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First trimester to second – how I feel, running and food

I’m quite comfortably in the second trimester of my pregnancy now at 18 weeks and enjoying life.

So far I think I’ve put on about 3-4lbs – I’m assuming it’s going to increase quite quickly at some point!

Comparative to the first trimester, it’s an utter breeze. No constant feelings of nausea, no feeling like I was limited in what I could eat for fear of it turning my stomach or being too much. While I still can’t eat certain foods (apples, shockingly, can you even believe? Along with ice cream, hot chocolate and chicken wings), I can pretty much eat most things and eat far bigger portions than I was able.

Porridge thankfully doesn’t make me feel sick anymore and I’m gradually increasing my portion size little by little. Pre-pregnancy I would have a giant bowl, but then I had to half that bowl to a teeny tiny portion and now it’s about 3/4 of the way there again, hurrah!

My chocolate eating, however, has become quite something. I eat it every single day. Now previously I would of course eat chocolate regularly but this is literally every night.

I just love having a black decaf coffee a few lines of the Cadbury’s Mini Egg Bars (you must try if you haven’t) or Tony’s Chocolonely or Toblerone. Basically anything. We have a lot of chocolate in the house and every single night I’ll be getting some.

I’m not worried because it’s not like I’m eating an entire bar every single night (though some nights I do get close!) but to me it’s balance. We have nice balanced meals most days and if I eat a lot of chocolate one evening, I’ll make sure to eat more vegetables and less chocolate the next day.

My energy levels are so much better too. During the first trimester I was exhausted ALL the time. I had to take 30-60 minute naps in the afternoon to get through the day (thank god for WFH!). If I ran I would be totally drained for the rest of the day. My standing desk became my sitting desk and doing my usual strength workouts became very hard. Following along to YouTube workouts was tough as I felt so unfit.

To be honest I thought this was only going to get worse. However happily it has not. I no longer need naps, running and working out feel normal again and I get through the day without feeling like I’m walking through treacle. It’s crazy how things change so quickly.

In terms of my running, I’m still slower than pre-pregnancy, of course, but I have some mornings where I feel more energised  and zippy than usual and can be around 8:15-8:30 paces.

But then there are other runs where I’m nice and comfortable just going along at 8:50-9 min miles.

Running, despite being slower, doesn’t feel vastly different to how it used to. I do feel a pressure and slight weight in my lower tummy and this will often result in my needing to stop  a number of times to go for a wee during my longer runs. But I don’t feel any discomfort or pains when I run, or afterwards (otherwise I’d stop).

I did have a minor blip recently where my left of hip started to bug me. It felt like a niggle I’d had before so I didn’t think it was pregnancy related. But perhaps due to all the changes in my body and hormones it was exacerbated? Who knows. I was sensible though and rested it for about 6 days. Instead I did YouTube workouts instead and rehabbed my hip with squats, lunges and glute work. I found these definitely helped.

Now the hip issue has gone and I’m back to my usual runs. While I’m so glad it cleared up quickly and it wasn’t a long-term thing (touch wood) it did give me The Fear a bit. I really want to maintain my running as best as I can during this pregnancy. Now of course, as I keep saying, I know my paces will drop further and I will eventually be running less but I do want to continue to run every week as much as my body will allow. So far 30 miles a week with a 10-13 mile long run at the weekend is working perfectly. I adore my running at the moment, especially with lockdown. It’s such mental refresher and a way I derive great happiness in this worrying and admittedly rather boring time.

This is why when I started to get a niggle I was quick to react and take some time off. I’m  happy to take a number of days off rather than weeks off because weeks are big in this pregnancy journey. Lots is changing and I don’t want to suddenly try running again after a lot of time off and realise my body is just not able to anymore.

I know that might be a silly way to look at it and factually not accurate at all but it definitely encouraged me to be far more sensible than I’ve ever been. Normally I’d have pushed through the runs regardless, but I stopped straight away even though it wasn’t painful per se, just a bit niggly. Pain is usually what stops me. However I nipped it in the bud before it even got there, whew! A lesson for future non-pregnant Anna I think…

Did you run through your pregnancy (if you’re female and had children!)?

Do you like to snack in the evening?

What food would you hate to not be able to eat anymore?

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Our lockdown gender reveal party

So I am now 17+5 weeks pregnant. It feels like it’s flying by but it also feels like it’s crawling, which is weird. I mean, comparative to the pandemic and lockdown(s) I suppose.

We recently had another private scan so we could (hopefully) find out the baby’s sex. We could of course wait until the NHS 20 week scan but both Kyle and I are rather impatient. And also, there’s no guarantee at the NHS scan they’ll tell us (I’ve heard a few stories of this).

Originally I wasn’t going to find out. Kyle was going to be told and then I would be left in the dark. He would then text his sister, Lucy, the gender and she would beaver away making a “gender reveal” cake ready for a big family Zoom call the next day. I thought it would be quite fun me finding out the same time as my family and through cutting into the cake. However, I caved on Friday morning and decided there was no way I couldn’t not find out. It would be so hard Kyle knowing and me not.

