Pregnancy second time around.

Hi girls!

If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I am in the very last bit of my second pregnancy. I've been thinking about writing a post like this for awhile and after posting a poll on my insta stories, here I am.

Like I mentioned above, this is baby number two, I am by no means an expert or is any parent an expert in that matter? I think it’s a learning curve. Parenthood is difficult whether you have one or ten kids and I think we all learn as we go.

I never wanted to write a monthly pregnancy progress posts because plainly, as many mothers or mothers to be that do follow me, there is still plenty of followers that have zero interest in that area and yes, if you are not interested, just don’t read it but I just didn’t want to bore anyone with going from a fashion blog to full on pregnancy diary.

But here I decided to share some of my highs and lows of this pregnancy, the difference from the first and all the other bits.

First pregnancy:

So to take you back to my first pregnancy and believe me there isn’t much to tell, it was the easiest most chilled out pregnancy from start to finish. No morning sickness, no tiredness (well till the very end), nothing to complain about. No sleepless nights, no feeling uncomfortable and not much of a weight gain and a tiny bump and very chilled out baby. The pregnancy definitely gave me amazing skin & hair and my nails have never been stronger. Apart from getting the flu a couple of times and having a few pains in my lower back, I honestly can say it was the easiest 9 months of pregnancy.

We had Aidah in July 2015, a beautiful 6 pound 11 oz healthy baby girl that was and still is the most gentle, easy child anyone could ever hope for.

Second pregnancy:

This pregnancy is similar in ways but oh so different. I was admitted into a hospital at 7 weeks due to pains in my lower abdomen but thankfully everything turned out to be ok. After that I was very nervous and maybe it was just because in your second pregnancy, you are more aware of things that are going on and you know a little bit more from previous experience. . Still no morning sickness and in general was feeling great until around 30 weeks when i found out I had SPD (Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction). I never even heard of it and to be honest I couldn’t even put my head around it that after feeling great for so many weeks, all of a sudden I was in so much pain. It turns out this is a very common thing in pregnancy and it usually goes away shortly after delivery.

Luckily it doesn’t bother me during the day but a completely different story at night, every time I turn in bed, it’s like someone is trying to break my hips, it’s that painful. Plenty of exercise and just staying active is key & like with everything else, you just get on with it. At around 32 weeks, my docs also discovered that I had an under active thyroid. Again it turned out to be ok as there was a very slight drop in my levels and nothing to worry about. I had no symptoms whatsoever which was obviously hard to diagnose.

Comparing this pregnancy to my first, I am carrying this baby very low which results in a million trips to the bathroom day and night and a huge amount of pressure down there. This baby is non stop moving inside my belly, I am sure it’s going to be very active when it’s born.

My skin played absolute havoc this time around, from about three months on, I had non stop issues with my skin going from super oily to dry, to breaking out, you name it. Thankfully the lovely Irene from Galway skincare & laser clinic has looked after me and I am finally seeing a massive improvement.

The tiredness, oh the tiredness, I don’t know is it because I already have a little one to look after but this pregnancy is definitely a lot harder and very uncomfortable. Not to mention that I had the flu about 5 times throughout this pregnancy & the worst part about it, there isn’t much you can take for it to relieve the symptoms.

Lastly, last week I got a very bad tummy bug and had to be hospitalised as I was very dehydrated and it literally took everything out of me, it is the last thing you want to deal with in the last two weeks of your pregnancy.

It’s definitely true that no two pregnancies are the same but saying that, this pregnancy has flown by and I can’t believe that it’s pretty much the end.

Here I’m sharing all the products I used since the start of my pregnancy and some from prior to that.

Pregnacare tablets - I went for the original one because in my first pregnancy I couldn’t take these as they were making me really sick and the prenatal vitamins I took then are no longer available, but thankfully this time these were ok.

Bio oil - I used this in my first pregnancy and again this time around, this is my third bottle since about October. I used two 250ml bottles already and this is my last one in 125ml. I lash it on all over my bump every single night. So far so good.

These are my moisturisers - I believe in keeping your skin super hydrated during pregnancy and especially if like me, you use fake tan that dries it out.

These are my daily skin routine products. Some I have been using prior to getting pregnant and some because of my skin issues.

Jan Marini Cleanser swear by this, bare in mind if you haven’t used this before you got pregnant, you can not start when expecting.

Dr. murad Moisturiser.

Acne out This is one of the best products for breakouts.

Dr.Murad Clay Mask

Dermalogica pre cleanse

For dry lips & hands, these are always my go to products.

Elizabeth Arden 8 hour cream & 8 hour hand cream.

This is the only brand of fake tan I used, it's safe during pregnancy and it turns out super natural on my skin with no stinky fake tan smell.

Cocoa brown fake tan

Cocoa brown tough stuff scrub

I hope you enjoyed reading this post & I can’t wait to share my good news with you all once our bundle of joy decides to show up.

Love E x