• Coffee Dates,  Pregnancy

    Let’s Have Coffee | Vol. 19

    March 10, 2020

    If we were having coffee, I would most likely share with you why I’ve been MIA last week. Our house got hit with some nasty colds. On Thursday I was completely out of commission and had a fever all day. I decided to go to an urgent care and make sure it wasn’t the flu (which it wasn’t thankfully). I started to feel better on Friday and then woke up on Saturday with another fever and started feeling more and more sick as the day went on. Shane had also started a fever either Friday or Saturday (it’s really all a blur now) and was super sick with me all day Saturday and Sunday. I think the fact that the coronavirus is going around at the same time as all of this really didn’t help with moral and I was really scared with how sick we were. Fortunately our fevers finally broke on Monday and we are on the mend now and feeling much better!

    If we were having coffee, I’d probably mention how scary it is to be sick while pregnant. I would feel bad about talking about being sick for so long, but would really want to process everything I felt with someone. I know that Tylenol is “technically” safe for pregnant women to take but I had to take it basically around the clock for three days to keep my fever down (plus when I was sick around 14 weeks for a day) and it does scare me a little bit. In the grand scheme of things I do realize though that everything will be okay and I am just so thankful that we are healthy now and not needing medicine anymore! 😅

    If we were having coffee, I would likely want to change the subject to something much more positive! I’d share that another reason I’ve been a little less active on the blog is because our Etsy shop is doing so well right now! We are so excited and thankful because it really came at a time where the extra money is very helpful. It has been so fun and satisfying working on Etsy lately.

    If we were having coffee, I would share about how I will be 22 weeks pregnant on Thursday and how I can’t believe how fast this pregnancy is going! It’s so true how they say it’s so different than your first. There is just so much less time to think about being pregnant because of taking care of your first baby and everything else in your life. I would share about how we are thinking about having Shane and the new baby share a room when the new baby is around 6-8 months old. Shane will have just turned 3 at that point. I would ask if you have any advice on room sharing with a baby and a toddler. I am hopeful but also a little nervous about it because Shane is a very light sleeper. We do have a third bedroom, but it is upstairs so we could move Shane up there if all else fails.

    If we were having coffee, I would share that I am starting to feel a little bit overwhelmed with all the things I want to get done in the house before the baby arrives. I’m trying to remind myself that things don’t need to be perfect but it’s so difficult to really believe that!

    If we were having coffee, I would ask how you’ve been this past month and apologize about how I’m sort of all over the place right now. That’s just how my brain is at the moment. I’d love to hear what is new with you though!

    Linking up with Lecy. Join us every second Tuesday for a coffee date!

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  • Pregnancy

    Pregnancy Update: Weeks 14-18

    February 20, 2020

    Hi friends. Today I’m sharing how weeks 14-18 went. If you’re pregnant too, leave a comment with how you’re feeling and how far along you are!

    How far along? I turned 19 weeks today so this will be from 14 weeks to 18 weeks.

    Size of the Baby: Today he/she is the size of a mango – about 6 inches and 8.5 ounces.

    16 weeks

    Total Weight Gain: 10 pounds so far.

    Symptoms: Gum pain/swelling. Breaking out. Tummy issues. Pregnancy insomnia. Dry eyes. Really fun stuff lol. But other than that I had a lot more energy, especially in the beginning of the month. During weeks 14-15 I didn’t even feel pregnant because my belly was still small and I had so much more energy. As I’m progressing and my belly has definitely popped, I don’t have quite as much energy as I did, but still not too bad as long as I get a good nights sleep.

    Missing: My favorite Italian takeout that closed down! I crave foods so much while pregnant and I so wish I could order their baked ziti or chicken parm.

    Maternity clothes: I just ordered basically my first maternity clothes. I somehow made it through my pregnancy with Shane with none. The only thing I bought was two dresses with him. I ordered a pair of leggings, jeans, a cardigan, and two short sleeve tops. I’m expecting some of it not to fit though and that I’ll have to return some things. I’m so excited though because nothing fits right now. 😳

    Sleep: It’s really hit or miss. Occasionally I’ll wake up to pee and not be able to fall back asleep. I’ve made it through the night without having to pee at all a few times. Most nights though I wake up once to pee and then am able to go back to sleep.

    Best moment this month: Feeling the baby move for the first time! There was a few times around 15-16 weeks where I was pretty sure I felt the baby move but I wasn’t 100% sure. The night before I turned 17 weeks though I felt the baby move for sure and was able to poke back and the baby kept moving! It was so cool and I felt super connected to the baby.