We headed to Hello Baby in Southampton on the Friday evening and I was now super excited. Kyle and I were both convinced it would be a girl. Like I was almost CERTAIN (impossible I realise but I had such a strong feeling). We played silly games on the way to the scan like “the next singer’s gender will be our baby’s gender” or how many blue or pink things we could spot.

The woman doing the scan (the sonographer?) was so lovely and went through all the different parts of the baby saying how the sizes were good and healthy… and then she said did we want to know the gender? Yes! Yes! Yes! She explained she would turn the lights off, and then turn either the pink light or the blue light on. Oooooh.

Off went the lights. And on went the blue light! We were SHOCKED. So shocked. It was weird. I had a sudden, unexpected flood of disappointment, which upset me. I knew keenly that I wasn’t at all disappointed it was a boy. I was actually very chuffed we were having a boy. But I realised I was sad because all the things I’d imagined with a girl were now not going to be a reality. Like I’d imagined two scenarios in my head, and now one was now firmly gone. It was a brief moment of mourning for the little girl we wouldn’t be having.

But then suddenly I was excited and happy. A BOY! All the scenarios with a boy suddenly became cemented in reality. A little boy!

Kyle was super happy too. To be honest, we were going to be happy either way. There are so many pros to both. We FaceTimed Lucy and let her know (she was super excited for us) and then celebrated at home with a takeaway – of course.

The next day Lucy dropped off the cake. It looked incredible! We’d asked her to make it dinosaur themed (which is gender neutral in my eyes) and inside would be, of course, blue sponge. It had dinosaur “eggs” on top which were in fact cake pops and little chocolate dinosaurs. It was amazing.

We spent the day counting down the hours until we’d have the call with the family. We had to wait until everyone was free and ready – oh so hard! We were so impatient! We set up the cake in front of the laptop, positioned my phone to film it (for the memories and to share on social media).

Finally everyone arrived and we got them to guess before we’d cut the cake. It was pretty even on the guesses. And then we cut the cake.

It was such a special moment! Of course we’d have loved to have done it in person but at least this was still a bit of fun and such an enjoyable experience. I’m  so glad we filmed it as well as it means we have it forever.

Everyone, of course, was so happy for us and if I’m honest I’m glad it’s a boy not a girl now because on my side of the family we have no boys. My sister has two little girls so it’s nice my parents have a grandson to look forward to now.

So onwards to the 20 week scan now!

Did you do any sort of gender reveal party if you’ve had a baby/babies?

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Just keep swimming… or running

I realise my blog has suddenly become quite pregnancy focused. Somewhat understandable as that’s what’s currently going on right now for me, and let’s be honest there’s not much else happening anyway!

I’m now a couple of days away from 15 weeks and feeling miles better than I was during the first trimester.

Some days I get a little bit of random nausea early in the morning but mostly I’m out of the woods. Just general tiredness really. And other than the increasing size of my boobs, I pretty much look the same as before. I don’t currently have a noticeable bump. If I eat a lot in the evening (like when we get a takeaway at the weekend) it definitely pops out more, but I’m guessing this is mostly bloating and the food I’ve just eaten. By morning I’m back to “normal”.

Other than my pregnancy, Kyle and I are just pootling along through Lockdown 3.0… WFH during the week, Facetiming family and friends and then getting a takeaway or two at the weekend to keep us from going mad.

Last weekend was nice as my friend Mark was able to join me for a 10k run on Saturday morning. It was just so nice to run with someone else! I did used to run with Kyle at least once a week but he’s struggling a little with motivation (no races, no parkrun) and doesn’t particularly want to get up early in the week like I do. For me, if I don’t run in the morning I’d really struggle to go later as my motivation just dips completely.

So anyway Mark and I were able to run together and it just reminded me how easy running feels when you’re chatting away with someone. Hopefully we’ll do it again soon. He’s coming back from injury so my pregnancy pace was luckily not too slow for him! (He’s quite zippy normally).

I’m trying not to think too much about the coming months if I’m honest. Kyle and I deliberately didn’t take any holiday other than the Bank Holidays over Christmas so we could carry more holiday over to this year. The plan being that we could go on a little “baby moon” (hate that phrase) before the baby arrives.

We have to take this holiday though before the end of March and I’m panicking we won’t be able to go anywhere because we’ll still be locked down. Obviously I don’t expect us to go anywhere abroad, but I’d love to go somewhere other than Portsmouth right now! A little AirBnb, some walks, some time together just the two of us.

I’d dread that we’d have to take the holiday and be sat inside our house. I would go mad. And I don’t really want to take any holiday after March for the 2021 allocation because this is going to help boost my maternity leave pay. Argh. But it’ll be what it’ll be.

