Musings on the second pregnancy

Here I am, in my 13th week of pregnancy, which is the last week of my first trimester. I'm still having bouts of morning sickness, but it's not the continuous nausea that I had a month ago. I'm feeling less fatigued by the day; today, for the first time in several weeks, I went running on the treadmill at the gym. That was a nice return to an old routine.

Brian and Maia and one of the girls I care for here at our house were all sick last week, with various forms of colds and intestinal upsets. I continue to be in awe of my immune system; here I am, after all of that, all of that unavoidable close contact with sick people, and I've made it through without catching any of it. Thank goodness! I have a doula client due any day, so not having a contagious illness benefits my work and personal lives.

I'm definitely starting to show a bit of extra belly, although I don't know if it would be noticeable to anyone outside of the people I see frequently and who know my current "condition," as it were. I can feel the fundus of my uterus above my pubic bone, which is cool. :) All in all, the way I'd characterize my current approach to this pregnancy is more mindful of it in my thoughts, but less regimented in my behavior. I'm trying to take care of my pregnant self mentally (as well as physically, of course), but I'm definitely altering fewer of my normal behaviors and habits than I did last time around. For example, last time I cut caffeine out of my diet almost entirely; this time, not so much. I think, because I've become better at finding sources of research on pregnancy and birth, I approach all-out "bans" on foods with a lot more skepticism than I did last time, and I tend to look up the research on my own. (Pretty much every source I can find agrees that less than 200 mg of caffeine a day is totally fine.) I've eaten soft cheeses and deli meats, and I even had a taste of wine at Christmas. Brian, Maia and I tend to eat a fresh, whole, balanced diet as it is, and so I'm pretty content with sticking with normal life habits when it comes to food.

Another area in which I'm trying mightily to continue with old habits is exercise. I started out this pregnancy in a better state of physical health and endurance than I did my last, and I want to take advantage of that as much as possible. In this first trimester, I've already exercised more than I did my entire first pregnancy, and I'm proud of that. These last three months have been quite challenging physically in terms of the fatigue and the nausea, and if I could keep my butt moving on the elliptical machine (and the now treadmill again!) through that, then I can certainly do it from here on out. :)

So, that's all for now. I don't know when my next appointment with my midwife is, but I think our ultrasound is sometime in March. I'm thinking we might not find out the gender of the baby this time; I've known several people recently who didn't find out the gender of the second baby when they had with the first, and it seemed like a fun way to change things up. No decisions on that yet, though!