Second Trimester Pregnancy Recap

The second trimester has come and gone, and this little kiddo should be making an appearance in just a few short months! Let me start by saying that my first trimester was an easy-breezy walk in the park compared to this one. The internet told me that the opposite would be true, so that just proves we should take everything we read with a grain of salt, especially when it comes to pregnancy!

Just a couple weeks into the second trimester, Austin and I jetted off to Florida to start our European trek. (You can read about our overseas adventure here, starting with London and moving through each city). We surprised his family a couple days after arriving, and they were ecstatic over the news of their first grandbaby. Then, we headed off to Europe with the fam. Aside from sore feet—which is expected from anyone walking over 20,000 steps a day—and my food/alcohol restrictions, the first few weeks of our trip were virtually symptom-free. Not to mention my “bump”, if you can call it that, was barely noticeable under my loose t-shirts and jackets.

When we hit a lull in the trip while in Rome, I finally had some free time to call close friends and family and deliver the news. Then, we surprised social media (as is expected these days, I suppose) a couple days later. I need to mention that Austin deserves most of the credit for orchestrating this announcement photo, which features the two of us in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris holding a mini Eiffel Tower—how brilliant! And a shout out goes to my sisters-in-law for helping with photography and continuously shooing away the street vendor trying to sell us more mini Eiffel Towers during the photo shoot.

Once we hit Athens in my 17th week, the symptoms really started setting in, specifically swollen sausage feet. According to the internet, walking makes this common symptom even worse. So what did we do? We dropped our step count to about 15,000 and spent a lot of time on the city tour bus. I’m not sure if this was exactly helpful, but we did take an afternoon to lay in bed and watch Netflix (and thank you, Austin, for the foot massages!). Luckily Santorini was our next stop, which consisted of two full days spent by the pool eating gyros and relaxing. Talk about paradise!

One thing I splurged on during this trip was a photo shoot in Edinburgh, Scotland when I was about 18 weeks along. This is my absolute favorite city in the U.K., I knew I would be almost halfway along in my pregnancy, and I found a sweet deal on Airbnb Experiences—I couldn’t resist! The power photography couple that did the shoot (@roseandjulienphototours) were so easy to get along with, and the photos turned out amazing!

The following week, we were staying in Boston with my best friend and her husband (thank goodness they were both at work at the time) and I got hit with my first bout of morning sickness. Well, afternoon sickness. After breakfast, my stomach felt a bit queasy so I napped for an hour or so. I woke up and still felt like crap, which was frustrating because this was Austin’s last afternoon in Boston before he flew home and we still hadn’t done the Sam Adams brewery tour—his #1 favorite beer! Luckily I woke up from my nap, had a 5-minute puke sesh, and felt good as new. (There are no TMI warnings when we’re talking pregnancy, BTW, sorry). Since then, I haven’t had a lick of morning sickness *knock on wood*.

Fast forward to my 22nd week of pregnancy. I was staying in Seattle by myself because Austin had to go back to work, and this is when the round ligament and hip pain began. Holy crap, it was like my pelvis and groin muscles were being stretched apart. Which was exactly what (and still is) happening, of course, because that’s the body’s way of preparing for a bowling ball to pop out in a few months! So far, the only solution to this pain has been lots and lots of stretching, which has recently included regular yoga classes (I highly recommend this during pregnancy!). And speaking of yoga, you don’t even need special prenatal yoga classes, which aren’t offered where I live. Just go to the regular low-level, non-heated class, listen to your body, and make modifications as needed (after clearing this with your doctor, of course).

The last month since being home hasn’t included many new symptoms—mostly just a growing belly and an increased difficulty in getting up/sitting down/rolling over in bed/bending over (this list could go on forever, honestly). My days were spent finishing up my last class of my master’s degree and taking my comprehensive exams for the program. And although I can’t do any strenuous activities anymore, I am still trying to complete daily workouts that consist of a whole lot of walking and/or light dumbbell exercises.

I plan on doing a separate post on all the pregnancy-related items that have been life savers over the last six months. Let me know if you have any other post ideas or questions, and feel free to share your own experiences in the comments below!