing date had been pushed back, and on top of all that, still be parents to Finn.My symptoms started at about 6 weeks. (Fun fact: Pregnancy starts from the first day of your last period. Therefore, when you take a pregnancy test, you are already about 4 weeks along. Obviously, you haven't been pregnant that whole time since you have your period, then you ovulate and all that fun stuff. This is also the reason why pregnancy is 40 weeks long, but they say you are pregnant for 9 months. The math doesn't add up, but when you add those first four weeks, it makes sense!)  Nausea, sore boobs, bloating, all the fun stuff. I started showing at 8 weeks! I had so many food aversions, I can't even list them all, and was throwing up roughly 3-4 times a week in the morning. It hasn't been fun, but now that I'm turning the corner out of the first trimester, things are feeling better.

Does Finn Know?

Finn knows that there is a baby in Mommy's belly, but there's no way the kid understands what is about to happen. He is so sweet with babies wherever we go, so I can't wait to see him with his brother or sister. Right now, it's easy to get distracted from being pregnant because of him. He is my best little buddy, so I love just spending time with him!

All The Feelings

Regardless of how excited we were to find out we were expecting another baby, my emotions have been all over the place. I'm pretty terrified, to be honest. There's so much more to being a mom than just making sure baby is fed, and knowing everything I know now about the newborn stage, I can't help but get a little anxious thinking about those first few months. I'm stressing about Finn's role, about money, about potentially sending two kids to daycare, about David and I finding time for one another. I know these are all very normal things since I felt them with my first pregnancy as well, but it's hard to push them aside.

The Most Popular Questions I Get Asked

Yes, we are planning to find out the gender, but since we opted out of the 12 week screening for Down's Syndrome, we will have to wait until 20 weeks. We made the same decision with Finn and we never regretted it. Our mindset is that no matter the baby we bring into this world we will love him or her unconditionally. Plus, I think it's kind of fun to have to wait a little while to find out the gender! It gives us lots of time to speculate. While we will be telling the gender of the baby once we find out, I'm not sure if I'll be sharing it on the blog. My Dad likes to be surprised and since he's a reader, I can't share all the details here!Yes, we have several names picked out already. Picking out baby names is just a fun conversation to have, so we've been talking about this for as long as I can remember. We had several boys names locked down quite early on, but finding a girl's name has been much tougher! I think we may have settled on one though! And just like with Finn, we won't be announcing the name until he or she is born.