Guess what??? I’m PREGNANT!!!

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes… 4 kids! 4 kids??? Omg I’m about to have my fourth baby! Do people even cosign having more than 2-3 kids these days? But then again, do I even care if people approve of our family expansion? (the answer to that is NO!) These are totally exciting times for my husband and I 😀

This post is a few weeks past due as I’m now 21 weeks pregnant but I’m sorry I was so busy being sick and nauseous for the last few months I needed some time to get it together!

Being a mom who’s gone through 3 pregnancies and labors means I have had my fair share of ups and downs in child bearing lol. I wanted to share with y’all how this one is going so far compared to my first 3 experiences by highlighting some of the main differences.

Morning Sickness

Every pregnancy like clockwork from about week 5 to week 13/14, I have a serious case of nausea with lovely bouts of vomiting usually on a daily basis. I hated feeling nauseous, but I hated vomiting even more. The experience of vomiting just sucks in my opinion, but what made it worse is the fact that I’m honestly such a loud barfer! (TMI anyone?) I WISH I was one of those ladylike types who could discreetly do her business with no one noticing but no, not I! I, on the other hand, sound like I’m being murdered in the bathroom… imagine that while at work or in public 😣 So with that wonderful image in your mind, you can understand why I disliked vomiting. But then baby #4 came along with all the glorious nausea and almost NO vomiting. I never realized what a horrible experience that could be. The benefit of vomiting is at least you’re offered a bit of relief from the overwhelming sickness you feel on a daily basis and I didn’t realize how much I’d miss it. The only times I ever was able to throw up this pregnancy was when I’d accidentally gag myself while brushing my teeth/tongue (I know other moms can relate to that!) and that never offered me any relief as this usually would happen first thing in the morning when there was nothing in my stomach anyways.

This time around, my morning sickness felt almost debilitating. I thought I would benefit from being a stay at home mom while pregnant as opposed to the last 3 times when I was a full time employee with an ever demanding job. But again, I was wrong! Of course being home means I can put off some chores here and there to sit back and rest for a bit, but it also means there are 3 kids at home, who need my attention literally 24/7 or else my house might go up in flames, or get trashed, or they might go hungry, or get bored, or get dirty, or one of the many many outcomes of attempting to relax when you have little ones at home. One thing that did help was implementing quiet time for my boys. My littlest guy would usually take his nap at the same time every day and during that time, my 2 big boys had quiet time, watching TV, doing crafts, reading etc. This allowed me to dose off on the couch while the boys were in the room with me and I could at least get a few moments of rest which offered me relief from the nausea and also just helped as growing a human literally can take all of your energy.

Other things that helped me manage my nausea was drinking a lot of water, and eating smaller portions more often throughout the day. A HUGE piece of advice that I can offer moms with morning sickness is don’t stop eating, no matter how sick you feel DO NOT stop eating, even if it’s something small, even if it’s just a few crackers here and there. I find that going long periods without eating can make the nausea worse. I won’t go as far as to say it makes the nausea go away (maybe for some lucky moms it does!) but it definitely helps. Also, listen to your body! Do you have something that’s a regular part of your diet and once you get pregnant you can’t even keep it down? Don’t force it! Put it away and try something new and wait at least until the morning sickness passes. I love my 1-2 cups of coffee a day which I never gave up with my previous pregnancies (I switched to decaf though) but this time around I could not handle coffee in my system. It made me so sick! So did all kinds of animal products, dairy, eggs, meats etc. So for a good part of my first trimester I was on a mostly vegan diet and honestly not because I was trying to be uber health conscious but because that’s what my body wanted and I listened. It helped tremendously. Thankfully it did come to an end and slowly but surely I got back to eating my regular foods without suffering through it (most days).

Weight Gain

Before I ever had kids, I was always had a naturally slim figure and didn’t have to make much of an effort to maintain my body shape. I was tall, skinny, with a bit of curves. Other than the fact that I was blessed with a fast metabolism, I didn’t do anything significant to contribute to my health and fitness. That definitely hindered me when I was trying to get my body back after baby #1. I was always uninterested in any type of physical activity, I’d rather eat cake and chocolate than have an apple lol and even earned the title of “Lazy Lilly” by my dad who knew all too well how much I hated running, sports, nature and anything that would cause me to exert any energy! I’ve been this way since I was a little girl, such a shame!

