Today the lovely Kate is back sharing the next instalment of her pregnancy diary. You can read her story so far here and here. It’s all been a lot more fun during the second trimester so I’ll let Kate tell you all about it.

Oh the second trimester, how I loved you! After the 12 week scan and finding out everything looked good, I finally managed to relax a bit and start to enjoy being pregnant – helped along by the fact that the nausea had eased and I started to feel like I had a bit more energy. I started to show really early on, finally giving in and buy maternity jeans at around 10 weeks. (Before that I was doing this trick with a hairband around the button of my jeans that I found on Pinterest – very useful but not really a long term solution!) My expanding waistline could of course have been down to my weekly fish and chip habit, but of course I blamed the baby bump. My friend recommended that I take a photo every week (a “bumpie” this is called apparently) to watch my bump grow and I’m so glad I did, I could really notice a difference week on week which was lovely to see, and will be nice to look back on.

I was quite impatient to get to the next scan which I had always heard as being referred to as the ‘20 week scan’ so you can imagine my shock when I was booked in for mine at 22 weeks. 2 weeks can feel like forever when you’re looking forward to something can’t it? Chris and I were both very excited to find out the sex, somehow thinking that this would make it seem all the more real, but of course above all else we just wanted to check in on our little bubba and make sure all was ok.

As the date approached, everyone kept asking me if I had an inklings as to whether it was a boy or a girl. As this is my first pregnancy, I didn’t have anything to compare to and I just hadn’t thought too much about it either way, as everyone says – all that matters is that the baby is healthy. I can honestly say I had no real preference when it came to gender. Boy or Girl, I didn’t mind – I just wanted to know!

I somehow managed to be very restrained with shopping (very unlike me) and resisted buying anything up until this point, deciding I would buy just one little outfit on the day of the scan. In the week leading up to it I started to look around and found myself drawn to boys clothes. I had about 20 options of things to buy if it was a boy but couldn’t find anything I really loved for a girl.

I had also decided that I would ask Santa (well, I better start practising hadn’t I!) for a print for the nursery as a Christmas present. I had found an illustrator whose style I loved and one design in particular that I thought would be perfect for a baby boy’s room. It wasn’t until the morning of the scan that I suddenly wondered whether the fact that I was being drawn to boys things over girls might be a sign…

The date finally came around and all the waiting paid off – what an amazing experience. For one thing, it felt far more private than my first scan where for some reason there were about 10 people in the room all just standing around chatting! This time around it was just Chris and I and the sonographer of course, and once again, all seemed well. The sonographer pointed between the babies thighs and confirmed that we were in fact expecting a little boy! (So perhaps it was a sign after all!) We watched him wriggle around on the screen, clenching his little fists! He seem to have grown so much in just 10 weeks and all of a sudden it did seem so very real!

As well as the second scan, another exciting milestone was feeling movement for the first time. I confess I did re-lapse a little into my forum addiction as I began researching when and how often I should feel my baby move. It seems it is completely different for everyone, which actually I found really reassuring. I had read that the first movements feel like little bubbles or popping in your stomach, and I would say that’s a good way to describe what I felt. It was probably around 16/17 weeks that I started to notice something and then began really looking out for it. I think it was 18 weeks before I felt something that I felt confident to say must have been the baby moving, but even then it was quite subtle. Over the next few weeks though the movement became more and more noticeable and by 23 weeks I could actually see my stomach move.

The only negative side to the second trimester has been SPD, which I’m sure lots of you have had experience with. I haven’t suffered too badly with it but I do find after a week of working and commuting my bones are very sore and I just need to rest (it’s also a good excuse to get out of the weekend chores ☺). I’ve been doing some stretches/exercises which seem to be helping and have been told to buy a pregnancy belt which I will eventually get around to!

But all in all I have to say I really have enjoyed this phase. I feel like the weeks are just flying by now. I’m torn between really enjoying my pregnancy, feeling like I don’t want it to end (I feel like I have my baby all to myself right now – is that weird?!) and just being desperate to meet him now! But I am going to do my best to make the most of the last 12 weeks, get as much sleep as I can and of course turn my attention to buying all the lovely things you need (and lots of things you don’t really need!) before baby arrives!