Pregnancy update #33weekspregnant

It’s hard to believe that in a little under two months, Luke and I will finally be meeting our little one. Like any pregnancy, I’ve gone through my ups and downs. It’s not all roses, and growing another life inside you can be tiring, emotional, and hard. For those of you also expecting, and those of you who are just plain curious, I thought I’d share an update on how I’ve been making changes to my style, health, and general lifestyle, as well as how I’ve been preparing for baby’s impending arrival.

Wearing Everlane slip dress (size US6), All Saints leather jacket (size UK8; also available here and here), Vaneli two tone pumps (size US9; also available here), Celine trio bag, Muru Jewellery pendant necklace, Madewell earrings (old but I love these), Missoma bracelet

FASHION & STYLE

Don’t lose track of your personal style. This has been my mantra throughout my pregnancy. While I’m not currently able to wear many of my favourite high-waisted shorts and skirts (for the moment…), I instead focused on adapting the styles I knew I could still wear to work for my pregnancy. T-shirts knotted at the waist to define the narrowest part of my silhouettes, skirts pulled up higher, and loose floaty dresses that I’d wear no matter what. By maintaining that sense of personal style in my daily outfits, I’ve felt a lot more confident about my changing body, but also great in the items I have been wearing.

Limit maternity clothing purchases. I’ve been trying to put the focus on considered and intentional purchases, both in 2019, and again as a goal for 2020. For me, this meant making the most of the clothing I already had, or adding in pieces that I’d be able to wear beyond the pregnancy. As this is my first baby, I found it wasn’t really until I hit the 5 month mark, that I really needed to start considering maternity styles. Up until that point, the majority of my closet (bar a few pairs of ultra skinny jeans) still fit. This reinforced in me how much more useful it would be to utilise what I had, rather than buying a bunch of items which I’d be wearing for a considerably short period of time.

Create a capsule wardrobe of sorts. The final thing I did, style-wise, was to create something of a capsule wardrobe. I’m not stranger to outfit repeating, so I’ve got no qualms wearing the same item on repeat. I pared back my closet, removing everything that no longer fit or wouldn’t be flattering, selling some items and popping the rest in storage. At a glance, I can now see what I can wear for the season, and despite having less, I still feel rich in options.

HEALTH

Mindfulness over diet. My diet was an utter mess during my first trimester. I was ravenous all the time, and would consume an entire block of chocolate and still desire more. My cravings gave my sweet tooth a run for its money, and during a time when I was so focused on getting ahead with work while trying to battle exhaustion, I just gave in to what my body asked for.

Since my second trimester, I’ve cleaned up my act. I’ve removed (artificial) sugar and wheat for the most part (I’ll still indulge every once and a while), as these two ingredients can cause inflammation. Reducing their prevalence in your diet can make for an easier birth – at least, that’s what I’ve been told. Don’t take my word for it though – it’s worth doing your own research if you’re also expecting, and focus on eating what’s right for you. Aside from that, I’ve been trying to have three core meals a day, breaking it up mid-morning and mid-afternoon with a snack of nuts or fruit. I tend to eat a lot of whole foods as it is; breakfast and lunch are typically vegetarian/plant-based, and I’ll eat meat protein in the evening with dinner.

Keeping fit during pregnancy. Around the 16-week mark of my pregnancy was when I had to give up running. Baby was already pressing on my bladder at that point, which made running incredibly uncomfortable, and I was concerned about causing irreparable damage to my pelvic floor. Given that cardio has always been such an amazing stress reliever and endorphin booster for me, giving this ritual up was hard.

I’ve since switched to walking which is lower impact, and make a point of going for a minimum of three one-hour walks a week. I am starting to find it a little harder to have the energy to keep the pace for a full hour, so I’ll probably reduce this to half hour walks in the coming weeks. Additionally, I’ll also mix things up by adding in some squats to build up my glutes (I do 100 of these), and I’m making a point of practising my Kegels daily, if not every other day.

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Small changes to my beauty routine. I’m not sure if it’s the pregnancy, but my skin has been behaving incredibly well the past five months. I’ve found consistency in my routine, and truly relished the regularity with which I’ve been using my core skincare products.