So we just work weekend to weekend and try to find little things to keep us going. Like ordering doughnuts from the local bakery. Or trying new takeaways near us.

Delicious cake from The Parade Tearooms

Or going for walks down to Southsea and getting takeaway coffees and cake.

Anything to just keep it from feeling too much like Groundhog Day.

How are you doing?

Are you planning any holidays this year?

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First trimester – running and how I’ve felt

In general I think I can say I had a good first trimester.

The worst part was, by far, the nausea. At the beginning, from about five weeks to eight weeks, I felt incredibly sick. The nausea would start as soon as I woke up (or even waking me up from 4am) and then continue throughout the day until the late afternoon. I found it very hard and I’ll admit I ended up in tears a number of times, saying to Kyle I wished I could be put in a coma until the second trimester.

I wasn’t actually sick but I wonder if I had have been that would have been better. I wanted to be sick and was close a few times but it never happened. There were foods I had to immediately cut out. Foods I had been eating for YEARS suddenly became trigger foods to intense nausea.

Now eating became purely functional, which was really sad for me. I’m the kind of person who enjoys my food, looks forward to every meal and enjoys eating big meals. But suddenly that disappeared. All my usual food loves vanished. The thought of porridge made me feel so sick. At first I tried to continue to eat it and I’d just feel a bit queasy afterwards. But then quickly I couldn’t even be near it. I had to switch to a very bland scrambled egg in a warmed pitta bread.

Food was no longer about tasting good or bringing enjoyment, but about filling me up just enough. Not too much because if I ate just slightly too much (not even too much for me as I can eat A LOT, but too much like slightly past the point of just hitting satiety) I would feel rubbish for hours afterwards. Because feeling rubbish was so bad and mentally draining I just avoided anything that wasn’t plain, carby and easy to digest. It wasn’t worth trying to see if I could risk it.

The 1st thing I’d eat in a morning

I stopped eating my salads at lunch time (salads I’d been eating since I started working over 10 years ago). Vegetables quickly disappeared from my diet unless they were hidden away. Gone were the days I’d pile up the plate with broccoli and cauliflower. Nope. I remember watching Kyle eating a Dominoes – which is something I’d never eat as I’m not a takeaway pizza fan – and have such a strong desire for it. Dominoes suddenly became a staple Friday night meal.

I quickly learnt how to navigate through the day – keeping my foods simple and eating small portions spaced out. I started to get some weird cravings as well. I watched a scene on the Crown where the queen ate a Greek salad and I suddenly couldn’t think of anything else but large chunks of cucumber, olives, feta and tomatoes.

And things like cheesy chips, Wotsits, Doritos and tangy Haribo’s occupied my thoughts regularly. I couldn’t get enough. But things like ice cream, cups of tea or coffee, my usual favourite crisps and evening hot chocolate quickly disappeared.

Other symptoms were spots (delightful) and incredible feelings of tiredness. I started ot regularly have a 20-30min afternoon nap as my energy just dipped so much. Other than that, I can’t say I suffered from much else thankfully!

In terms of my running, it was incredible how quickly pregnancy affected it. Like the night before I found out I was pregnant my run was terrible. I was running going “why does this feel so hard and yet I’m not even pushing the pace?”. It was another reason I thought I was coming down with something or that my iron levels were low. I literally went from running 8min/miles nice and easy to finding 8.30s to be like sprinting. But I was just happy to still be able to run. And as soon as I realised the reason for my runs feeling hard was because I was pregnant, it became a lot easier mentally.

I also found running an escape from the nausea. It was nice to be outside with the fresh air. Amazingly I’ve managed to keep my mileage around 30 miles per week but take each run as it comes. I literally don’t care about pace anymore. I just want to be able to continue running for as long as I can. If that means going a lot slower – that’s fine! But of course I’ll listen to my body and if anything feels off or wrong, I’ll stop. And I have no ego about maintaining my mileage or speed. I’m fully prepared for everything to decrease (or potentially stop) the further along I go through this pregnancy. But so far so good!

I still love my long weekend run, but it’s not at a max of 13 miles. And sometimes I feel absolutely great afterwards and sometimes I feel utterly drained. But on the whole, I believe running is good for me and I’ve had no ill effects from it (other than the tiredness occasionally). But as my boobs become bigger I have had to buy some new bigger sports bra as the friction and tightness can cause a lot of issues!

I’m now comfortably in the second trimester at almost 14 weeks (we are week ahead of what we thought after having our NHs scan!) and I feel pretty good in general. Running is a bit easier as I have more energy. Nausea rarely crops up unless I eat something a bit off (apples are very hit and miss sadly). As I said, I’ll continue working out and running while it feels comfortable and I have no issues. I’ll take each day as it comes, with no goals or targets (i.e. pressure) in mind.

Do you have any goals for 2021?

Did you run through your pregnancy?

If you were pregnant, how did you find the first trimester?