Guess what guys…I’M PREGNANT!!!!

Wahoo! The ATLP clan is growing by two feet! We are so, SO excited.

While I promise not to make this entire blog about pregnancy, I will share with you some of my feelings, concerns, and methods regarding my diet and fitness, because I know that some of you may be in the same boat, or heading towards it! With the theme of this blog, you have to know that one of my big concerns is pregnancy after weight loss and what that all means…so I’ll highlight that as I go (grow) along. 

In that vein, let me make this post all about pregnancy! HA! 

I have some overarching themes for this pregnancy – the fear, the crazy differences from my first, weight loss, expectations, and what I am doing DIFFERENTLY this time, to make it better! Without further ado… 

Fear

I wont lie. Making the decision to get pregnant again was really hard for me. Not that I didn’t love being pregnant or that I don’t absolutely adore our daughter, but I had JUST lost 50 pounds, and was I (selfishly) willing to risk that so soon? When I had so much weight to lose, it wasn’t because of my first time being pregnant, it was because of my first several months AFTER being pregnant. I ate like I was still pregnant for months after being pregnant, and didn’t hardly increase my exercise. I walked a bit that summer, but it took a while for me to get back into a groove of consistency.

So I was afraid. Pregnancy means donating your body to another person for 9 months and then even longer while you recover and feed them and more. It’s fantastic, fun, exciting, and wild, but its also a sacrifice. Its beautiful, but hard. What in life isn’t a weird combo of hard and epic and awesome? It was something that I had to process and prepare for (because I knew the gist of what was coming this time) and plan for with my weight loss. WHY am I saying all this? Because its normal and its OK. This baby is wanted and highly anticipated and we are SO excited to meet them…but if I just said that it wouldn’t be authentic. I’ve read blogs where you read all these amazing things about exercise or motherhood or whatever topic, and they’ve left me feeling so guilty like, “am I a failure because I don’t LOVE burpees? Or 3 am feedings?” I don’t want you to ever feel like your feelings aren’t valid – so I want you to see allllll the sides. It’s why I put fear first. I’m human. I can be fearful and stoked at the same time.

Complete Difference This Time Around

IS THIS BABY A BOY?! Cause DANNNNNNNNG this pregnancy has been different. Like, TOTALLY different.

First Pregnancy:

I spent the first three months just…not interested in eating. I would eat like, two bites and be done. It’s not that I was sick, I just wasn’t interested. Nothing sounded good. Then around the 12-14 week point, hunger and interest came back, and I was fine. Also, I was tired, but not over the top tired, and I lost a lot of my general enthusiasm for life itself. Not that I was depressed, I think I just didn’t have the energy to get hyped up for things anymore. (because I spend my life generally hyped up, I think the thought of it exhausted my brain). I wasn’t more emotional and didn’t cry more, and I actually had anxiety relief, which was a joyful symptom!

I didn’t really have any cravings, I liked fruit, but I have ALWAYS liked fruit, so it didn’t feel cravings-ey. In total, I ended up gaining around 25ish pounds throughout pregnancy, maybe closer to 30, and I partially attribute that to nearly 3 months of minimal consumption! The weight gain that was my struggle as post-pregnancy. Near the end, I had signs of pre-eclampsia, including blurry vision, which was what ended up kicking off an all to eventful 36 hour labor ending in a c-section. I had some major swelling post-birth, but I attribute that more to the drugs in my system than anything else.

All in all, I LOVED my first pregnancy. It was a dream! I had a blast, felt comfortable and loved and cared for and I just felt GOOD the whole time. While I had my own struggles in deciding to do it again, none of them revolved around the physical aspect of pregnancy, except weight gain.

Second Pregnancy:

I watched my sister have three almost identical pregnancies, despite the first being with twins, which matched my mothers three experiences almost to a T, and then I had a similar first one. So was it really that naive of me to believe my second would be the same?

Spoiler alert: It has NOT been the same.

I found out I was pregnant TWO DAYS before I left on my Dublin trip. (wa wa waaaaaaa to all that beer and Jameson I talked about but didn’t consume – BUT MY POINT OF THAT POST STILL STANDS) Day 1 I felt funky after I got off the plane and attributed it to 9 hours in flying steel tube. Day 2 I felt like I had the flu and food smells were so intense that I literally hid from the cafe in a focus room and tried to nap, thinking it was jet lag.

I called my mom on day 3 of the trip complaining that jet lag still had a hold of me and as I explained (complained) my symptoms, she said, “Sam, that’s baby, that’s not jet lag.” and it dawned on me: this is morning sickness, and they’re right when all previous morning sickness suffers say that it is poorly named cause it certainly does not contain itself to morning. Because I was hiding my pregnancy from all but one coworker (who was my “get a club soda and lime while everyone else gets a drink so they don’t figure it out” compatriot) I pushed through harder than I have ever even attempted to before. We went out, we ate fancy meals, we toured Guinness and Jameson and had a blast, but, yo, I was feeling it! Anyways, I was really REALLY sick from week 5 to week 13ish. I also have had some maybe cravings – nothing out there (hence my maybe) but an enhancement of things I already love. Fruit (duh) and strawberry ice cream. Where I know the ice cream is a craving is that it HAS to be from Cold Stone, so its creamy, not from the store, where it’s harder. Ridiculous yet delicious.

