I just finished my midwife appointment so I thought I’d write up a second trimester pregnancy update. Normally the midwife comes and goes pretty quickly, but now that I am entering my third trimester we have a bit more to talk about. In this post I share a second trimester update, my new diet, natural remedies I’m using, books I’m reading, and helpful resources to prepare for a natural birth. If you are going to be a new mom, read on and drop me a comment below!
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Checking in with the Midwife
I love when the midwife comes over once a month.
This time I even filmed an update video right after the midwife left, so if you want to watch that I will leave a link below 🙂
All is well is midwife land. We did a blood draw, check heart beat, etc and all came back normal. That’s always a relief. Even if you suspect nothing is wrong.. it’s just so nice to confirm it.
We also got to feel the baby and the baby was kicking back, which was so fun to watch. I love feeling those kicks. That’s one thing you don’t normally get in the first trimester that you look forward to in the second.
For example, every morning and night my baby gets active as soon as I sit down in bed. This is my favorite time of day 🙂
Especially the mornings, I just wake up and lay on my back, and within seconds the baby is kicking and stretching a ton. It’s my favorite part about waking up!
My new diet
I shared in my first trimester update about how I was getting through that first trimester nausea. Everyone is different, but I mostly had an aversion to all food, and I wasn’t really “sick” even though I felt sick.
I learned personally that the nausea can come from low blood sugar or not enough protein or even food. So I started eating smaller bites and more often to keep my blood sugar up. I also exercised every day, and since exercise helps regulate your blood sugar too, that really helped me out.
Now in second trimester, my diet switched to a “eat as much as possible” diet, LOL. I became much more hungry and craved foods like protein, eggs, peanut butter, fruit, bone broth, smoothies, butter, and vegetables.
I guess I am lucky in that I don’t crave bad foods, like fried food or sugary desserts. My body is mostly telling me to eat the good stuff.
My diet didn’t really come in like this until about week 20, and even then I would still have some days where some food just didn’t sound good. But that’s pregnancy. It’s important to listen to your body and give it what it needs 🙂
You can read more about the pregnancy and postpartum diet in the Husband-Coached Childbirth book or The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding (two of my favorites).
The Second Trimester Hurdles
So I’ve noticed that part of pregnancy is dealing with new and unexpected challenges. For example back pain, or digestive pain. Things you didn’t have before because you weren’t pregnant.
Personally I find it takes me about 2 weeks to figure out how to deal with a challenge once it comes my way. So sleeping for example – how to sleep with my big belly. One pillow? Two? Five? Lol 🙂 Took me a bit to figure out how to do that.
I also had the worst digestive pain! This has been a long battle for me. And by digestive pain what I mean is pain in my upper stomach (right below the ribs) which happened after I ate lunch and dinner. It felt like food was just getting stuck up there and it was painful (because your intestines are so scrunched up that this can happen). I’ve found that walking, exercise, lots of water, etc can all help with that. It was all upper pain, not like pain going to the bathroom or anything thank goodness.
But one saving grace to my digestive pain was these DigestZen tablets. They are all natural, made from essential oils and I just took one and it really calmed things down. I would also rub lavender and frankincense oil on my belly at night time and it had an immediate calming effect.
Note – I know and trust the doTERRA brand of essential oils, otherwise I wouldn’t be using them during my pregnancy. Always do your research before putting essential oils in or on your body!
Changes to My Exercise Regime
I definitely had to change my exercise regime during the second trimester. The second trimester is SO exciting. You’re finally starting to feel better, and you’re finally starting to see your belly.
But then suddenly, you’re in week 25 and your belly is getting big! All the sudden I was doing high intensity workouts and one day just said, nope not doing that anymore 🙂
To me, working out just feels so good on my body. It helps relieve nausea, stomach pain, back pain, and and lengthens your muscles and ligaments so that you don’t feel tight. I grew up as a gymnast and then was a professional cheerleader for a few years, so I’ve always led a super active lifestyle. I thrive on it!