    18 weeks

    Food cravings: Uh everything! Mostly carbs of course. Pasta. Pizza. Sugar. Nothing healthy lol. I’ve been eating something sweet after dinner every night. I was the same way when I was pregnant with Shane. I’m usually not really a sweats person but pregnancy really brings it out of me.

    Looking forward to: Our anatomy scan is next Wednesday! We are definitely finding out if the baby is a boy or girl and we are so excited. I’m also excited to get the house more in order. I’ve been nesting like crazy, I’ll have to share what I’ve done so far. Yesterday I basically changed everything around in our house. I moved Shane upstairs to his new room and made him a little playroom. I can’t wait to keep working on the house and see the progress.

    And just for fun, here are some of my pregnancy update with Shane: 14 weeks, 15 weeks, 16 weeks, 17 weeks, 18 weeks, + 19 weeks. My bump was so much smaller. I’ll share about baby’s gender next week for sure! I can’t wait!

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  • Pregnancy

    First Trimester Recap: Weeks 3-13

    January 28, 2020

    Hi friends. Today I wanted to share with you how my first trimester went with this pregnancy. Overall I would say it was a little bit easier than with Shane’s pregnancy. (Although I also had it easy with him when compared with how hard others have it.) I do not take this for granted and am so thankful for the blessing that this pregnancy and babe is.

    I thought it would be fun to just copy and paste how I’ve been tracking my symptoms. I’ve just been keeping little notes in my Notes app on my phone.

    Finding Out:

    But before we get into that I wanted to give a little bit of background. We were very fortunate to get pregnant very quickly. We had only been trying for one month. Since we were actively trying I started taking pregnancy tests very early on and found out at only 3 weeks, 4 days!

    Then I took these cheap pregnancy tests until I ran out of them lol. I took my first bump picture when I was ten weeks. It’s definitely true you show faster with your second.

    Symptoms:

    Inside my mind during the first trimester of pregnancy:

    3 weeks- a little more tired than usual. craving pizza and potatoes. sometimes feel like twinges of queasiness if I’m really hungry but nothing serious.
    4 weeks- craving salad?? Sent tommy out for a crispy chicken Cesar salad from BK. Feeling a little tired but able to push through if I have to. More hungry than usual.  Switched to decaf coffee for second cup
    5 weeks- had a few days where I was extremely tired but not debilitating every day. Not too many cravings this week. Nachos one night and Cesar salad again. Not any strong aversions which was weird because I had some last pregnancy. Still drinking coffee surprisingly as well. Dropped the second cup because decaf has tons of chemicals in it. A day or two I had a small cup in the morning so I could have another cup in the afternoon. Feeling relatively normal though. 
    6 weeks- very tired, slightly nauseous on day 1. 6.5 weeks super nauseous one morning. Had a really hard time sleeping a few nights and couldn’t stomach coffee. Next day feel a lot better though. Also taking naps almost every day. End of week felt relatively normal. Mild nausea but nothing crazy and wasn’t super tired. 
    7 weeks- first day or two felt pretty good. 7w2d woke up at night super nauseous and with a headache and couldn’t sleep. Had to eat goldfish and wait for nausea to pass before going back to sleep. Stopped drinking coffee this week. Was only drinking a couple sips anyway. 
    8 weeks- still exhausted. Craving French fries. Nothing tastes good though. Not even baked ziti. 8w4d- have been feeling relatively normal the past few days. Coffee hasn’t tasted terrible and I have had like no nausea. Belly hurts if I try to eat too much though and still not eating meat. Ultrasound went perfectly!! Baby measured right on track with a heart rate of 180! Had some gas pains and tummy issues. Some foods just really don’t taste great. Made cheesesteak quesadillas tonight and was able to eat it but it didn’t taste very good. Have still been tired but seems to be lessening a tiny bit but still am very unmotivated to do anything 
    9 weeks- first day super nauseas. Couldn’t eat much. 9w1d feel normal, sort of worried. 9w4d yesterday I felt completely normal, was able to drink coffee and this morning I also don’t feel pregnant. Hoping everything is okay. Still having terrible nursing aversion though. 9w5d occasionally still feel pregnant. Mostly just my belly feels off. Nothing really sounds that great to eat. My belly is getting bigger. Craving yellow starburst today?
    10 weeks- feeling more normal this week. Still taking naps though and have been feeling mostly unmotivated. Food aversions have been a lot less too. Starting trying to drink coffee but still not totally enjoying it
    11 weeks- almost normal but still feel unmotivated and tired a lot. Still taking some naps and sleeping a lot at night (9 hours). Still haven’t wanted to drink coffee really. Been drinking tea for the caffeine. Food is starting to taste more normal though. Having trouble drinking water still and my skin is super dry
    12 weeks- FINALLY FEEL NORMAL AGAIN. I woke up on the first day of 12 weeks and felt GREAT! I drank a cup of coffee and cleaned the house for the first time in forever. Day 2 of week 12, also drank a cup of coffee, enjoyed pasta and sauce, and chicken and broccoli, which are things that I haven’t enjoyed in a long time. I craved Chinese food on this day too so Tommy brought it home for lunch! Also had a craving for onion dip and chips and Tommy went out one night and bought me some. Took a few naps this week because I just couldn’t stay awake. But was able to consistently drink coffee each morning and even had a second cup one day.
    13 weeks- I’m only 13.2 but so far this week has been pretty mild still. I was a little more tired than usual but nothing crazy. Still drinking and loving my morning coffee again. Didn’t think that would happen. I have an appointment this week. I can’t wait to hear the heartbeat again. Ever since feeling more normal, I don’t feel like I’m pregnancy anymore. It feels super weird. Got super sick this week. Had a low fever for 24 hours. Took Tylenol twice to keep it down. Was scared something happened to the baby. Ended up being okay. Had my doctors appointment at 13.5 and heartbeat was 151! 💗 It made it feel more real and I’m actually going to allow myself to get excited. Haven’t had really any pregnancy symptoms this week because I’ve been so preoccupied with my cold symptoms which have been terrible. Shane’s 2nd birthday was this week and I weaned him completely off breastfeeding. The end of this week I’ve been having to wake up early morning to pee and have been having a hard time falling back asleep.

