Second Trimester Recap

The second trimester was, for me, when things started to begin to feel “real”. The first trimester I didn’t know I was pregnant for the majority of it (oops), and I really didn’t have too many symptoms so it was a breeze for me (read more about my first trimester here). However, during the second trimester I started to gain weight, show more of the common pregnancy symptoms, and learn so much during all of my doctor visits. Here’s a recap of my second trimester.

Symptoms

Throughout my second trimester (but more towards the beginning) I had some headaches that would last 2-3 days and wouldn’t go away with medicine.

I also experienced some round ligament pain in the 2nd trimester (around 20 weeks) mainly throughout my stomach from the growth of the baby (I have a short torso and I’m petite, so needless to say my body was not used to a human growing in there and it caused some pain).

Bloody noses were pretty common, too – I got used to carrying tissues with me everywhere just in case. Lastly, I had on-and-off Charlie horses at night during the second half of the second trimester.

I did have a little scare (and trip to the ER $$$) in October when I found blood in my urine, but everything came back normal and I had no other symptoms. Could have been a UTI or kidney stone or just nothing at all. Isn’t pregnancy awesome?

When Did You Feel the Baby Move/Kick?

Around October 17 I started feeling consistent rib pain and little flutters (~24 weeks pregnant), which was new to me. I was prepared for the flutters/kicks to be more pronounced and “hard” (if that makes sense), so I may have actually been feeling them earlier and just not realized. Since then it’s been constant rib pain and stronger kicks/flutters/hiccups as each week goes on.

15 weeks pregnant

18 weeks pregnant

20 weeks pregnant

Weight Gain

During the second trimester, I gained 14 pounds pretty slowly/steadily throughout. By 20 weeks, I had gained around 6 pounds. I started really “showing” around 15 weeks (just a little, my pants stopped fitting but some people still didn’t realize I was pregnant) and then it become pretty obvious to everyone I was pregnant around 18 weeks. According to my doctor, I’m right on track for weight gain and everything looks good.

Sex

During our anatomy scan, we confirmed that we’re having a boy! Which is great since I already had a name picked out, put boy things on my registry, and started decorating his room in boy themes/colors. Whew!

Things Crossed Off the Baby To-Do List

I successfully picked a baby shower date, ordered and mailed my invites, and completed my registry by 18 weeks. I wanted to get ahead of the holiday craziness and also secure a date early enough since so many other friends/family members are also having babies in Feb/March. We also ordered (and assembled) our nursery furniture.

I also started visiting our local library to check out some pregnancy books. While many of them just have repetitive, obvious information, I’ve found a few that offer some new perspectives or data that are pretty interesting. I’m going to write up a whole post about the pregnancy books I liked/didn’t like.

We started looking at daycare options. Where we live in northern NJ, things fill up very quickly. I was scared off by some moms in Facebook groups I’m in saying that spots fill up a year in advance, so I researched our options and we visited 3 places to get a feel for our options.

During the middle of the second trimester I finally started to need to shop for some maternity clothes – thankfully Target, Old Navy, and PinkBlush saved the day there!

I ordered my breast pump through my insurance and started really looking into my maternity leave options (which are meh) so I can plan ahead financially as well as plan for daycare.

Appointments, Ultrasounds, & Tests

We were able to see baby on a few ultrasounds, which was really cool (the further along you are, obviously, the more detailed the ultrasound photos become). I had my Fetal Echo-cardiogram during this time, too, which checks the baby’s heart. We had this test done because I’m on SSRIs, which can sometimes affect the baby’s heart. Luckily, this test and the in-depth anatomy scan, showed that he is progressing and measuring perfectly. The ultrasound technicians even referred to him as a “textbook baby” saying he’s so perfect/where he’s supposed to be that we could use his ultrasound photos in textbooks. I assume they say this to everyone, but I’m gonna run with it and feel special.