Anywhoo, right before I got pregnant I weighed about 155 pounds. I gained about 35 pounds and ended my pregnancy somewhere in the 190’s. I was able to lose about 25 pounds but kept an extra 10 pounds on me. The same thing happened with each consecutive pregnancy where I’d keep on an extra 10 pounds from the last pregnancy.

So with this pregnancy, I started out at 184 lbs! Thankfully due to my height, the weight has a lot of area to distribute to so to most people, they may not look at me and be shocked by my body (unless you knew me back in the day lol) but technically based on how doctors view weight and body mass, I am technically overweight for a woman my height. I should technically be in the 145-150 lbs range. With that in the forefront of my mind, knowing that I’m only getting older but my energy needs to increase with each additional child, I decided that I am challenging myself to NOT gain ANY weight during this pregnancy.

I let my doctor know about my “no weight gain” plan and he signed off on it seeing as how I still have an extra 30 lbs on me that shouldn’t be. If I was extremely disciplined, I could distribute the weight from my body to my growing baby and after birth possibly weigh less than when I started. Now, for someone with very little workout discipline, this was going to be difficult. But there’s no harm in trying! With my first 3 pregnancies I normally gain about 5-7 pounds in the first trimester. This time, by the end of my first trimester, I LOST 4 pounds and was down to 180 lbs! Baby was and is still growing healthily so I have to attribute the weight loss to my morning sickness and my mostly vegan diet. I was so relieved that my plan has been working out and hope I keep it up throughout the rest of my pregnancy!

New and Unexpected Symptoms

Some things that I never experienced in other pregnancies include massive headaches on almost a daily basis. Although I am told it’s safe, I’m not one to take much medication when pregnant so I rarely took acetaminophen. And even when I took pills, it never worked. I had and still don’t know what to do help with my headaches and I never knew this was something that pregnant women experience!

Something that kind of goes hand in hand with the whole headache thing is I am not able to take any pulling or pressure on my head. As a proudly naturally curly, kinky haired woman, I regularly manipulate my hair into all kinds of styles which include braids, cornrows, buns etc. This pregnancy barely allows me to pull my hair back in a ponytail without feeling like my head is going to explode from the pressure and tightness, which regularly isn’t that tight for me. I normally know what my hair/head can and cannot handle but with this pregnancy, I don’t know what to do with my hair when I don’t want to have it all out there. My regular go to style options are now cut in half and I’ve done my best to accommodate my new level of tender headed-ness, but this symptom is one that truly sucks!

Another new symptom that’s been since the very beginning and has come along with me even in my second trimester is sneezing! My nose doesn’t feel stuffed up, I don’t have allergies, I’m not sick, but I’m always sneezing! I have daily episodes of sneezing and wonder if any other moms go through this? This one isn’t so terrible to deal with but it is quite odd lol.

On the bright side, one of the benefits of going through a 4th pregnancy is that I felt baby’s kicks even earlier! I was about 11 weeks when I felt the first flutters as opposed to 16-17 weeks with my first baby. It’s amazing how much more in tuned I am with my body but also amazing to me how many new things we can experience with every pregnancy. My baby bump also showed up earlier which is always exciting for me!

I know this post was a big read this time around but I was so excited to share and want to be as open as possible! There may be other mamas who are in their first, or up to their 4th pregnancy like me, and if you’re anything like me when you’re preggo, you love to learn about how other mamas are handling their pregnancies. Somehow we moms always manage to connect and build our own little tribes when we go through the same experiences and I am reaching out to all the mommy’s out there who may be experiencing the same symptoms, or maybe have it better or worse. I want to offer my applause to you who have made it through your first trimester as it’s never easy on our bodies and not easy to manage with our other responsibilities. God thankfully built our bodies to handle all that we do and even when things don’t go according to plan, when there’s complications, or even when there’s loss, I rest assured knowing that If we walk according to God’s will for our individual lives, he will take care of us and our sweet bebe’s along the way.

To all the new, and seasoned mommies out there, congrats on all you’ve accomplished and keep on keeping on! More updates to come!

Hugs & Love ❤

Lilly at Home