    So all in all, the first trimester wasn’t that bad at all. I’m very fortunate that Tommy comes home around lunchtime most days so I was able to take naps when I needed to. I also stopped waking up early and just woke up when Shane woke me up. I definitely was going to bed earlier than I normally did too. I couldn’t make it past ten, which is super rare for me.

    Now that I’m in the second trimester, I don’t feel pregnant at all anymore. It’s very nice to have my energy back and have motivation to get things done. But mostly I’m thankful for a healthy, growing babe. I’ll be back in about a month to do another update. Thanks for following along! 🙂

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  • Baby,  Pregnancy

    Baby Zin: 29 + 30 Week Bumpdate

    November 6, 2017

    You guys. Today is exactly two months from my due date. Holy cow, how did this happen?? I’m so excited to meet our baby boy and it seems with each passing week things just seem more and more REAL. I’m also freaking out just a bit too because I’m actually going to have to birth this baby soon! Let’s see how the past two weeks have gone.

    Size of the Baby: At 30 weeks, baby was the size of a Zucchini – about 15.7 inches and 2.89 pounds!

    Total Weight Gain: Weight: 123 – up 20 pounds. It seems that the weight gain has finally started to level out and I did not gain anymore weight over these past two weeks. (Which is a relief because I was putting on weight very quickly over the past month or so. I think baby went through a growth spurt!)

    Symptoms: Still kind of the same old symptoms, which I’m not complaining about! Pregnancy insomnia. Muscle cramps in my calves. Feeling quite heavy.

    This isn’t a symptom but I did get a cold when I was 29 weeks. That wasn’t fun and I was sick for probably close to a week, but it wasn’t that bad. I managed to get by without taking any medicine and just rested a lot. I think this may have had to do with not gaining weight as well because I wasn’t eating quite as much as I would have been if I was feeling more normal.

    Movement: So far a few times this pregnancy so far it seems like the baby has turned himself sideways in my belly and then his kicks and punches get so much more intense. The weekend when I turned 30 weeks he did this and all weekend long I was feeling super crazy movements!

    Tommy is: really excited about becoming a dad! Also super glad that all of the painting is finally done in our apartment, haha.

    Best Moments: Tommy took me up to Lake George for a small little babymoon. It was a super nice relaxing weekend getaway. We may or may not have binge watched Stranger Things 2 while up there. 😉

    We also took Maternity Pictures this week as well! It was just a mini photo shoot that I actually got a great deal off of Groupon for. I honestly just wanted a couple special pictures from this time to remember it by, and I also wanted one really good one for our Christmas cards!

    Looking Forward To: Organizing all of the baby things we got from our baby shower! We had that yesterday (when I was actually 31 weeks) and we are so, so blessed by our friends and family. They went above and beyond for our little family and we got so many things that we needed. (I will probably do a whole post just about the baby shower in the near future.) Now just to organize and figure out what we still need! My fav!

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  • Baby,  Pregnancy

    Baby Zin: 27 + 28 Week Bumpdate

    October 26, 2017

    Hi friends. I’ve completely dropped the ball on blogging the past few weeks but I didn’t want to go too long without an update on Baby Zin. Things have been a bit crazy around here. We painted our entire apartment within the past three weeks and this week I caught a cold. Womp. But Tommy and I have a nice little weekend getaway planned for this weekend (last before baby!) so that should be a nice relaxing treat after being so incredibly busy for the last month or so. Let’s see how things have been going with the pregnancy though shall we?