The first thing I did when I found out I was pregnant, was comb through all my beauty products. I sorted out what was safe to use, and passed on what wasn’t. Core ingredients to avoid include retinol, hydroquinone, salicylic acid and benzoyl peroxide. There are a number of websites out there that break down all the harmful chemicals you should remove from your routine (and keep in mind, you can’t use these ingredients while nursing, either), which makes the process a lot simpler. Considering I find a lot more of those intense chemicals too harsh for my sensitive skin, this hasn’t caused a major uproar in my skincare routine. I’ll be sharing a breakdown of my key product favourites this Friday, if you’re curious to see what’s on my vanity.

LIFESTYLE

Dial down the work schedule. Working freelance comes with some incredible benefits. You can manage your own hours, set the pace, and work from bed if you’re tired. The latter, I most certainly took up during my first trimester, when I had a tendency to fall asleep with reckless abandon due to the sheer exhaustion I was experiencing. The downside is to working freelance is that if you don’t work, you don’t get paid. As you may suspect, for me this means that I won’t really be taking any time off once baby is born. Instead, I’ve been managing my schedule from early on in the pregnancy, to prepare for this life change and set some boundaries around how I work.

Particularly as I come into the final weeks, I’ve made a point of dialling back what I’m taking on. I’m saying no a lot more often, and paying more mind to what my body tells me. I generally start working around 6-6.30am, which thankfully has coincided with my energy levels throughout pregnancy and allowed me to make the best use of my day. From a personal work perspective, this has meant pulling back to one video a week, limiting the amount of written content I share on my blog, and posting five days or less a week on Instagram.

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Practice mindfulness and make the most of the down time. I’m the type of person who feels guilty when they aren’t working on something. Luke’s spent the majority of his summer break constructing a raised garden, painting, and doing other odd jobs around the house. Not being able to provide him with much support (aside from replenishing his water regularly), has been a serious challenge for me, as I like to pull my weight where I can. I have to remind myself that baby is my number one priority, so carving out time to de-stress and relax has been a priority. I’ve been practising deep breathing daily, and will usually spend an hour or two each afternoon reading, or getting stuck into a video game of some sort.

I also try to meditate where I can, although I’ve been finding this quite difficult of late as it amplifies any underlying anxiety I may have; something I’m trying to manage at the moment – January and February are always tough months for me, and knowing my mum won’t be here to meet her first grandchild has been hard to process.

BABY & NURSERY

Preparing the nursery. Knowing how tired I’m apt to get – especially on hotter days – I got a head start on the nursery. I’d say we started mapping out what we needed around October/November, and ordered most of the core items to have on hand by December. The whole exercise of getting this room ready made the pregnancy feel very real. We’re still waiting on a piece of furniture to arrive so that we can finalise the configuration, and pop some decals up on the wall.

I am planning to share a reveal once it’s complete, along with links to all the resources I used/stores we bought furniture from. In addition to readying a nursery, we’ve also ordered a bassinet for the first six months, so that baby can sleep in our room. As for other outstanding baby paraphernalia, we’ve settled on a pram which I’ll be buying in the next couple of weeks, and I also need to order a baby bath as that’s one thing we’re currently lacking in our bathroom configuration.

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What clothes to buy and how much?!. One of the challenges I think you face as a new mum, is knowing just how much to get of anything. As someone who likes to be prepared, and organise things with military precision, tackling this “unknown” has been interesting to say the least. I referenced countless articles at this point, and ultimately came to the realisation that every baby is different, and your needs and requirements will be different. We started by buying a number of plain cotton onesies from Marks & Spencer (my SiL swore by these!) as basics, and built up from there depending on the season. I calculated how often I would be doing laundry, and purchased accordingly. If anything, we may be slightly overstocked, but I figure that’ll give us a bit of leeway.

I made a point of limiting how many “newborn” items I purchased, as I figured that baby would grow quickly into the 0-3 month items we have stashed away. A tip that you might find useful, is to consider buying clothing for the first year. I chose to do this to save time down the track, and take advantage of sales over the Christmas break. The benefit of doing this is that it’s one less thing to worry about once baby arrives, and it means you’ll have options to hand if they grow quicker than anticipated. The downside is that the upfront cost will be greater, but I get the feeling it’s going to be well worth it. The brands that I’ve gravitated towards include: Jamie Kay, Marks & Spencer, Nature Baby, Purebaby, Seed Heritage, Tiny Trove, Two Darlings, Boden, and Bassike (for 6+ months).