WELCOME TO THE 2ND TRIMESTER!! 

For me in some ways it’s a relief to hit the 2nd trimester- for us (I know everyone is different and there’s no “right” way to do things) we don’t really tell anyone until after hitting this major milestone.  Your chances of miscarriage decrease substantially, and around this point I start feeling considerably better; you may even start showing that cute little baby bump around now. 

BUT in other ways I get so stressed out during this stage- all of a sudden I’m feeling better! Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t enjoy feeling nauseous but at least when I’m nauseous I know something is happening.  You’re not far enough along yet to really feel anything, no kicks or rolls or hiccups, so that little bit of nausea or whatever early pregnancy symptoms at least lets me know things are still happening in there so in some ways it’s almost more stressful when I start to feel better.  

So let’s talk about your doctor appointments at this point, during your 2nd trimester, you should be going to the doctor about monthly.  These visits are pretty mundane; pee in a cup, check your vitals, then the doctor will check for the baby’s heartbeat.  We often experience a shy baby that will hide from the little fetal doppler thing so the doctor will get the slightly bigger doppler that has an iPad looking tablet attachment and seems almost more like a miniature ultrasound.  Using this iPad/ doppler you get to see a little picture of the baby and allows the doctor to check on the baby’s heart rate.  

Around week 18, you get to go in for the anatomy ultrasound! This is one of the more fun appointments.   Keep in mind, just like we talked about during the 1st trimester appointments, the ultrasound technician may not tell you much during the actual ultrasound; this doesn’t mean anything is wrong, just that they are going to wait and let the doctor talk to you after the ultrasound is officially read.  Typically, you will have 2 appointments on this day- the 1st one being the ultrasound and the 2nd one with the doctor.  The doctor will “read” the ultrasound then talk to you about what they see- the obvious fun part is baby’s gender! But from this ultrasound they can also tell you about any early indicators of problems, baby’s size, and potentially check gestational age.  If you didn’t want to wait until week 18, you have other options like early genetic testing- which you can read more about here!

With our 2nd child, we went through the slightly difficult conversation of finding an issue during the ultrasound.  They were able to see in the ultrasound that we had a “single umbilical artery.” Basically this just meant that instead of 3 parts (one vein, which brings nutrients from the placenta to baby, and two arteries that bring waste back to the placenta) to our cord, we only had 2 parts (so one vein and just a single artery).  With the single umbilical artery, they worry about the baby getting enough nutrients once baby gets a little bigger so we had a few extra appointments during our 3rd trimester to check on baby’s heart rate and movement.  

If you’re like me and want to know about the gender earlier than 18 weeks there are other options! With our 1st 2 pregnancies we opted to do the early genetic screening.  This was the neatest thing- the lab at our doctor’s office drew a vial of blood, sent it off to some testing center, and then they were able to tell us not only the baby’s gender at 10 weeks, but also check the baby’s genetics for any potential genetic problems! Unfortunately, somewhere between our 2nd and 3rd baby, insurance changed and this test went from being free to being over $1,000 so we opted to not do it during our 3rd pregnancy.  HOWEVER, don’t worry- remember I said there were other optionS- as in plural, not just one option.  You can also do an at home test- this test doesn’t necessarily test for early genetic conditions but it can at least check the genetics for gender.  We went with SneakPeek, and I would highly recommend it! Click here for more information and a discount code!!  

I am so happy to be on this journey with you! How are you feeling so far? I would love to hear from you and about your pregnancy journey!!