Pregnant Life with Baby C: The Second Trimester

Well friends, here I am… in the midst of month 7 of pregnancy, and I almost can’t believe it. On one hand, it seems like pregnancy is flying by, but on the other hand, I feel like I’ve been pregnant for a long time. Turns out this whole creating a tiny human thing is quite a process!

Today I’m taking a look back at my second trimester and recapping the ups and downs of weeks 14-27. A lot happens in these weeks of pregnancy!

It started off a bit rocky… 

I’ve heard that the second trimester is everyone’s favorite. The most persistent first trimester symptoms tend to subside, you have a baby bump but aren’t yet uncomfortably big, and most women’s energy levels tend to rev back up.

But for much of the first half of the second trimester, I wasn’t feeling that awesome pregnancy high. In fact, I was exhausted! First, I was dealing with the logistics of buying a house and moving, which of course is a positive thing, but it also inevitably adds stress and sucks up lots of time and energy. Then, I got super sick with a double ear infection and felt like I got hit by a bus for a solid two weeks. After that, my grandma passed away, and the loss of a family member is obviously emotionally taxing.

It was certainly not a calm time for me, and I was left feeling pretty drained. But luckily, things started to look up, and once I experienced some steady normalcy in my life, I did start to feel very good. I was no longer feeling bone tired all the time, and it was a lovely reprieve!

2nd Trimester Workout Lifestyle 

Determined to maintain my lifestyle and to give my baby girl a healthy home in the womb, I continued to commit myself to regular movement in my second phase of pregnancy. I did yoga often, went to weekly Reformer Pilates classes, strength trained with free weights a few times a week, and started hiking again as the spring kicked in and the northeastern weather got nicer.

My hardest hike of my pregnancy has been during my getaway to Killington, VT. It was a 5-mile hike, which doesn’t sound all that extreme, but the VT trails have legit elevation compared to the baby hills I had been trekking around. At this time, 25 weeks, I realized that my lung capacity had changed with baby C compressing my body and sucking up my oxygen.

Pregnancy changes your endurance and physical capabilities, even if you’re living a super active lifestyle like I am. It’s been a healthy attitude balance between accepting that fact and still challenging myself in workouts while at the same time taking it a bit slower. In the second trimester, I still exercised 5 days a week on average, but if I was feeling really tired, I would do a shorter or less intense workout. It’s been all about listening to my body’s cues, while at the same time not giving myself excuses to just skip out on workouts a lot.

I practiced being mindful about how various movements feel. For instance, I stopped doing much plyometric exercise because bouncing around just doesn’t feel great. I did a limited amount of my go-to at-home form of cardio, cycling, and I went to just a few cycling classes before realizing that they probably would be put on the back burner for the remainder of my pregnancy. Leaning forward on a bike and doing bike choreography seems to compress things and make baby lean on my bladder in an uncomfortable way – so no thanks!

In addition to my workouts, I welcomed the nicer weather in the second trimester that made my daily walks with my dog more enjoyable. Most often we went for 30-minute walks every day, and walking certainly felt like a comfortable form of low-key exercise (and continues to be!).

The Bump

While I felt like my bump was getting a lot bigger throughout the start of the second trimester, I constantly was getting comments from people about how small my belly was. I also was getting asked a lot, “Are you feeling her move??” which I in fact was not. I’m not at all a worrier, but this was happening so often, I started to actually get a bit concerned.

This was also during the time when I didn’t have a prenatal appointment for a stretch of 2 months, and in the few weeks leading up to my 21 week appointment, I started to feel a little antsy to find out that everything was progressing well.

As it turns out, at my ultrasound appointment, my little gymnast was bouncing around the entire time, all fingers and toes and parts were accounted for, and I measured spot on with the recommended baby bump size. I also found out that I have an anterior placenta – meaning my placenta has attached to the front wall of the uterus – which was the reason why I hadn’t felt her move at all.

For much of the second trimester, baby C was too small for me to feel moving, as she was kicking the placenta instead of the walls of my stomach directly. I didn’t feel her at all until week 25, when I felt a very definitive kick in the middle of the night. It was fun because my hubby got to feel it right away too! Ever since then, I feel movement every day (though definitely not as often as women with “regular” placenta placement), which is so wild, amazing and bizarre all at once.

This aspect of my pregnancy was such a good reminder that everyone is different, and to focus on my intuition and what works for me. My baby bump might be smaller than people are used to, but I’m confident that I’m making the right choices and growing at a very healthy rate, and that my baby is developing perfectly.

Diet & Cravings

In the second trimester I had a few weeks of ravenous hunger, but for the most part, felt more normal with my eating and cravings than in the first trimester – when I felt more blah about food but also zoned in on very specific food cravings, like mango.

My love for fruit persisted, which isn’t all that surprising considering I eat a lot of fruit normally. Fruits like berries, cherries, and nectarines started to get into season, which I was happy about. Give me a bowl full of fruit and I’m a happy snacker!

My normal sweet tooth also came back in the second trimester, and I did a good amount of healthy baking of things like muffins and granola bars. Fruity ice creams and sorbets became my indulgent dessert of choice, and I developed a mild obsession with watermelon gelato from a local ice cream joint. So, so good! 

I continued to enjoy frequent smaller meals and snacks, and made a plant-based dinner most nights to pack in the veggies. I also didn’t stress about what I *shouldn’t* be eating, because I never eat most of those foods to begin with. But if there’s goat cheese in a salad? Bring it on, I’m not worried about it.

Did you know? Research shows that a child’s food preferences begin in the womb. So if you’re an expectant mother who wants your kid to be a healthy eater, it starts with your eating habits during pregnancy! 

This brings me to a quick point about pregnancy weight gain in the second trimester. I didn’t gain any weight in the first trimester, which in the end I really wasn’t worried about. I knew that I was eating enough and would see weight gain when it made sense for me.

As the soon as the second trimester began, I started to steadily gain, on average, a pound a week. By the end, I had gained 15 pounds. I’ve been lenient with my diet and eat whatever I’m craving, but I’ve also been making sure to eat lots of whole foods and to nourish myself with lots of anti-inflammatory, high antioxidant eats. It’s really just been about listening to my body, and I kind of love it.

The Not So Fun Symptoms 

Every pregnancy involves some sort of nagging symptoms, and mine have mostly been indigestion, heartburn and tummy aches. In the second trimester I experienced some crampy, jabbing kind of little pains, which was most likely round ligament pain – a normal part of pregnancy as the ligaments loosen up to make room for the growing baby.

Towards the end of the second trimester, I definitely started to feel like things were getting crowded in my body. Bending over to put my shoes on or grab something off the ground has started to feel like a legit stretch, and I find myself making sound effects as I do it! The feeling has persisted into my third trimester, and I’m sure it will get more extreme the bigger she gets. It’s amazing how much us women stretch and grow to accommodate a tiny human developing in there!

Overall, my second trimester continued to be a generally good, complications-free pregnancy. It is such a wild ride growing a human, and I’m just enjoying the journey!

Check out my other pregnancy posts: 

• Why I Switched from an OB-GYN to a Midwife
• Pregnant Life with Baby C: The First Trimester
• And Baby Makes Three

Mamas, anything you can relate to from your pregnancy experiences? Readers, any pregnancy questions?