Finding Out We Were Pregnant
Right after we got back from our trip to Orlando I felt a little out of sorts and so took a pregnancy test in the middle of the day. On January 3rd I found out that we were pregnant and used Charlotte to tell Jason the good news as soon as he got home from work that day.
Cravings and Aversions
I had more intense cravings with this pregnancy than with Charlotte's. I loved peanut butter through the entire pregnancy and could have lived off of Grandma's Peanut Butter cookies during my first trimester but sadly you can really only find those in vending machines, they don't sell them anywhere that I could find! I went through a stage where I was loving sour, gummy bunnies around March and April although I ate so many of them that I don't think I'll be able to eat them again. Like last time, I couldn't drink sweet tea until well into my second trimester but once I got over the aversion I enjoyed drinking it again.
One thing that I never really got over not liking during this pregnancy was fish. Even talking about it was often more than I could handle and I never really got over the rolling in my stomach when I went near the seafood counter at Publix. With Charlotte we ate salmon all the time, but the DHA in my prenatal vitamin is going to have to have seen James through because I couldn't handle it this time around.
I also battled heartburn a lot starting early on in this pregnancy (as opposed to only at the end with Charlotte) so I started having to cut out foods that were prone to give me heartburn (lettuce, tomatoes, really spicy foods, etc). Cutting those things out left me with significantly fewer options on what to eat. Chicken salad, especially on croissants, became a favorite of mine during my third trimester and toast was a constant go-to food throughout the pregnancy.
Finding Out that James was James
On April 25th we found out that James was a boy and we were so excited. It wasn't a total shock to us, since I had been convinced from the beginning of the pregnancy that he was a boy, but it was a little surreal to have it confirmed for us. Even the morning of his birth I'm a little unsure how I'm going to do as a boy's Mom but I guess I'll figure it out just like I figured out how to be a girl's Mom!
How I Felt
To say this pregnancy rocked my world would be an understatement. Whether it was because I was carrying a boy as opposed to a girl or because I was chasing after a 1 and then 2 year old during it, I don't know, but I definitely felt much worse during this pregnancy. I was lucky enough to never get sick when pregnant with Charlotte (although Zofran helped keep the nausea away) but with this pregnant there were a handful of instances when I did actually get sick. In my memories I spent the majority of the first 12 weeks on the couch battling severe tiredness and nausea despite the Zofran!
Thankfully the nausea left pretty soon after the first trimester ended and only reappeared occasionally throughout the rest of the pregnancy. The second half of the pregnancy did feel totally different than the second half with Charlotte though because by that point James had flipped into a head down position and so was giving me a lot more trouble with pressure than Charlotte ever did since she was always fully breech. Like I said, I battled heartburn much earlier and with much greater frequency than with Charlotte but that never really totally went away after Charlotte's birth so that wasn't a huge surprise.
I pulled out my pregnancy pillow earlier with this pregnancy which probably helped me sleep better during the middle of my pregnancy. And I don't remember as many middle of the night bathroom trips as I had with Charlotte so that was nice. But being pregnant during one of the hottest summer's in a while in Alabama was not something that I enjoyed and definitely something that I would not want to try again. I spent much of the summer dealing with swollen everything and apparently developed some carpal tunnel in my wrist that I'm praying goes away quickly after James' birth because it's one of the least fun pregnancy symptoms I've had to deal with!
Amazingly enough, I've felt better these last four weeks of pregnancy than I probably did the eight before them. The heat hasn't subsided more than a degree or two but it's apparently made all of the difference. Well, that and having an end in visible sight! I would do anything for my babies and am blessed to have the privilege to carry them both to full term. There were a few times during this pregnancy that carrying James to full term was close to being up in the air which makes me even more thankful that we've emerged now at 39 weeks and 3 days to deliver!
My Growth
I made it a point to never look at the scale at my appointments during this pregnancy. I kept up with how much weight I put on (although didn't try to limit it) during my pregnancy with Charlotte and decided that it was pointless. So even now I don't know what my total weight gain was and I still don't care. My doctor never said anything about it to me until right near the end when I managed to put on five pounds in one week but when I went for my last appointment last Thursday I had lost two pounds so I figure that probably evened it out some. I didn't take pictures as religiously with James, mostly because I found myself without makeup a lot more often on Saturday's and didn't want to "get dressed up" just to take a picture. But we still have quite a progression!
Praying everything goes well. Can't wait to see some pictures :)
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