I teared up the other night when I said to Jeremy, “I love being pregnant!”
You could chalk it up to pregnancy hormones, that I’m willing to cry about a simple statement like that, but it really is significant to me that I have enjoyed this pregnancy. My other 3 pregnancies had me feeling so devoid of energy and uncomfortable throughout that I didn’t even know myself, and I just looked at it as 9 months to slog through to get to the baby at the end.
But this pregnancy has been different in so many ways. I have felt better than I thought I could in pregnancy. More energy, less nausea, and less general physical angst. Instead of crying myself to sleep, miserably nauseous and fighting heart burn every night, I’ve laid in bed and marveled that I finally get what women mean when they say “I love being pregnant!”
I believe this is due to a lot of factors (including the grace of God!), and I’m not about to claim a formula that would work for you (or even me next time around) but I did want to share some things that I feel have made a difference in this pregnancy.
Preparing for Pregnancy
1. Repairing Diastisis
It happened again just last weekend–I met someone for the first time and they couldn’t believe it when they found out I was pregnant. Peoples, I am 6 months along–I expect people to notice by now. But the reality is, closing up my diastisis (the separation of the stomach muscles that happens when you carry a child and results in that poochy, mummy-tummy all moms are familiar with) prior to this pregnancy has allowed me to carry this baby like a first time mom–small, and tight and close. I love the healing, strengthening workouts out fit2b.us!!!
Reducing Nausea…
2. Kidney/Liver Cleanse
I did a liver and kidney cleanse prior to conceiving as I’d heard that the extra burden that pregnancy puts on your cleansing organs can contribute to nausea. (Most of my cleanse inspiration and some of my herbs were sourced from the wonderful Bulk Herb Store.) I’ve had so little nausea in this pregnancy, I’m in shock. I’ve also not had that terrible lack of appetite that makes feeding myself torture.
3. GAPS Diet
Since I learning about the GAPS diet (a grain and sugar-free diet that promotes healing of the digestive tract through bone broths and cultured and fermented foods) I have done the diet as a gentle, rebuilding cleanse for 3 weeks each January. That means I’ve done it twice since my last pregnancy, and I feel it’s also been a contributing factor to the lack of digestive issues and heartburn I’ve experienced this time around. (Read more about how our family’s GAPS experiences and favorite recipes in these posts.)
4. Digestive Enzymes
One can’t eat perfectly healthy all the time, what with tight budgets and summer busyness, so I keep a good quality digestive enzyme on hand to take with my meals when we’re out and about or dinner is lacking in something lacto-fermented. Digest Gold from Enzymedica is my favorite.
For Stamina…
5. Iron Tea
The iron-rich herbal infusion from the “Making Babies” book has helped me keep on top of my body’s need for additional iron. It’s rather bitter, but I find I prefer it to the syrupy sweet (and expensive!) supplement I took in my other pregnancies. My budget and my blood love it.
6. Bedtime Snacks
I’ve learned that a high-protein snack before bed is essential to keeping my blood sugar stable overnight, ensuring a refreshing night’s rest and reducing morning lows. I stock cheese and crackers, peanut butter and apples, and keep dinner leftovers in small, ready-to-reheat portions so this fits into my bedtime routine easily.
For Sweet Dreams…
7. No (or Low) Sugar
I am no saint. Although it sounds like I eat all healthy all the time, I love a gooey, fresh chocolate chip cookie as much as the rest of the world. (Maybe more!) But every time I say yes to sugar, I say no to a good night’s rest. And ya’ll know I love my sleep. So, I reduced sugar significantly this summer, and immediately saw results–within 3 days of going sugar-free, I was sleeping soundly–except for when the kids woke me. (Guess who went off sugar next???)
8. A Calcium/Magnesium Supplement
I’m officially addicted to Ionic Fizz. So is Claire. It completely eradicates those awful pregnancy leg cramps, helps me sleep restfully, and is the secret to Claire sleeping without night terrors. And it’s yummy.
