Wow! I’m actually having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I am officially about nine weeks away from my due date! I am 30 weeks and 3 days as of today. And phew, it’s been a journey let me tell you. And in case you’re new around here, we’re having a baby boy due roughly the first week of November.

First Trimester

This pregnancy has truly been a roller-coaster both emotionally and physically. Without getting into the nitty gritty, I would have to describe my first trimester as being a very emo one. Despite my hopes and dreams of being one of those glowing women who float ethereally through their pregnancy, I unfortunately landed on the complete other end of the spectrum. I spent a lot of time sporting a troll-like bun with my head stuck in the toilet, as well as lying in bed alternating between playing animal crossing and just straight up sobbing. Seriously, it was HARD. If you’re currently pregnant and dealing with ligament pain, round the clock nausea, lightning crotch (yeah, that’s a thing, how glorious), and giant hormonal mood swings, I feel you. Like I really really feel you girl, and I’m sending you the biggest virtual hug.

Oh, and let me just say that I was actually shocked at how extreme my food aversions were. I still cringe when I think back to a day during my second month of pregnancy - Shawn had proudly spent almost an entire day cooking up a chicken soup from scratch in the hopes that I’d be able to keep it down and get some nourishment (seriously, what a sweet man I have), but unfortunately it just wasn’t meant to be. While I’m sure it would have been delicious, we ended up packing it up and sending it over to the neighbor’s because just the smell of it wafting up the stairs had me immediately hurling. I still can’t eat or be around chicken soup because it brings up this memory and makes me feel ill. Sigh.

Due to extreme nausea and food aversions, I ended up actually losing about 20 pounds during my first trimester. What surprised me was how unconcerned my OB was about this, and how normal she said it was! That is definitely something I wish I had known beforehand because it stressed me out so much that I wasn’t gaining weight and I thought it was hurting baby.

Second Trimester

Things got better during the second trimester, and I found it easier to manage the nausea and actually live my life a little bit. That might sound dramatic, but during my first trimester, aside from my body doing the hard work of growing a human, I wasn’t able to personally accomplish all that much. That being said, a small silver lining to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic coinciding almost perfectly with this pregnancy was that I didn’t feel a ton of guilt taking a break off from work.

During the first week of the second trimester my food aversions were dissipating a little bit more each day, and I was able to start exercising a little bit and accomplishing some of my personal goals. Shawn and I decided to take advantage of this slight second trimester bounce-back and jump right into prepping the house for baby. We wanted to do all the prep early just in case my third trimester ended up being as rough as my first, since I wanted to be involved in as much of the cute baby prepping stuff as I could be. ;)

Psst, there’s a tour of our nursery in this video.

I took the photo above at exactly 21 weeks, which was the first week that my belly gently popped and actually started to ‘show’ that I was pregnant. But honestly, I think I still mostly looked bloated haha. ;)

Because I gained some energy back during my second trimester I also used this time to do as much research as I could and collected some reading material that would help get us ready for baby. My favourite books ended up being The Fourth Trimester by Kimberly Ann Johnson and Cribsheet by Emily Oster. I also picked up this gorgeous ‘As You Grow’ memory book for baby boy that I’ve slowly been filling with hand written notes and photo prints.

Week 21 was also when I ordered a few maternity wear pieces to better flesh out my closest for the coming months. I wanted to be super frugal with maternity wear since these wouldn’t be forever items, so I mainly shopped from Amazon for a few tops, and then borrowed some maternity bottoms (2 pairs of shorts, 2 pairs of jeans) from a friend. Then I just ordered two pairs of maternity leggings from Fabletics and that’s it! I think in total I only spent about $150 on maternity wear and it’s worked out great! I’m going to put together a budget maternity wear post next week with links to everything I bought because I’m actually super impressed with how well my purchases have worked out and with how well they should transition into the fall months ahead as well.

Now, even though I was physically starting to feel a bit better, heartburn became a big issue for me throughout my second trimester. I bring this up only because I want to yell from the rooftops that marshmallow root tea with honey was HUGELY helpful in easing the heartburn discomfort naturally. Seriously, try it. I mentioned this tip over on my Instagram stories and was FLOODED with messages from other mamas around the world who swore up and down that it had helped them too.

It was also during my second trimester that I truly started to experience food cravings. For me, it was mostly citrus beverages like lemonade and orange juice (although reflecting on this now those two things probably made the heartburn worse haha), along with Pita Pit wraps. Shawn made a loooooottt of late night Pita Pit runs for which I’ll be eternally grateful.

Overall, pregnancy is not at all what I expected it to be. I’m very grateful for it, and for the support that we’ve received throughout this journey so far. But holy moly, it’s probably been one of my most challenging experiences to date - I do feel quite strongly that the darker, harder sides of pregnancy aren’t discussed enough, and I wish I had been better prepared for the downs.

While the last 7 months have been a huge adjustment, I’ve also been on the receiving end of so much love, grace and kindness that I could seriously weep a million happy tears. And, my husband Shawn has been truly incredible, stepping up in so many ways I can’t even start to describe. So while it’s been hard on both of us, it’s definitely deepened our bond and brought us closer.

Well I think that’s where I’ll leave it for now! I’ll be posting a third trimester update in a few weeks as we get nearer our due date mid autumn! As always, thank you for visiting the blog today and everyday, I really appreciate it. Xx Julia Rae

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