2nd Trimester & Belly Pictures

On Friday last week, I reached the 13-week milestone in pregnancy, which ends the first trimester and also mostly diminishes the risk of miscarriage. Hooray! For many women, this is usually when the unpleasant symptoms of morning sickness, nausea, fatigue, etc. fade away to make room for a renewed sense of energy and comfort. The second trimester is often the most fun because your belly becomes obvious, you start to feel movement from your mysterious little one, you reach the halfway point (20 weeks) which also marks the milestone of the BIG ultrasound - the last chance most women have to SEE their baby before birth day and the exciting opportunity to find out the sex of the baby, and finally just an overall sense of energy and excitement allowing for increased exercise and activity that you might have been too tired for in the first trimester.

For me, nausea and fatigue are mostly gone. I still have particularly exhausting days and some days when all food sounds repulsive. I don't really crave anything in particular, though garbage food is surprisingly appealing to me, which I'm not used to. I'm doing my best to eat healthy and drink plenty of water (my goal is 64oz every day) and luckily it's my favorite cooking season, so I'm motivated to eat well.

We took an updated belly picture last night and I was shocked at how much I'd changed in the 2 weeks since our last picture. As I mentioned before, I'm "showing" much quicker this time around. I noticed a change as early as 6 1/2 weeks! From what the doctor says, your stomach muscles aren't as tight the 2nd time around after being stretched once (and boy were mine stretched!) so your body sort of "remembers the drill"... and it shows. My clothes still mostly fit. No problem with pants, just some of my shirts are a getting a little short to cover my belly. So I'm wearing longer, looser tops.

So here are the belly shots we've taken so far.

6 weeks, 2 days (already a tiny bump):



9 weeks exactly (another noticeable change):



11 weeks, 3 days (not a whole lot of change, thank goodness!, because this was shortly after Kelly's wedding):



13 weeks, 3 days (whoa! big change!):



So that last one was last night.
Total weight gain as of 13 weeks: 2# 10oz.
But I also started out this time 8# less than I did with Will.

Looking forward to the 2nd trimester so things can hopefully start to seem more real. I still sometimes forget I'm pregnant. Just busier this time with a toddler and less time to focus on myself. We also waited longer to announce the news this time, so I hadn't really been talking about it to anyone, and that made us almost forget some days. But I'm excited to get to know this new person and, for me, that starts long before birth.