9. Body Pillow
Last time I vowed to myself that I’d not go through another pregnancy without a body pillow. Imagine my delight when I found Target carries a lovely one for $10. This thing is so much better than wrestling 3 pillows in to place every time I roll over. A pregnancy must have!
For Morale…
10. Embracing Beauty
The worst pregnancy symptom I suffered in my last three pregnancies was most certainly frumpiness. I just did not feel well enough, nor have the inspiration to find a look I loved for my changing shape. This had a terrible effect on morale!
This time has been so different. I have chosen a personal color scheme for the pregnancy, have a go-to hairstyle I love, and am embracing the beauty of this season. Hooray! You can learn how to choose a personal color scheme and find lots of tips for feeling beautiful during pregnancy in the chapter “Expect Great Things {A Rebellion Against Frump in Pregnancy} in my book, Embracing Beauty.
Here’s a shot of my baby belly, a favorite outfit, and and said hairstyle taken last month…
We praise God for a healthy pregnancy and welcomed our daughter, Lydia, in October, 2013!
I love unique baby names–I’d love to hear your favorites in the comments, pretty please?
This is my first pregnancy and I am thoroughly enjoying it! Like you have have had little to no nausea or first trimester symptoms. Heartburn on the other hand has been awful. Especially since I started my second trimester (I had pretty bad heartburn issues prior to being pregnant). I am only 17 weeks but we have already picked out names. If it is a boy we will name him after my husband Jason Paul, but if it is a girl we have chosen Laura Jubilee (2016 is a year of Jubilee in the bible!). Thank you for a wonderful post! It was very informative.
thank you so much for all of this!
My husband and I just found out we’re expecting our first and I am bound and determined to have a healthy and beautiful pregnancy. We lost our first, so I’m on high alert this time around. Wish us luck and we plan on welcoming either Braden James or Catherine Reneee next Summer!
I can’t wait for our bodies to change!
Love this! My daughter will be named Emmaleigh Austin and my son will be named Easton Neal! We are so excited!
such beautiful names, Brittany! are they twins??? Love it.
Wonderful name, considering my name is Alaina Lydia! 🙂
I love the baby girl’s names Joelle and Eden. Not crazy, but definitely unique.
Oh, I like them both, Alaina!
Pretty! This has been a really wonderful article. Thank you
for providing this information.
What a blessing to enjoy a pregnancy. I enjoyed my 1st two the most. My third was awful. I was horribly sick. 4th I was sick and then miscarried. 5th I managed better, but not as easy as the 1st two, but I was excited to be having a boy after 3 girls. Expecting is fun. I always loved my body when I was pregnant. I actually had a shape to work with. lol
We had a hard time agreeing on girls names. If we had another girl it would be really hard to name her. Our girls are Kaitlin (totally popular name), Leiana (not common at all), and Heidi (I always loved the names Heidi and Heather growing up).
One of my friends just named their new baby girl Jewel. So pretty.
Anna Jewel would be pretty.
Blessings,
April
April, did you see what we ended up naming our new little one? Katelijn is sort of a dutch form of Kaitlin (which I love!) 😉
I know this is a late comment, but if you’re looking for girl biblical names, I adore the name “Hadassah” If my husband ever gets on that baby wagon, that’ll be the name we pick for our first daughter 🙂 As for biblical boy names, I really like “Malachi” or “Zedekiah”
Congrats on your little miracle!
no late comments, Bella–I read and enjoy them all! 😉 Thanks for your name ideas.
I love the name Ella for a girl. It was my grandma’s name. I also like Brielle.
mmm. I love Ella, too. still appreciating all input because we STILL don’t have our girl’s name (with just 6 weeks to go! ahh!) lol
This makes me so excited to be pregnant again!!! Oh I can’t wait to have another. In our family we have started a trend of boy names beginning with J. My husband is Jonathan Richard. My two boys are Jackson Richard and Jacob Hunter. We are leaning toward L names for girls since my name is Laura. However, there is a little girl in the nursery at church name Maggie and I absolutely adore that name. We shall see what happens if we are blessed with a little girl one day.