Other than that, my differences are more second pregnancy based vs. anything else, I believe. More tired (having a 2.5 year old is the cause of that I believe) and low energy (also a 2.5 year old). I’ve had more anxiety, but not to the point that it’s worse than any other time, and again low enthusiasm. Another new thing is I’ve had sciatic pain, but because I workout a few times a week, I’m able to roll it out and will hopefully be counteracting that soon. I’ve “felt” pregnant sooner this time around, but again, I attribute that to my body just knowing what to do and being aware of what things felt like last time so I can recognize it vs. it being brand new.

All in all, I am back to feeling like I did for most of my first pregnancy, really loving it. I have a bump and I’m just waiting until I can feel those glorious kicks!

Pregnancy is weird and wildly different and fun, but I can say with 100% certainty that my first trimester will give me pause when I consider #3.. 😀

Update: I wrote most of this before we knew, and am finishing it up afterwards…our guesses were wrong, IT’S A GIRL!

Weight Loss and Expectations

Pregnancy after weight loss is scary, man. It was one of the biggest deciding factors in when we chose to go for #2. I was terrified that I would gain back all that progress and ruin myself. I can absolutely admit that I have days (even before pregnancy) where I look at myself or a certain angle in the mirror and go “oh my gosh it’s creeping back”, even when it isn’t. Aaron and I talked about this a LOT, because it is my body to fully give up for almost a year of pregnancy, then ALL the fun afterwards, that he can’t take on for me.

For me, the weight gained during pregnancy isn’t terribly scary, partially because its unstoppable and fully for another human, who happens to be growing inside me. When I see the scale climb while my belly grows…that’s logical gain, and I can fight the tiny part of my brain that goes “oh no!!! too much!”. Plus, I didn’t have a ton of gain in round 1 (although with all the differences listed above…). My fear is definitely of the after. When I sat on a couch for weeks recovering from major surgery, eating snacks that were easy to eat one handed (hello, Costco trail mix) and maybe doing 200 steps in a day. When I didn’t change how I was eating as my life changed – when I was no longer carrying a child in me, when I was no longer trying to encourage supply to grow. I didn’t start exercising again (because I was tired…ha, that never went away, yet here I am!).

I guess my big fears of pregnancy after weight loss is that I’m mentally not strong enough to catch myself, or that I’ll choose to be a little bit lazy and trick myself into “next week” or “tomorrow” or the dreaded “later” to start doing something to keep/get myself on track. I’m afraid that I will allow exhaustion and ease to overtake planning and my almost two years (!!) of training and let myself slip. Hopefully, this is one of those things where, because I am afraid of it, it wont happen, because its so frequently on my mind. Does that make sense?!

Things I’m Doing Differently

I loved being pregnant with my first monster. Those were the days, man. While my husband made me watch an unbearable amount of hockey (still does) I got to do whatever I wanted, and sleep in. No longer. My alarm clock goes off between 630-715 every morning, and she doesn’t take kindly to the concept of “snooze”. Along with less sleep and more exhaustion just because I’m growing and raising a human at the same time, I’m doing some things differently. Working out, for one. Eating better, for another.

Now that I have completely entered the second trimester, am no longer sick, and have figured out that I need to go to bed at 9 to function the next day, I am back to working out more at Fit Body. For the sake of realistic life and being as authentic as humanly possible with you – I went to workout MAYBE 7 times in November and December. But I did work out this morning (Jan 2) and am working on gaining back my strength and also getting my body back in the groove for 3x weekly 5:45 workouts. My coach/trainer/gym owner extraordinaire is well aware that I am pregnant, and has made adjustments that work better for me (including teaching me to roll out certain muscles to relieve the sciatic pain and its a lifesaver) and is helping me focus on strong core to hopefully help reduce the risk of diastasis recti and to generally help build up muscles in my core and back for labor.

Plus I figure that the more I work out (sensibly) and the stronger I get, I am a) counteracting bad fat gain during pregnancy and b) making it easier on myself for the 6-12 weeks after pregnancy that I can’t work out at the level I would normally. Plus, I am reminding myself regularly that I am setting an example. I have tiny eyes watching me now, and I will have another tiny human watching me soon. So I want to make sure that I am taking the best possible care of myself and them.

I am also trying to plan way ahead. I want to have healthy freezer meals done and ready for at least 3 meals a week so that it’s easy for Aaron or I to just defrost and go, or at least have meal planning for the Instant Pot done. (See a trend? Easy and fast) If you want to follow along/copy, follow my Pinterest! My plan is to also get some healthy snacks planned so that I can increase supply and not my waist line.

While I cannot go check in at 30/10 while pregnant (the InBody machine thinks baby and accessories are fat, it can’t tell the difference) I can go in right after to get a good look at where I’m at. That will help me to make a plan of attack in the weeks after giving birth, so that I am ahead of the game vs. playing catch up.

Other than that – grace upon grace upon grace. I don’t plan to have to lose 50 pounds ever again. I certainly plan on losing around 10 pounds in the middle of June though! Jokes aside… if I have to – I’ve done it. I can do it again. I’ll be wildly annoyed and more than a little unhappy with myself, but I can do it again. I’ve survived worse.

So there we go, a far too detailed look into my life and plans right now. 🙂 Are you in the same boat? Deciding on pregnancy after weight loss? Currently pregnant and worried about the weight (whether or not you have already lost weight before)? Just had a baby and a little freaked out about your body? Hit me up in the comments or an email – I want to know because I want to help…and hey, you may end up in a future post, or at least one dedicated to you!!!

<3