Pregnancy Diaries: Early Stages

19th January 2018

Hello all,

Well my news and my bump is well and truly out at this stage. This week makes me 18 weeks pregnant. Wow, ok even writing that scares me a little because time is now starting to fly! The first 12 weeks felt like the slowest in my life though. I have decided for this pregnancy I am going to do a pregnancy diary, weekly or fortnightly or  just as often as I can. I plan to share a “bump date”  (an update on the size of the bump!!), how I am feeling, what I am up to, what I am planning, what I have bought for baby or me etc etc etc. Just an online diary of my pregnancy….

Since I announced my news I just cannot believe the amount of you who have emailed, snapped or messaged me to say you are pregnant too, I’m excited to share this journey with you. 

Pregnancy so far…

Overall I have been fine, no major sickness thank god, the first 10 or so weeks I suffered with really bad nausea and just the usual exhaustion. That has passed, except maybe the tiredness, I am pretty much always tired, but that might be down to running around after a crazy 2 years old!

As I said I am 18 weeks now and in the past two weeks my appetite has been HUGE, I am constantly hungry at the moment nothing is satisfying me at all right now. I’m not craving anything in particular, any kind of food will suffice!!! Oh and I am crazy hormonal, crying at the drop of a hat! I’ll cry pretty much over anything right now. My poor hubby!

When did I find out…

Do you remember the day storm Ophelia hit? It was a Monday, I was stuck at home in my parents house in Cavan and in the  back of my mind, I thought I may be pregnant, I just had not been myself but was only a few days late…… So I didn’t want to get my hopes up,  because of the storm all the shops in Cavan were closed so I wasn’t even able to do a test until the next day when I drove back to Dublin. And, as they say, the rest is history. Perhaps I’ll have to call the baby Ophelia!!!! 😉

When I found out I was pregnant it was bang in the middle of a really busy time for me, I had several jobs lined up with brands, I’ll never forget the day working down in Kildare Village, I was about 7 weeks pregnant, I felt fat and bloated and nothing would zip up on me, and I was violently nauseous, I never thought I would get through it. I had the best assistant that day, Suzanne, thank you, I told you my secret and you were my angel that day!

You may be surprised to hear the amount fo people who messaged me and asked me, was I pregnant, that I looked like i had “weight’ on and they were happy for me. I was so shocked someone would ask me this, I still am, and this was v early in pregnancy.

Pregnancy and Type One Diabetes 

As some of you may know, I live with Type One Diabetes and have had the condition now for 19 years. For the past 3 years I have been wearing an insulin pump (a device attached to my stomach which delivers insulin via a canula in my stomach, I am connected to the device 24/7)

Long long long story short, having type one diabetes makes pregnancy VERY challenging. I won’t go into too much detail, because for non type one diabetics I am sure it makes for a fairly boring read, but it is a HUGE part of my pregnancy so I can’t not discuss it in these diaries. It means there are risks for me and also for baby and I have to be very very closely monitored, since I was 5 weeks pregnant I have been in Holles Street fortnightly, the team there are excellent, but it’s very intense and every day is a challenge.

On the weeks I don’t go to Holles Street I have to ring the nurses and go through my blood sugar readings from that week and they make adjustments to my dosage. At present, I test my blood sugars approx 12 times a day (often much more) On top of that I have complications in my eyes as a result fo diabetes so my eyes and my vision has to be very closely monitored.  All in all, I often feel it would be easier to move into Holles Street!! But all that being said, the team in Holles Street are brilliant and it is wonderful to have such support.

Pregnancy Style 

Ok so I got bigger WAY faster this time around, jees I was not expecting that. I know lots of you say you couldn’t notice in the photos but trust me that was all just clever angling and posing!!! I also tend to wear oversized knits a lot in the winter anyway so it was well hidden if you did happen to see me in person I was probably wearing something very baggy!. As well as bump popping quicker I just generally put on a lot of weight quickly all over, and my boobs? Holy god my boobs got massive!!!! So clothes became tight very fast. But we are all SO different and so many factors contribute to what size you are or aren’t. None of that matters, once you and baby are healthy that’s all that matters. People do like to tell me quite regularly how big I am, my personal favourite was when my brother asked me “Jesus is that normal Naomi? Like how big you are”!! Thanks a mil Merv!!  Anyway, it’s all relative, we are all so different!!

I have not bought ANY maternity clothes yet… I am managing right now on two pairs of maternity jeans from my last pregnancy, one from New Look and one from ASOS. But from now on I am going to start having some fun styling this bump, and I have to say I am really excited.  I will share all my style tips here and across my social media, number one on the agenda is jeans – it’s the age old debate! I want to try a few styles and report back. Last time my fav was New Look over the bump. My fav shops for maternity wear are; Topshop, H&M, New Look, ASOS and Isabelle Oliver. I am looking forward to exploring some other brands too this time around.

Also, I like to just wear normal clothes as much as I can and go up a few sizes, I sometimes find a lot of maternity clothes can be a little frumpy! But let’s see how we get on and as I said I’ll share it all here.

At the early stages it all depends on what you wear, some days I look big and others you wouldn’t be able to tell, just depends on the clothes. I much prefer now though and not trying to hide that, I hate that part.

Different the second time around…

Second time mammies….. It’s different this time isn’t it? You know more, you are less naive and I am not ashamed to say I am terrified! I worry about how I will manage with two? How will Anabelle react? Am I a good enough mammy?

Anabelle suffered with SEVERE silent reflux, she cried non stop with the pain and discomfort, feeding was a disaster, she never slept, it was so hard.  (many of you know this but I have never been able to bring myself to blog too much about it as we all went through a very tough time with it) What if baby 2 has reflux? Will I be able to cope? Am I strong enough?

I’m incredibly excited too, massively. I can’t wait, I’m scared but I can’t wait. I feel so lucky and so happy to be able to give Anabelle a brother or sister.

The Next Chapter…

To make things just a wee bit busier we are also moving house and hope to be before baby arrives!!! Eeeeeeckkkk… Crazy few months ahead. I hope you will stay with us and follow the journey. Make sure to tune into my Snapchat (username: thestylefairy) and my Instagram, because I am sharing lots of house updates and interiors stuff over there.

‘Til next time

Naomi & bump xxx

 

P.S. To make tings a little different I am considering maybe recording these pregnancy journals, doing video diaries instead. I am not sure… Would you like that? I thought it could be fun and interactive and will get more interesting when I start to buy maternity clothes and bits for baby. Let me know in the comments section 🙂