Pregnancy #2: My First Trimester

After months of fertility treatments, we finally got to a place where we were able to do an embryo transfer and I’m pregnant! You can read previous updates about my various fertility protocols here, and I’ll write a new post soon to share how we finally got to embryo transfer day. But, since I already had this drafted, I figured I’d go ahead and publish this first. As I’m writing this, I’m about 10.5 weeks along and so far, pregnancy #2 has been a lot harder than my first. Maybe because I’m older, maybe because I’ve been on medications for six months, who knows. But I hope it improves because I honestly loved being pregnant with Thomas, so I hope that feeling returns.

Pregnancy #2: My First Trimester

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Medication

I’ve still been doing progesterone in oil injections every day since the embryo transfer. And I’m on those for a couple more days before I switch to a progesterone pill for a few weeks. And then I’m done! Well, hopefully. The first trimester progesterone protocol is what my fertility clinic had outlined. However, when I went to my OB for my initial visit after being released from CFI to traditional care, the NP said that they like people with a history of infertility to stay on progesterone.

They would regularly check my bloodwork to see if my body is producing enough progesterone on its own. If not, I’d keep doing injections for longer, perhaps even my entire pregnancy. I’m not opposed to it — I’m used to the shots by now — but I feel like if my doctor at CFI thought long-term progesterone was necessary, he’d keep me on it. I’ve reached out to him for his input before I make a decision on staying on it or not.

Pregnancy #2 Nausea & Food Aversions

I’m very nauseous — all day, everyday — and I have a lot of food aversions. For the first few weeks, I was living on carbs and after chatting with my friend Caitlin (whom I remember had posted about tweaking her diet to improve her nausea with her second pregnancy), I’m forcing myself to eat protein. And that has helped a LOT.

I don’t especially like meat under normal circumstances and now I really can’t stomach it. And while I don’t typically eat dairy since it upsets my stomach, I’ve been eating it since I can actually get it down and it hasn’t been bothering my stomach. Apparently that’s not uncommon that women can tolerate dairy and gluten during pregnancy #2, even if they previously couldn’t. The same thing happened during my pregnancy with Thomas: I had no issues with dairy and gluten, despite having issues with both for years. I stopped eating dairy after he was born since he reacted to it and I was breastfeeding, but I kept gluten in my diet and haven’t had any issues. Hallelujah!

Here’s what I’m eating most days:

Breakfast:

Sprouted english muffin, berries and eggs. Typically, I’ll have half the english muffin before my workout and then the other half + berries and eggs afterwards. Somedays I also make a Daily Harvest smoothie.

Lunch:

This is the hardest for me since salads sound awful and so does any sort of sandwich. So my lunches are all kind of random, but it’s usually a snack plate of some sort with yogurt, raw almonds, grapes or cherries. I’ve had cooked sushi a couple times and smoothie bowls too.

Dinner:

I don’t love meat under normal circumstances, but so far I’ve been able to stomach steak or shredded pork, but I can’t do burgers and I can’t do chicken. I also am not loving beans. But I’ll keep trying! I am weirdly love corn on the cob, which is something I’ve always been meh on, so that’s kind of funny. If we get takeout, I’ll often get tofu as my protein. I also really like pizza these days.

Snacks:

Pretzels with chocolate hummus, raw almonds, oranges, carrots, spelt cookies, popcorn with nutritional yeast.

If I’d listed out my food a month ago, it would have looked like this: crackers, pretzels, white bread, cereal. But forcing myself to eat better has made it easier to eat better. And I FEEL so much better.

Fatigue

Aside from food, I’m really tired. Partially because of the pregnancy hormones and partially because I have a hard time falling asleep. I tried taking benadryl and that didn’t help. I tried 1/2 a unisom and I couldn’t function the next day because I was so groggy. I’m hoping now that I’m hope for a while without any travel, that I’ll get back into a routine and able to sleep again. Our trips the last few months kept messing up my sleep and by the time I got back in a better sleeping routine, we were packing our bags again.

Thankfully, I have a nanny four days a week so on the days that I really just need to lie around I can and I’ve worked from bed quite a bit. On Fridays, I typically lay down during his nap and even if I don’t sleep, the downtime helps me.

Anxiety

I struggled with anxiety before I got pregnant with Thomas and then my anxiety was pretty bad during my pregnancy with him. But, well, everyone’s anxiety was bad in 2020. However, after he was born and after a series of really hard personal things, I started struggling with pretty severe postpartum anxiety. I eventually went on medication and I’m still on medication. I talked to my fertility doctor and my regular OB clinic and both of them felt totally comfortable with me staying on medication, especially because I’m on a really low dose.

So, all that to say, my anxiety hasn’t been too bad this go around, thankfully. I would like to get off my medication someday, but I can say without any hesitation that I am so glad I went on it. It changed my life and I wish I’d gotten on it years ago. I had gone to therapy for over a decade and my anxiety was still through the roof. This medication made me feel like myself again.

There have been a couple days where my mood just felt in the dumps, where I didn’t feel like doing anything and felt kind of depressed. But, it was fleeting and hasn’t been consistent so I’m not too concerned about perinatal depression in my situation.

Exercise

When I posted a question box on Instagram about, asking people what updates they wanted in this post, a few people asked how my running has been going. And honestly, it’s not great. I ran throughout my entire pregnancy with Thomas and felt pretty darn good for the most part. However, so far (other than a few exceptions where I had a random great run), running has felt awful. I feel sluggish, it’s hard to catch my breath and it just doesn’t feel quite right. And, on the days I do run, I’m wiped the rest of the day and feel terrible, almost like I have the flu. I wonder how much of the heat and humidity is playing into that as well. But since I don’t feel like running, I’m not running. And if there comes a day that I do feel like running, I will.

But for now, I’m really enjoying the Peloton (which I rode a lot during my first pregnancy too), pilates and strength training. I like the Peloton Power Zone classes and the scenic rides the most. And I also really like the Peloton bootcamp and full-body strength classes.

Outfits

So far I’ve been able to keep wearing almost everything. I can tell a few pairs of jeans are a little snug but I’m not really wearing jeans when it’s so hot! I’ll share more outfits as my bump gets a little bigger in case it’s helpful for anyone else who is expecting. I also intentionally bought some shorts with a stretchy waistband when I was writing a blog post with the best Madewell shorts.

I’m also elated that I can still wear my favorite Amazon athleisure dress and Abercrombie travel romper! They’re two of my favorite purchases for my “mom days” when I’m chasing Thomas. And my favorite denim shorts have always been loose in the waist so they still fit too, which makes me VERY happy.

It IS kind of a bummer to not buy jeans during the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale since there are so many good ones this year!! But, I can definitely justifying buying some coats since there are some gorgeous ones that will accommodate a bump in the winter!

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If you have any other questions, let me know! There were a number of other questions that people asked on Instagram, but they are more about the frozen embryo process so I’ll address those in that post!

Thank you for following along in my journey and for caring and supporting. It means more than you know.