I want to share the differences between my first and second pregnancy now that we are done with babies. After reading this, please feel free to leave your experiences in the comments below. I’d love to read about your pregnancy.
My First Pregnancy vs Second Pregnancy – What I experienced
I went into my first pregnancy with the mindset that I needed to train for an event – and I’m glad I did. My pregnancy up until 16 weeks went well (I even managed to fit in 3 overseas trips and was also able to do my regular exercises and wear ordinary clothes). But things quickly changed from 18 weeks.
Some interesting experiences from my first pregnancy:
- Between 13 to 16 weeks, I could still jog but dropped the distance from 4km to around 2km. I thought this was interesting because the fact that I was pregnant didn’t impact my exercise routine at this stage.
- From 18 weeks onwards, the ankles were swollen. They felt worse just before bed. So every day, I’d have to spend a good chunk of time doing stretches to try and get the fluid to go from my ankles elsewhere.
- On top of the daily stretches, I also needed regular massages as the fluid retention around the ankles and feet were terrible.
- Despite the swollen ankles, the good news was that my skin was in its best shape ever. My psoriasis or rosacea disappeared.
- Another plus was the fact that my lips were very plump. They never looked so full.
- My hair felt different; it was thicker and curlier.
- The food cravings were insane; I craved salty and sweet food. So to help with the weight gain, I kept snacks and treats away from home.
- From 23 weeks onwards, it was impossible to turn my body when asleep in bed. So I relied on my trusted hubby for his help to turn me multiple times each night in bed.
My Second pregnancy
Unfortunately, no matter how much I tried to start my pregnancy journey on a solid foot, I came into this second pregnancy still carrying weight from my first, which is a big issue because the older I get, the harder it is to be in shape.
- I was 5-10 kg overweight when I fell pregnant with my second baby. So I had to consult a nutritionist at 6 weeks to determine the healthy weight range I needed to be in if I was already carrying extra weight.
- At 16 weeks, I wasn’t running like the first pregnancy, but I was still doing two pump classes a week.
- I had terrible nausea and extreme tiredness from 3 – 18 weeks
- I was also sick all of the time with a cold nearly every second or third week
- At 20-23 weeks, I had intense pain inside my legs, resulting from an unstable pelvis. So I had to incorporate wearing a support band and doing specific stretches to strengthen the pelvis to help take a load of those burning muscles by the end of the day in my legs.
- I was fortunate to keep exercising for up to 32 weeks but did end up having a personal trainer towards the end to ensure I didn’t push or injure myself.
- Unlike my first, I didn’t have intense cravings and could quickly eat anything green, but I had an insane craving for ginger.
- By 30 weeks like my first pregnancy, I smashed lemon slices with ice cubes and was entirely off chicken and red meat.
- By 33 weeks, the fluid started to build up around my ankles, so it wasn’t as nearly as bad as my first pregnancy.
- I was also waking up more times during the night because I had to pee constantly. It was also around this time, 34 weeks to be exact, I had to stop exercising as I started to feel extremely tired from my workouts.
- My delivery was a lot faster and traumatic because, unlike the first, which went forever, the second was super fast, and it’s because of that it was a shock as you have the mindset that the labour would take ages.
All in all, the two pregnancies were completely different; there were no similarities. One day, I hope to show my daughter these parenting related posts, so she learns just how amazing our bodies are to create life!
Here are some other parenting-related posts to read:
– A beautiful post about my son Hercule from my sister-in-law
– My top 8 baby essentials for new mums. New mum must haves
– Why I took my baby to sleep school and did sleep school work?