    Size of the Baby: At 28 weeks baby was the size of an eggplant – 14.8 inches and 2.2 pounds!

    Total Weight Gain: I am officially up 20 pounds but honestly I’m still feeling pretty good about it. The weight gain has been about a pound a week and has seemed to gone mostly just to my belly. I do get more tired more easily with the extra weight but that’s to be expected.

    Gender: A baby boy! I’m still debating on sharing his name or not but we definitely have one picked!

    Symptoms: Heel and foot pain has got to be the most prominent symptom so far. My heels actually go numb a lot of the time if I’m on them too much. Tommy gave me the best foot massage though which helped A LOT.

    I haven’t been sleeping that well. I wake up 2-3 times a night to pee and sometimes don’t go back to sleep for about an hour. It isn’t too bad though. I have a little bit of calf cramping in the middle of the night if I’m on my feet a lot, but that isn’t too bad either. Nothing to complain about and for that I am so thankful!

    I also have definitely been getting a lot more emotional lately. I know that the 3rd trimester brings with it more hormonal changes and I think that’s what is to blame. I was also very stressed these past two weeks because I really wanted to get all the painting done and it was a lot of work.

    Oh and I’ve also been having braxton hicks contractions every once in a while. I definitely get them more if I’m too active and don’t rest enough so I’ve been trying to be more careful about that.

    Workouts: Nope but honestly I don’t really feel bad because I’ve been pretty decently active throughout the day.

    Cravings: Still having chocolate every single night after dinner and still loving it.

    Doctor’s Appointments: I’m officially in the part of pregnancy where I’m going to the doctor every two weeks. I did my gestational diabetes test at my last appointment and passed! Woohoo!

    Nursery: We have gotten a ton of stuff done in the nursery and I’m so happy about it. I can’t wait to show you guys but I decided to wait until it’s all setup and just do a nursery tour rather than include anymore pictures in the bumpdates.

    Tommy is: working up a storm to help get the house in order for baby and getting so excited to meet our little babe.

    Looking forward to: our little getaway this weekend!

    Best Moments: Finishing painting finally and getting some things for the nursery!

     

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  • Baby,  Pregnancy

    Baby Zin: 25 + 26 Week Bumpdate

    October 10, 2017

    Hi friends! I’ve been so busy lately and haven’t made much time to blog! 🙁 Tommy and I are currently in the process of getting the house all done and ready for the baby. When we moved in we knew we had to paint the entire house so that’s what we’ve been doing the past week or so. We also have been making process on the nursery as well. I can’t wait till everything is all finished and ready.

    Size of the Baby: At 26 weeks, he was the size of kale – about 14 inches long and 1.68 lbs!

    Total Weight Gain: 16-17 lbs! I’m still feeling good about it but I am hoping the weight gain will slow down a bit soon haha. I haven’t been eating a lot so we shall see.

    Gender: A sweet baby boy!

    Symptoms: Honestly this has been the hardest thing to track lately. I don’t really have many new symptoms. My feet have been hurting a lot more lately from walking around with so much extra weight. On the plus size, I think my leg muscles are growing because of it as well. 😉 That’s honestly the only symptom I can really think of and for that I am thankful!

    Stretch Marks: Nope! I’ve been using Burts Bees Mama Bee Belly Butter (affiliate link), and that seems to have worked so far.

    Workouts: I actually have started to do some prenatal workouts off of YouTube the past few weeks. I feel really good about them after I’m done too and they’re not too strenuous so that’s good. I’ve also been super active just moving around all day trying to get the house clean and ready for the baby.

    Cravings: The only craving that I get is that I have to have something sweet after dinner. I can go all day without anything sweet and I’m fine but before bed I NEED something sweet. Usually with milk too haha.

    Doctor’s Appointment: I switched doctor’s during my 26 week checkup. I mentioned in my last bumpdate that I wasn’t crazy about the idea of having a male OB/GYN. I’m so happy I made the switch and I really like the new doctor I saw last week.

    Nursery: We got and put together his crib and dresser! I really wanted to talk some nice pictures of them to add to this post but things have been a bit crazy with all of the painting going on. I will definitely include them in the next bumpdate though!

    Tommy is: helping out so much with all of the projects I want to get done. We had a ton of fun putting together the baby furniture (minus a few mishaps)!

    Looking forward to: having the house all painted! It’s been so much work and I can’t wait for it to be done!

    Best Moments: Definitely putting together the furniture and seeing a little crib in his room! I can’t wait until he’s here!

     

     

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