Photo credit: Tender Nest Portraits
This is the story of my pregnancy with my second child, Julep. I’ll share details of my pregnancy with my oldest son MaiTai in a future post.
After this post, check out Julep’s birth story here.
Category: Third Trimester
D.I.Y. Postpartum Padsicles
Postpartum Padsicles bring soothing relief to sore, swollen, tender tissues after childbirth. Even if you didn’t tear or didn’t have an episiotomy, your (strong yet) sensitive passageway of life will thank you for looking out!
They fit nicely into those postpartum diapers or mesh panties you’ll be wearing for a while, too.
You’ll need about 18-24. I made 30 — just to cover my butt (ha).
5 Reasons to Keep Your Due Date a Secret
Some mamas want to share their baby’s estimated arrival date the instant they find out for themselves — graciously inviting their tribe and beyond into this part of their pregnancy journey. Hey, that’s cool!
Other mamas answer the “when are you due” question as if an answer is socially expected. They don’t apply much thought to the alternative. Ah, no big deal!
Then there are mamas who feel a bit sketchy on the matter. They’re the mamas like me who may have a birthing day in mind, but it’d take a military inquisition for them to reveal it to ‘just anyone.’
Now, here are a few compelling reasons for keeping your due date secret…
Making a Pregnancy Belly Cast
Ever wondered how to make a belly cast? This is a fun idea for the last few weeks of the the third trimester (or after baby’s Guess Date has come and gone) when your belly is as abundant as it’ll ever be, and you’re waiting on baby to make his or her arrival among us air-breathers.
Preparing Big Sibling For a Baby
Not too many weeks after the positive pregnancy test, we told MaiTai he was going to be a big brother.
We wondered if he even knew what it meant to be a brother… to have a brother or sister…Â or even the differences between himself at not quite three years old and a newborn baby, much less one in a womb. He knows what a womb is, right?
We had a lot of work to do! Or so I thought.
It’s OK to Love Your Pregnant Body
You are interesting. You carry a mystery, an unexplained power, a blessing that gets bigger every day. Do you not see the way you evoke turned heads with that package of life centered right on your body, one that might feel fragile to you, or burdensome with its new demand for constant responsibility and attention?
Have you forgotten (or have you ever really considered what it means) that “a woman’s body is the first environment”?
I tell myself this now…
But almost four years ago as a first-time mother, I couldn’t appreciate the changes in my body during three trimesters’ worth of pregnancy and the fourth trimester postpartum.
In Pregnancy When My Breasts Dried Their Milk Tears
Alright. It’s time I write about this.
About being tired of breastfeeding.
So tired I was hating it. So tired… and no longer looking forward to it. How could all of me feel like “I love him and I love this” and “I don’t want this to stop yet,” but at the same time all of me worried about feelings of “I hate this.”
I wanted to feel normal again; I wanted to feel my breasts cry of milk instead of pain.
Maternity in Photos & Words
“The life of a mother is the life of a child: you are two blossoms on a single branch.”
– Karen Maezen Miller
Are We Going To Tandem Nurse? That Is The Question, Isn’t It…
Photo Credit: Javier Mantrana
And The Answer Is…
As with everything experienced in our breastfeeding journey, there’s no predicting what direction this nursing relationship will take with MaiTai once his little womb-dwelling brother needs sustenance ‘on the outside.’ MaiTai is currently older than three years old and will turn three-and-a-half when his baby brother is born.
And he’s still nursing… technically.
Preparing for Breastfeeding Before Birth
Kimberly Williams with her two-week-old, Kaleb. Photo Credit: Ana & Ivan Photography
PREPARING BEFORE BIRTH:
PUPPP in Pregnancy
What do you do when you can’t scratch the itch?
I’d heard of itchy skin during pregnancy before. Caused by the stretching and growth of new skin to accommodate expansion of new life within and coupled with pregnancy hormones that can dry out the tissues, itchiness is as common as stretch marks.
What I hadn’t heard of until a few weeks ago is a condition called Pruritic urticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy (PUPPP or PUPPS) or polymorphic eruption of pregnancy (PEP) as it’s known in the UK.
I noticed an odd rash appear on my abdomen a few times during the start of my second trimester. Strange, I never had this during my first pregnancy, I thought… But it would disappear within a few hours each time and didn’t feel painful.
Until it really did.
**Advance Notice – This post contains several photos of my PUPPP rash (only abdomen is visible)**
Are You an Expert at Guessing An Unborn Baby’s Sex? (Plus 28 Old Wives’ Tales)
There are quite a few ways to guess a baby’s sex. As far as concluding whether to expect a boy or girl, you could try the Nub Theory, Ramzi Method, over-the-counter gender test kits, Harmony test or chorionic villus sampling or amniocentesis done at a medical facility, and probably some other things I’ve yet to discover.
Old wives’ tales aren’t rooted in any kind of fancy science, but they can be fun to test out. Who wants to get all technical with fun anyways?!
Think you can accurately predict an unborn baby’s sex? Here’s a rundown of many common old wives’ tales that claim to know the secret behind your baby’s sex. You can use these clues along with the comparisons between my first pregnancy with a boy and my second/current pregnancy with a… well, you make the guess and let me know what you think 🙂
I’ll reveal the answer in an upcoming post!
(FYI, it’s the sex not the gender we find out by noting what type of gonads a baby has… though I get how the term “Gender Reveal Party” caught on whereas the potentially confusing “Sex Reveal Party” never will. And another side wondering: why don’t any of these tests account for potential intersex babies?).
Mama's Milk, No Chaser 