I'm back with another trimester recap, this time a couple weeks early (I'm 25 weeks as of yesterday but couldn't wait to share this kind of long post with you guys)! The second trimester has been interesting because I finally feel pregnant, which sometimes means I feel completely normal (plus 20 pounds) and other days I can barely get out of bed.

Cravings:

• mac and cheese (I would buy the gluten-free boxed junk from the store and it was great)

• breakfast sandwiches (especially sausage egg and cheese on an everything bagel with mayo or GF toast with egg and cheese and mayo--seriously, it was mostly about the mayo)

• rice cakes with cream cheese and Everything But the Bagel Seasoning or some mayo and sliced tomato

• McDonalds...I would get a "You Pick Two" like once a week. My go-to order is a McChicken and a McDouble. So gross but so incredibly good.

• milkshakes or vanilla soft serve

• really cold ice water--I'm talking more ice than water in the glass

• hash browns

• Greek food

• peaches and watermelon

• "5 year old dinners" ie cheesy burger skillet things over GF noodles, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, or GF pasta with butter and parmesan

• I made a reservation at 10PM from bed on my phone one night to go to Benihana later that week and dreamed of hibachi

Symptoms/Week-by-Week:

• Started experiencing what's called round ligament pain as my lower abs started expanding.

• Tailbone pain--so bad that I would sometimes gasp a little when I rocked back on the floor at the barre studio.

• I think I might have some slight ab separation but I'm not 100% sure.

• Headaches

• Heartburn

• My hips are starting to hurt--when I walk or stretch I can hear and feel them creaking/popping. I've read that it's from hormones that release to open up your joints and get your body ready for labor and delivery, which is pretty freaky if you think about it, but I'll take all the help I can get!

• My skin has never looked worse--my nose and chin are breaking out like crazy into this rash that's half acne, half just dryness and irritation. It's gross and it kind of hurts and I'm not sure if it's because of hormones or a new face wash I was using or because I'm eating a lot more dairy than usual. My lips also feel really dry (especially the bottom one) and I can't seem to drink enough water or use enough lip balm.

I was so excited about the second trimester because I had heard so many things about being less nauseated and having more energy, but on day 1 of week 12 exactly I started throwing up, which was kind of frustrating--I was really hoping to feel better and stop eating so much junk food. Before that point I had been really nauseated but only actually puked if I coughed too hard or accidentally gagged while brushing my teeth...cute, I know. But suddenly I was so nauseated that I would just vomit. Finally around week 21 the nausea passed, but my cravings went from "I have to eat this hash brown or I'll throw up" to "I want to eat this hash brown/McChicken/ice cream cone and I'm not throwing up so let's do it!" 

Week 16-17 I started feeling the baby move. It felt like a tiny twitch at first and I thought I was making it up, but after a few weeks it was getting stronger and happening at the same time every day. I think it was around week 21 that we could start seeing the kicks from the outside and Rob was able to finally feel them with his hand on my belly. So fun.

20 weeks we found out it's a girl!

At 22 weeks I wondered if pregnancy brain was a real thing because I totally blanked out twice in one day teaching Pure Barre classes. It was pretty funny but also quite embarrasing.

Around 24 weeks I felt like I finally wasn't sick at all and hadn't been for a while, most days my energy levels were normal, and I could start eating whatever I wanted, so I started cutting out some of the processed junk I had made part of my diet every day. I'm nothing close to keto but definitely taking a step closer to Paleo--I'm trying to incorporate some greens into every meal and cut back significantly on the McDonald's.

Exercise: 

I'm still taking Pure Barre 3-4 times a week and walking Ender almost every day. I was teaching 8 classes at the studio every week in July which felt like a lot but now I'm teaching 4, which is a nice break and gives me more time to actually take class myself. I feel like I want to start swimming because lately I've been missing running but I don't think I should start that now. We're coming out with a new cardio class at Pure Barre so I've been taking practice classes with some of my teacher friends and I'm excited for that to launch next week. We're thinking about buying an erg so I can start rowing after the baby comes--Rob goes to the gym at work and he's been rowing a bit as well, so it'd be fun to have one at home.

Other Stuff:

• We decided to use Babylist for our registry, and it's been really fun--I like that you can pick stuff from anywhere online. You don't get the perks of registering from certain stores, but the flexibility has been really great for us.

• I got a Snoogle (affiliate link) and it's the best. Ender is also obsessed with it and sometimes I come into my room and find him napping in it.

• My belly button is starting to pop out and it's bizarre and hilarious.

• One night I randomly started thinking about our daughter going to college and Ender not being alive anymore and I totally lost my shit, sobbing into my pillow like a little kid. It was ridiculous.

• I bought this dress (affiliate link) for my baby shower and I love it so much. It's so different from a lot of the stuff I wear (ie neutrals), but the print is gorgeous and it's really flattering on. I can't wait to wear it.

• I got a prenatal massage the other day because my back was bothering me and it was pretty enjoyable--I felt like the pressure wasn't enough but the massage therapist was very adamant about staying away from pressure points and stuff like that, which I guess makes sense.

• We know what names we like but can't seem to pick one--I actually think we might narrow it down to two or three names and then wait until she's actually here to pick something. With 15 weeks to go I feel like I could change my mind so many times that naming her now doesn't even mean anything yet.

• I still want a cold turkey sandwich more than anything. I started making grilled cheese sandwiches with hot turkey but it's just not the same.

