The second trimester is the golden period of pregnancy and I really felt great during this time. The nausea was all gone and I had more energy than before. It almost feels like I’m not pregnant!

One major difference between this pregnancy and the first one is that I have a wild toddler to take care of. In the first pregnancy, I could rest and relax as much as I wanted. With the second pregnancy, I didn’t really have that much time to think about being pregnant and wistfully prepare for the arrival of the baby. Lex also still does not sleep through the night so that was definitely tough to deal with while pregnant. I was really struggling with the first trimester as I felt sick and fatigued often. Lex is super energetic and also has strong emotions so it’s not always easy with him. We still had our wonderful part time helper but she only came for half days so mornings were typically quite tough for me when I was not feeling my best during the first trimester. That is why the easiness of the second trimester was more appreciated than ever in this pregnancy.

In my first pregnancy, I was still navigating different workouts and getting used to my fitness and energy level during pregnancy. With the second pregnancy, I had a better idea of what worked and didn’t work. I got a walking pad and I would do walking exercises a few times a week. I also continued to do prenatal workouts with BodyFitbyAmy. I did not run at all during my first pregnancy but did a run once a week until week 20. I had felt pretty good during my runs, but by week 19 I was getting a painful stitch every time I ran so I knew it was time to stop. I was bummed that I couldn’t run anymore but the walking pad was really helpful and I did walks at home frequently. It was super convenient and I was really glad that I was able to keep up with a low impact workout. Pregnancy is no time to push the limit and set new fitness goals, all I wanted was to keep moving and feel good. I was really happy with my workout frequency in the second trimester and I would work out 3-4 times in the weekdays and weekends would be quality time with Jerry and Lex that often included walks and time at the pool or beach.

Of course another exciting part of the second trimester is that we get to find out the gender of our baby! We were so thrilled to find out that we were having another little boy! I have loved being a boy mom so much and we were so excited to have another little monkey to chase after. However, it is also the time when you get annoying comments from random people. People LOVE to ask about whether it’s a girl (which is mostly harmless), but some even have the nerve to look really sad or sorry for me when I say I am having another boy. I don’t understand why it’s so hard for some people to grasp that perhaps not everyone wants one boy and one girl? It’s so weird that some people assume every wants that. I am perfectly happy being a boy mom and it’s so rude of people to make negative and presumptuous comments. It is especially irritating when I’ve already stated that I am happy to have two boys and people still want to say something dumb like “but a girl would be so nice!”. Irritating comments aside, we are always super excited to find out the gender of our baby. It is also the time we find out the results for the NIPT, and it’s always a relief to know that every thing is normal. Once we knew it was a boy, I was so excited to start nesting and take out Lex’s cute old clothes for baby brother.

Having a second boy also made selecting the name easy. We had two final names narrowed down when we had Lex and we picked Alexander because we felt it fit him better. We also loved the other name and we had agreed that if we had a second son we would use that name. We did do a tiny bit of name research anyways but I already had my heart set on that name.

Due to the hormones, I had to get up in the middle of the night to pee during the first trimester. Luckily this started to go away in the 2nd trimester. I also suspect that I felt some baby movement around week 16 but the movements became more obvious at week 18. One very uncomfortable symptom was that my allergies got horrendously worse during pregnancy. I always had nasal allergies but it was very severe during my pregnancy. I also did not want to take allergy medicine during pregnancy so it was tough to deal with. This was particularly unfortunate during Covid times, when I would be sneezing and sniffling nonstop. Another annoying symptom was that my lower back was starting to get quite sore as I neared the end of my 2nd trimester.

In terms of breastfeeding, my milk supply also completely dried up during the 2nd trimester. Lex still asked for milk and was just dry nursing at this point. I think he just liked the comfort from the suckling. We had mostly night weaned by now and Lex would nurse around 3 times a day.

Generally this trimester was great and I felt pretty good until near the end. I was gaining weight at a pace that I was comfortable with. The dry scalp from first trimester was also gone. One thing I noticed is that I did not get a linea negra on my belly this time. It was very prominent with the first pregnancy but I did not get it this time during the second trimester, perhaps it will show up later in the third trimester!