I can’t believe that my pregnancy is already over half way through. When I think about baby coming in September I feel like we are forever away, but then when I look at the fact that I am currently (at the time of writing this) 23 weeks pregnant I can’t help but have a mini heart attack and feel super unprepared. That being said, my pregnancy has been wonderful so far, so I can’t complain… but gosh do I wish it would just slow down for a moment.
In case you aren’t also subscribed to our YouTube channel, you may have missed all of the pregnancy updates I’ve been giving so far. Every 4 weeks or so I am posting pregnancy updates, bump shots, and telling you about my experiences up until that point. I first shared my 12 week update shortly after we announced our pregnancy.
12 weeks
For now we are filming these updates with me sitting on our living room floor. There will come a time that this is no longer comfortable (or I can no longer easily navigate between the floor and standing, haha). When the nursery is finally completed or at least to a level that it is clean enough for me to head up there for these updates, then that is my final goal.
Our nursery is going to be the upstairs room that was previously what we considered my old office and guest room. It has kind of become a disaster over the last couple of months because I moved all of my office stuff to the studio office and also because we have not been regularly getting guests anymore. When the time comes to clean that room up, give it a coat of paint, and start moving baby furniture in, then I will be sure to share updates of that as well.
So as far as how I was feeling around the 12 week mark—I would describe it as pretty great. Right around this time I had started to get my energy back, was no longer nauseous (which I didn’t have too much nausea already), and just generally felt like myself. I was, however, having lots of issues with irregular bowel movements that at this point were regulated with some magnesium and general diet changes.
At the time of filming the update too I had felt like I had really grown. My said a couple times in the video that my bump was larger than expected at that point. This is laughable now, but I remember how excited I was to have a tiny little bump. As I continued to feel like I was getting bigger I also felt a lot of growth and discomfort in my hips. Everything was moving and shifting, my center of gravity was changing, and my body was compensating for the additional “growth” on the front of my body making my hips really move around and start to hurt.
Trevor and I were continuing to go on our regular walks during the time which is when I would often feel the most discomfort from my shifting hips, but also, I was noticing how out of breath I could get. There are many reasons that women get winded during pregnancy ,and it depends on whatever stage they’re in, but at this point I just couldn’t even help but get out of breath just by talking and walking.
Cravings and food aversions were not really something that I felt. I had general cravings that weren’t super consistent, and every night for me it was a different craving. Sometimes I was able to pick up on the fact that I wanted sugary fake fruity things. Stuff like grape juice, Kool-Aide, fruit gummies, gushers, and things like that. So, we were definitely concerned about my sugar at this point, but I knew that wanting more sugar while pregnant was not uncommon.
16 weeks
At this point baby was about the size of an avocado, and I was so excited about baby continuing to grow. Trevor even snapped some funny pictures of me using my tiny little bump as a table for some sunflower seeds that I was eating. I remember telling everyone I felt huge and being so happy to wear clothing that accentuated the little bump.
Because of my little bit of growth I was only wearing leggings (and still kind of am). I loved the look of maternity shirts that would show off my baby bump, but hadn’t been shopping yet to fill up my closet with maternity stuff. I was having a hard time buying anything at this point—for myself or baby—and I’m not entire sure why. I guess I just didn’t want to commit to new things (and I’m not much of a shopper to begin with).
My hips were still bothering me a bit, but my chiropractor recommended that I sit on an exercise ball and do some figure eight movements and wiggle around. After doing that I felt amazing and didn’t really have any more issues with my hips. Since then, I’ve purchased my own exercise ball to keep at home, and I use it all the time.
Other than my body growing and the general hip update, my 20 week video was really mellow. I was feeling so much like myself and totally great. If it wasn’t for my growing little bump, then there were definitely times that I could just forget that I was pregnant. I was soaking it up as much as I could because I knew that I was fortunate to be feeling this way. I had a lot of things that I was excited and ready to get done, and finally could, because I wasn’t tired anymore.
The only thing I did notice—and I didn’t even really know if it was pregnancy related—was a big bout of migraines that I was having during the week leading up to filming my 20 week update video. I’m still not sure if this was anything pregnancy related though because I have always suffered from pretty regular migraines. It just sucked even more being pregnant because I couldn’t take the medication I typically took for my onset of migraines. I was stuck taking just Tylenol which did not help at all.
My sense of smell is very heightened (even know) which has given me some food aversions because I just don’t like the smell of things. Nothing that makes me outwardly sick but certain stuff that just randomly makes me crinkle my nose and want to leave the room. My cravings on the other hand have stayed mostly the same and consistently have been anything fruity and sugary.
20 weeks
I’m finally feeling movement!! I absolutely LOVE feeling the little flutters of our baby moving around. Baby gives me little kicks and nudges, and every once in awhile really gets aggressive and shocks me with its power. Obviously at this point I am very aware of baby, but feeling the movements just makes everything feel so much more real.
Trevor has yet to feel any movements, even though we’ve tried a few times to have him lay next to me with his hands on my stomach. Without fail it seems like every time that we do that baby decides it wants to mellow out and not show dad what it can do.
We also had our 20 week anatomy ultra sound. We made a whole video about the ultra sound which you can watch here. But essentially everything looked great, we got to see our baby for the very first time, and we watched as it moved and wiggled all over the screen. There was even a time when our ultra sound technician told us that he was trying his best to anticipate the movements of our baby so that he could get the pictures that he needed even though baby didn’t want to hold still.
We also know the sex of our baby!! But we haven’t exactly shared that news. We haven’t been trying to keep it a secret, but we have planned to make a more grand announcement once our gender reveal vlog goes live on our channel. So, be sure to subscribe if you haven’t already.
Around the 20 week mark my mom took me shopping to finally get some maternity clothes (because it was apparent I was going to start needing something more to wear soon). We also got some things for the nursery!! This was super exciting because I hadn’t yet bought anything for the baby really at all, so having some nursery items got me amped to start the nesting process.
That being said, the nursery things are still sitting in boxes in my dining room waiting for me to clean up all of the things on the floor that I have in the nursery right now. I haven’t yet painted that room either, so it’s definitely a work in progress. I was hoping that the boxes sitting in my dining room would inspire (or maybe just annoy me enough) that I would start working on cleaning up the room up there, but alas it has not.
The last big baby related purchase we have made lately is MY NEW CAR! It has always been our plan and our goal to trade in my Prius for a larger vehicle when we were ready to grow our family. I knew that I didn’t want to be bending down into a low sitting car when I had to load up a baby in a car set. We knew we wanted to stick with Toyota because I love their customer service and the way that they have treated me as a customer over the last 5 or so years, so we stuck with them. We wound up getting the Toyota Hybrid Hylander XLE. Getting another hybrid vehicle was a must just because of how spoiled I was from my Prius. I can’t wait to use this car to death—it’s going to be our vehicle for a long long time.
In conclusion, I’m feeling really great this pregnancy so far. I know I am so fortunate to be having a decently easy pregnancy, so I want to make sure that I am not taking these feelings for granted. I am currently only feeling the most mild discomfort and not even on a regular basis. I know that I am lucky to continue to be moving around like normal and living a decently normal life while a baby grows inside me.
I can’t wait to give you all more updates in the future. Be sure to follow me on Instagram and YouTube as these will be the first places we announce the coming of our new baby and any other updates like that.