• The hardest thing to get used to is having what I've started calling "throwaway days" where I'm either too tired or just don't feel well enough to get much done. I'll feel really good for a while and then be kind of thrown off when I wake up groggy or achey. Working primarily from home can be a challenge, especially when you have a headache or just want to eat some popcorn and watch TV all afternoon. Sometimes I'll set my alarm for a 30 minute nap and wake up an hour and a half later like a zombie. I'm trying to learn to give myself a little bit of a break and rest when I need to, even if it means my to-do list gets pushed back a few days. Teaching, blogging, and working on another cookbook definitely keeps me busy and I have a bad habit of biting off more than I can chew sometimes because a lot of the time throughout the year I feel like I'm not doing enough professionally, so I try to make up for it whenever I can, whether I'm also growing a human or not.

As always, let me know if you have questions or comments! I'd love to hear from you if you've had a similar (or totally different) experience!

Every time I start a blog post with "I don't want this to become a mommy blog..." you can bet I'm about to share something pregnancy-related. However! I've been working on this post for a few days and then someone actually requested it from me on Instagram so here it is!

I've worked really hard to get rid of all the clothes I don't absolutely love and wear all the time, so the thought of buying maternity clothing really bugged me. I decided to see how long I could go before I had to buy anything specifically for my changing body, and it worked really well! I'm still mostly wearing the clothes I owned before, and have only recently bought a few items to get me through the summer. I'm hoping that when the weather cools down again, my regular wardrobe of leggings and baggy sweaters will serve me well and I won't have to keep buying new stuff.

So without further ado, here are some of the things I already had (or bought in my first trimester) that aren't actually maternity pieces, but worked really well through 20 weeks or so of pregnancy (some of them are still just great)!

• I have a couple drawstring rompers much like this one that were the first thing to stop fitting, but worked really well for a few months (although when you have to pee all the time it's kind of a pain to get on and off).
• These tanks are less than 5 bucks at Old Navy and I bought 5 or 6 of them (size large, for reference--I'm usually a small or medium). They're fitted but stretchy and long enough to fit over my growing bump.
• A big baggy sweater to throw on in the mornings--I love that the Bay Area is always chilly early and late every day. I wear something like this to the barre studio or when I'm walking Ender.
• The first thing I wanted to stop wearing were regular bras, and this sports bra is perfect under a tee shirt or tank top. It doesn't have a ton of support but it's soft and really comfortable. 
• This dress still fits great and I wear it a lot. It's also just really flattering on, pregnant or not.
• I've been living in athletic wear even more now that I teach Pure Barre a few times a week, and these Alo leggings have been a lifesaver. They're high-waisted without a seam so they don't cut into your belly and they look very smooth under a shirt. I just got this style recently but the others I linked to below have stuck with me since before I got pregnant.
• Baggy tank tops like this were great those first few months when I felt like I was getting a little bigger but not really ready to let people know that we were expecting. (I always feel like I'm getting way more for my money when I buy shirts I can work out in or wear out somewhere.)
• These leggings are probably the coolest pants I've ever owned. They're so pretty and make me feel like a bit of a badass. I love the mesh detail and the pintucked panels. They were my first Alo purchase and I was a little unsure about the high price tag but I wear them so much they were absolutely worth it.

That's it for now! Do you have any pieces of clothing that you wear all the time no matter what? And please let me know if you have any other requests for posts--clothing/pregnancy-related or not! I'm teaching a bit less and just finished a big project so I'm excited to spend some extra time on the blog for the rest of the summer and into the fall, and I always love hearing from you guys with questions and/or requests.

This post contains affiliate links, which means if you click around and/or buy something, I make a small commission. Thanks for your support as I continue to share content like this!

Dear Baby,

We're halfway to meeting you and it's kind of blowing my mind. For weeks (okay, months) I couldn't really picture anything about you--I knew you were in there but you still felt so hypothetical, so unreal to me; this little bundle of cells, more alien than baby.

But then we saw your little face and nose on the ultrasound, the curve of your neck and skull and even your brain--I feel you moving every day and your dad can feel your kicks around 6PM when they're especially strong, and the other night we lay in bed talking about how you'd be a toddler before we knew it, and when you turn 15 or 16 will you even need to learn how to drive? Our neighborhood is right in the middle of Silicon Valley so every day we see self-driving cars being tested on the roads and I can't help but imagine you as a teenager, laughing at how much manual driving we used to have to do when you were a brand-new baby.

For as long as I can remember I've had one particular baby girl name picked out, and then we found out you were actually a girl and now we can't seem to name you. You're so real now, so human to me, that it makes you even more magical; more unreal. Naming an actual person like you feels like such a responsibility. Is that your name? I flip it over in my mind and wonder. Kick twice if that's your name. 

One thing you don't know about me yet is how much I'm obsessed with fall, when the weather turns cool and the leaves change color and it smells like campfires every morning. Every year around this time (sometimes even earlier--the 4th of July is my new limit) I find myself wishing the rest of our summer days away and counting down until September, October, November. You'll be here this November, though, and there's so much we still need to do, so much to prepare for, that I'm trying so hard not to wish these last few months away. But then I think about your tiny face and how much we love you already and it's almost impossible to not get caught in a daydream where we're both wrapped up in a blanket, you with a tiny hat on your head, me with some hot chocolate (or maybe a boozy hot apple cider...let's be realistic), soaking up our first fall and winter together.

I'll talk to you again before then. Are you getting enough hash browns in there? I'll keep 'em coming, just in case.

With love,

Megan (AKA your mom--so weird)