Loving this post! I haaaaaaaaaaaate being pregnant with a passion. It’s a 9-month time of having no life, waiting till the end.
The Gaps diet, liver and kidney cleanse, and no sugar, does sound like a lot of work though. (yup. lazy person here)
Still, I think it’ll be worth it if it helps 🙂
Baby girl names: Jaël, Liëlle, Gabriëlle, Alexandra (and call her Alex, that is so spunky!) Elle-Louise, Robin, Julilly,
I’ll need a lot of girls to use all of my favorite names 🙂
(when I was 15 I decided to have triplets and call them; April Rain, Autumn Rose, June Lilly. Yes. Yes I did give up that idea)
I have always loved being pregnant! 🙂 I am still battling my diastisis – my fault for not being consistent enough. I start to do well then have to miss a few days – I redamage the muscles – then start all over. Constantly. I am doing a little bit of Tupler (cut back on that – it was overwhelming) and Fit2b too. Trina – when you were closing yours – did you do a range of the exercises on Fit2b? I’ve been sticking with the “New Mama” 5 foundational exercises as I am not sure if I should add more in. I LOVE the “Making Babies” book! In fact – I just pulled it out earlier this week to make the “baby calm tincture” for Solomon because he’s suddenly having horrible separation anxiety at nap time. In my pregnancies I’ve always had a very itchy belly. But in my last pregnancy I made the “belly butter” from the book and wow – what a HUGE difference! No itchy belly LOL! I also learned about the calcium/magnesium and how it eliminates the nighttime leg cramps. Yay for Shoshanna and Bulk Herb Store! 🙂 And yay for this post Trina. 🙂 You look great – I really like your photo at the top. Makes me want to be pregnant again – though I probably need Solomon to start sleeping through the night first!
Lisa, I had good results with just the basic new mamma workout, but then my diastisis was only 3 finger widths. If you’re not seeing the results you want, I’d highly recommend dipping into the member’s forum at fit2b, or even contacting Beth personally to get some suggestions for the specific workouts that would be best for you.
Oh, and have you considered a splint? It sounds like you should wear one for a while to help you maintain the progress you’ve made. I splinted for the first two weeks of my routine, as well. LOVE splinting in combo with the exercising. I think that’s the magic combination, actually.
Thanks for your kind words. It’s such a blessing to have friends like you who are so enthusiastic about babies and natural remedies and all this fun stuff!
I’ve been wearing a splint since October! But I can’t bear to wear it at night. I forgot all about the member’s forum at fit2b – I will check that out. Thanks! 🙂
Almost wish to be pregnant again but I think we are done:-) Girl’s names? you want to go Dutch again? What about Louise or we have cute princesses now Amalia, Alexia and Ariane… Blessings on you and yours;-)
Anneloes, your suggestions prompted a productive conversation with my man—got any more to throw at us? We definitely want to go Dutch again with at least the middle name. 😉
You look wonderful!!! <3 I am enjoying being pregnant immensely right now… and thankful that I haven't been swelling up in this heat! 🙂 Girls names are so fun… we go Irish with ours, so they are names that most people are totally unfamiliar with, but if we didn't do that I tend to like classics- Emma (though totally overdone, I know), Daphne, Katherine, etc. Can't wait to find out your surprise!
Mmm, I’m with you on the classics, as long as they haven’t gotten to overused. I’m sooo glad you’re enjoying pregnancy! Your attitude has been an inspiration to me, Rachel!
Thanks for inspiring me to get back onto fixing my diastasis!
If my 2 year old boy had been a girl he would have been Lucinda Josephine.
OK, that is a beautiful name–and I also like yours, Clansi! Is that short for something else?
It is not shortened, but is altered from the original – Clancy.
My mother always liked the famous Australian poem Clancy of the Overflow, and when she was pregnant with me one of the australian family TV shows had a young girl who was named Clancy as one of the characters. They had just returned from several years as missionaries and my brother’s had never seen TV and were taken with the name, so when it went to the family vote, Clancy won.
