This will be fun.

First of all, I’m pregnant?! It seems I forget pretty often because there is little time to think about it! The three little people that are dependent on me don’t seem to understand that I am growing a human and expect me to keep up with them as if nothing has changed. The blessing of this is that it keeps me active and it has definitely made this pregnancy fly by.

Symptoms

Throughout this pregnancy I have been dealing with an Ulcerative Colitis flare. With past pregnancies, pregnancy hormones (or something) put my body into remission at about week nine. Not this time. Typically I would dive straight into my supplemental regime and kick this to the curb, but alas, adequate studies have not been conducted with supplements enough to make me feel comfortable with the “risk”. My symptoms have improved but I am still dealing with it today. That being said, this could attribute to some of my exhaustion, but mostly I would attribute it to the little people honestly. I’d say I’m a pretty tough little lady.

At the beginning of pregnancy, I dealt with mild nausea, but nothing that ever sent me to the toilet. I thank God often that I have had four pregnancies without extreme nausea. I experienced fatigue in the first three months, making sure I was tucked into bed by 8 pm at the latest.

Round ligament “discomfort”. I won’t call it pain because it’s nothing compared to labor, but the uterine growth and round ligament stretching has been way more intense this time around. This one doesn’t make sense to me. Doesn’t my body just know what to do? It’s been stretched many a times already so why is it screaming at me so much this time?! Oh yes….I don’t sit still very often. That could be part of it.

Diet

I’m a dietitian as you are all aware. That being said, I can tell you that my diet has been far from optimal lately. The beginning of the pregnancy was mostly white carb focused: gluten free bread, cream of wheat, crackers, cereal, but I was able to get a whole buncha healthy stuff in there too. When the nausea subsided, it was back to the usual nutrient-rich meals. Then COVID-19 hit. I’m at home with all of the boys. As much as I aim to focus on nutrition for myself and my family, we are in a bit of survival mode as we all are. There are a lot of baked goods going down around here, let’s just leave it at that. =) In all fairness, I know I am still doing a heckuva job trying to feed us all with nutrition as BEST as I possibly can given the circumstances. So there’s that.

Cravings

I’d say my cravings this pregnancy around are more intensified. As I mentioned, the Pop Tart craving wouldn’t leave me alone. There has been a lot of pizza yearned for and consumed this time around. I was really into fruit at the beginning of pregnancy but that has now normalized. I guess it was most intense in the beginning of pregnancy. I feel pretty normal now. Kind of boring compared to my first pregnancy.

Weekly Bump Pics?!

I was religious about taking weekly bump pics for all three of the boys’ pregnancies. This time around, I’ve gotten maybe five, three of which I took as selfies.

19 week pic. I have seriously BUMPED since this picture was taken.

When will it feel real?

In lieu of our current life situation, my mind is heavily focused on remaining positive, keeping my family and loved ones safe, and making the most of our home life situation. There is nothing that really needs to be done to prepare for the arrival of baby except to buy some super teeny tiny diapers. Because we aren’t finding out the gender, I would like to sort through the newborn baby clothes bin to find some gender neutral clothes to hold us over, JUST in case a little girl decides to join the family. If it is a girl, there will be a whole lot of pink flowing in this house, you better believe it. So I guess there’s that too.

My appointments with the midwives have been every five weeks. Everything is looking perfect. I have my anatomy scan next week. My first one was canceled due to the virus. As of now, Dana will be able to join me for that appointment. My following prenatal appointments will be completed over the phone which is going to be so weird and sad because I won’t be able to hear my favorite little heartbeat noise that I so look forward to at those in-clinic appointments.

I’m thinking that maybe the ultrasound will make this pregnancy feel more real?

When I was pregnant with Bode, I remember spending so much time planning for the nursery. The amount of hours I spent looking for a rug and wall decor seems completely unreal at this point. For goodness sake I even sewed him a baby blanket! I remember sitting in the nursery once it was completed, anxiously awaiting the arrival of my sweet boy.

I am equally as excited about baby number four, there is just less time to think about it. I am planning on diving into the childbirth books in the next couple of months so I can begin to mentally prepare for labor and delivery, something that I seem to keep putting off in my mind.

I think I’m going to wrap this post up although I feel like I could go on and on. It’s becoming a bit of a doozy.

_____________________________________________________________________

I pray that everyone is staying healthy and safe. Take care, friends.

xoxo