BUT, with that said, I still enjoy working out. I just do more yoga and more walking, and less aerobics. Unless my body wants to pull out a kick boxing class or weight lifting… maybe just once a week instead of 3 times 😉
How I’m Preparing for Birth
I guess we can start talking about birth now because I’m entering my third trimester.. wow!
So if you are someone who hasn’t learned about what happens in pregnancy, birth, and postpartum, I will leave a few links below to really good books that will teach you everything you need to know. You can also take a class through your doctor or midwife. John and I are doing this as well (mostly for John if I’m being honest, because I’ve been taking birth classes since I was a kid and my mom was a birthing instructor. She would tell me all about birth way before I wanted to know about it).
So the first thing I did before getting pregnant was bought my own library of books. I wanted a solid foundation to fall back on about traditional, natural ways to give birth and for postpartum/newborn care. I guess what I didn’t want was to be stuck in a situation where I didn’t know what was happening, and then rely on someone around me to quickly make a decision for me before I could think about it. So here’s my library stash and my ultimate guide to pregnancy, childbirth, and the newborn. Also this is the order I read the books as well (the first one I started about 6 months before getting pregnant)
Books to Prepare for Pregnancy / Childbirth / the Newborn:
The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding
Childbirth Without Fear (still in the process of reading this one)
Preparing for Birth, Cont.
So, what am I doing to prepare for childbirth? Well, first I am getting my mind in the right place. I’ve realized that this is a process that happens on its own, without hardly any assistance, if you can let it happen. I’m practicing releasing control of my body and relaxing in situations when I am tense. Also just building an overall trust and appreciation for my body and for what God intends to do with it, because ultimately it is up to Him and not me. So I’m fine with that, and I know that no matter what everything will work out for the better.
On a physical level though, I’m studying Spinning Babies to learn how to get my pelvic floor and the baby in the right position for birth. There are a series of exercises you do when you sign up for Spinning Babies and they are specifically designed for a safe, effective, and quick birth experience. I’ll also leave a link here for a good YouTuber that does pregnancy and postpartum yoga and exercises for free on YouTube. I’m a big fan of her!
Along with spinning babies I am just changing my lifestyle to be more active and more conducive to birth. I am squatting as much as possible (this is how women gave birth back in the day, not laying on their backs). Someone told me to squat 300 times a day, so seriously, I have been squatting 300 times a day, LOL.
YouTube and Podcasts
I also can’t leave out the fact that I’ve watched so many births on YouTube. I happen to love watching birthing videos. I just find them so educational. Be careful though – if you search birthing videos make sure you type in “positive birth video” because some of the videos are a little scary. Let that be encouragement to you to prepare the best you can for a healthy and natural birth!
I’ve also listened to almost all of the birth stories from the Podcast “Birth in God’s Presence“. Oh my gosh, I loved listening to these! Each one is a different and unique positive birth story and also provides info on pregnancy and postpartum. It just made me so excited to give birth 🙂
Nursery/Stretchy Skin/ Other Updates
OK this post is getting long so I’ll just wrap it up with a few other updates.
Since this is my first pregnancy, I have had such itchy skin! The stretching belly can be so itchy. I have it on my legs too. So I whipped up some homemade body butter with essential oils and this has been life changing. Regular store brand lotions don’t cut it for me anymore (they also have artificial fragrances and other additives that I don’t want for my baby). I will try to share the recipe for the homemade lotion soon, so check back for that.
Our nursery is still not set up, but it will be eventually 🙂 At the very end of my spring farmhouse home tour video I shared a candid behind the scenes look at what our nursery looks like now (it’s kind of a mess) but we do have plans to work on it soon. We have everything we need, we just need to do it. But the baby won’t be sleeping in the nursery for quite a while, so there’s really no rush.
I feel so much more comfortable in pregnancy now that I bought some maternity clothes. I can’t believe I resisted buying them for so long. Check out this post to see my pregnancy clothing haul.
Also if you’re looking for a good snack, try these protein pregnancy muffins. They’re made with organic protein powder, raisins, einkorn flour, and chocolate chips. I really loved having these around during the second trimester for a healthy snack.
More Natural Baby
First Trimester Pregnancy Update
Spring/Summer Maternity Capsule Wardrobe
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