My mother decided to make it “feminine” by changing the last two letters. Lifetime of spelling my name….
I like Amelia, Ruby, and Libby.
I’m with you on that last one, dear.
We’ve been going with Bible names for our kids: Ruth (beautiful friend), Asher (Blessed/Happy), Hannah (Grace)…they have all displayed their names’ meanings, so something to think about. Others we have liked: Jedediah, Tabatha, Rachel. I really like Betsy, but my husband does not!
A spoonful of blackstrap molasses stirred into oatmeal or yogurt really helped my iron levels with my last pregnancy. I’ll have to look into a calcium/magnesium supplement if God blesses us with another…the sleep thing didn’t go so well last time!
Beth–love your suggestions (both the names and the molasses! lol)
You look marvelous! And you do not look 6 months pregnant! Glad you’re feeling well!
Girl names: My favorites are Alicia Elaine (my 24 yr old’s name) and Emilie Anne (what we’d have named another girl; no plans for it now!)
Deb Weaver
thewordweaver.com
Thank you, Deb!
And I love the spelling of your Emilie.
Baby names are tough! My husband and I decided we wanted biblical names for it kids and we have had the hardest time agreeing on girls names. . . We have only had girls so far. . . I like Zoe. . The geek word for life used in the new treatment talking about abundant life in Jesus, my husband and I have a Rebekah and an Abigail. . . Rachel was another we liked and Hannah has grown on me. . Perhaps one of my favorite names in the Bible however is Tzipporah. . and I didn’t even like it until my best friend used it. . . Lol. .
We go Biblical on the boy’s names, but face the same challenge of agreeing on one we both like, especially since we don’t like to choose a name that’s become uber-popular. Tzipporah is delightfully unique and is fun to say, too! You should totally use that one. 😉
Yeah I hear that, but at the same time, the poplar names aren’t necessarily all bad! Hey I am a Stephanie and my husband is a Michael, talk about popular names! We have also discussed going for just Hebrew names once we run out of biblical girl names we can agree on. . . Which is actually I think if we were to have another baby!
Thanks for this post! I recently found out I am pregnant, and I generally do not enjoy pregnancy. :(. This post is an encouragement to me that I *can* enjoy pregnancy. I’ll have to blow off the virtual dust on Embracing Beauty and read it! (I bought it as part of the homemaking ebook bundle.)
I have experienced less nausea this pregnancy and I was wondering if maybe it was because I was eating better. This past month I have gone gluten free and for the most part I have generally avoided just adding in gluten free substitutes. So I’ve been eating a lot more meat, veggies and fruits. Maybe there is a connection!
Anyways, I hope you have a wonderful three more months of pregnancy and I wish you a healthy and happy baby!
Melanie, I totally believe there’s a connection between our grain intake and our digestive health–grains are the hardest thing to digest! I definitely feel better when my diet leans toward the meat and veggies like you’re doing. Congrats on your pregnancy! I pray you continue to enjoy it!
Hi Trina, is the Ionic Fizz a powder that you dissolve in water? I’ve been looking for a good replacement for the liquid cal-mag I took during my last pregnancy, which has apparently been discontinued. Your recommendation of its deliciousness intrigues me, as some brands are so gross I can’t choke it down!
Hi, Laura! Yes, it dissolves in water and is similar in nature to emergenc-C packets. And I love the taste!
You are adorable, Trina. and I am trying this whole healthier eating thing, and it’s been a bumpy start, so far. but we are not quitting! Thanks for your encouragement and tips–It is such a blessing to know you–you glow, girlfriend.
Selah. *sigh* If I could go back in time I would change one of my girls names to this. 🙂
Mmmm…that IS a good one…thanks!
We named our baby girl Selah. 🙂 Beautiful meaning!
Can you tell me more about the kidney/liver cleanse you did? I would love to hear which herbs you used and found helpful!
Well, Bethany, that’s a whole post in and of itself! I’ll see what I can do. 😉