Hi, I’m starting a topic on pregnancy feels and pregnancy spending. Hopefully this can be a thread for anyone to chime in with commiseration, questions, stories, advice, and general WTF!
On feels:
I was prepared to have to slow down, be sleepy, and take a break from competitive sport. I was prepared for some vomiting. I was not very well prepared for feeling like moderate crap 5-6 times a day, just well enough to do ordinary tasks but not well enough to be happy about it. Ugh.
Now that first trimester hunger insomnia is over (I’m in week 13), I feel great in the mornings and very bloated/uncomfortable after dinner. It helps to know the pattern.
On the money front:
Our grocery budget almost doubled for the first 2 months of stay-at-home. Some of it was stocking up, some from fewer work-paid travel meals, but a major portion was me eating 2x lunches and 2x dinners for all of months 2 & 3. This has tapered off now, thankfully.
I just spent 4 months of normal clothing budget on maternity stuff. My usual wardrobe is mostly pants, so not much can be repurposed. I’ve also gained 4 inches around the bust so half my tops, especially tight sports gear, aren’t comfortable either. I feel a bit annoyed and a lot guilty about all the trial-and-error relearning to buy clothes that work (especially when delivery workers are stretched so thin). Due to COVID-19 our local Buy Nothing groups are pretty restricted, too. My new attitude is screw it: find 5 outfits I really love, budget be damned, and wear on repeat.
If my shoe size changes permanently (which I hear is common) I will be miffed.
On the up side, no spending on travel all spring so our overall discretionary spending is down.
This month was open enrollment for my US-based employer’s health insurance, and I was able to switch from 20% coinsurance to 10% coinsurance. This should save $1,000 on a typical delivery. Yay!
I can be super grouchy about pregnancy, and also grateful for relative health and very excited to meet the baby, right?
This definitely sounds familiar. Before I had announced at work, I had a fruit smoothie at home in the mornings, my usual yogurt for breakfast (plus granola bar now), I would disappear to an unused office to “read paperwork” or go for a walk and eat another snack mid morning, regular lunch, mid afternoon snack.
Yup! I clearly remember at one point late second/early third trimester where, because of how much room baby was taking up in my torso, I was starving but also full and also nauseous. Which meant I was also pissed at all that bullshit. And I had a textbook easy pregnancy.
Yes, it’s bullshit but also getting a baby is really cool when you want a baby, but where is the glowing magic.
You are awesome
I’m just going to also lay this out in case people are misrepresenting breastfeeding…it hurts. Like a lot, for at least many months. And if the pain, or any other part of breastfeeding is not do able, they make formula and bottles and you can supplement or fully formula feed.
I’m there with you! I’m 7 weeks along with baby #2. I’m feeling a lot less anxiety this time since I’ve been through it all before. (I’m new to this forum so I haven’t figured out how to quote yet - please bear with me)
In regards to maternity clothes, after giving birth to #1 we thought we were done so I put all of my maternity clothes in the “maternity bin” going around our buy nothing group. A short 7 months later I find myself pregnant again so I got the bin back and most of my clothes are gone, along with all others in my size
In regards to feet growing - mine went from a 7.5 to 8.5 during my first pregnancy. I had to replace all of my shoes and I got quite a few from the buy nothing group but I did splurge on a few pairs of Rothy’s for work. If those don’t fit anymore after this pregnancy I’m going to be really sad.
I’ve just started to enter the morning sickness phase and I hope it is a lot less than last time. Last time around I started my pregnancy at 129 lbs and by the end of the first trimester I was at 119. I’m 5’6” so that was a lot of weight for me to lose. This time I’m starting at 121 so I definitely can’t lose 10 lbs again! Last time it was like magic and stopped right as I entered week 14, so at least this time I have that to look forward to.
But yes to all the above! First tri our food spending was brutal and it wasn’t a pandemic. Something would sound good so I’d get it then not be able to eat it. I could only eat a few things. I had intense food aversions but was utterly starving. Do not miss.
I’ll lightly amend Elle’s statement to: breastfeeding CAN hurt for months. From what I’ve gathered, the experience varies a lot for people. It hurt a lot at the beginning for me, but a few days with a nipple shield and getting the pain meds lower so the baby was more awake helped a ton. After that it was a couple sore but not unbearable weeks, and it’s been pretty sustainable for us since. Although she hasn’t gotten teeth yet but definitely, pumping and bottles, or supplementing with formula, or all formula, are all totally valid strategies! People act like these are somehow mutually exclusive. But as long as you understand how supply regulation works, and fit that in, (and your body cooperates of course) combo feeding is a real thing and tons of people do it. (Or you can have a lil asshole like my baby who is a staunch bottle refuser LOL. Those are things too )
This is all good for me to contemplate. I had a rough TTC and labor, and thinking about whether to plan for a second is important and overwhelming to me.
Yay for this thread! Pregnancy is weird. I somewhat enjoyed being pregnant with Bobbin but part of that was just feeling in awe that it actually happened so quickly with all the doctors saying it wouldn’t so I feel like I had rose colored glasses on a little bit. I was definitely sick for the first trimester and simultaneously so hungry. I ended up eating a lot of mozzarella sticks and fresh fruit because they were the only things that didn’t make me want to barf, but I still lost about 10-15lbs. Pretty sure when I delivered I was about 10lbs over my regular weight, it was a weird redistribution of body composition for me.
As far as clothes/shoes, all my old shoes still fit and my general loose and flowy preferred style of clothing still work but that was just luck. My advice would be if you plan to breastfeed go ahead and invest in comfy nursing bras. Bobbin is 18 months and still nursing a few times a day and I’ve been wearing nursing bras exclusively since I was like 4 months pregnant. I couldn’t stand my regular bras touching my ribs (instant nausea) but the wider bands and stretchier fabric of the new bras was a godsend. If I had known I would be still wearing them 2 years later near exclusively I would have splurged on nicer ones. I’m actually looking at replacing these since we know we want to try for #2 at some point in the next year-ish and the hooks on mine are falling apart. My breasts are definitely bigger now so all my old bras fit differently anyway so I figure I’ll address that once I’m not nursing anyone.
I’ll be a counter point to this. I gained 65lbs and have gone through 4 clothing sizes and am still not in my regular clothes again. I’m back to the one nursing bra I bought first trimester, but the other ones I bought later are now too big. I think it’s a total crapshoot whatever you do but I definitely agree that the no underwire, Wider bands were a wonderful change. I ended up getting cheap bralettes from Costco for second and third tri and wore the hell out of them. Also a great life hack was the first probably 6 weeks post partum, I then wore them unlined into the shower so that the water wasn’t boobie torture. (So so sensitive).
First trimester has been the bit of pregnancy I found worst so far, but I’ve been through that twice and the second & third only once each, so maybe more data would change that. Currently feeling very apprehensive about trying again because it is just so shit for me. At least my GP is easy with the med scripts for my anti nausea meds. I kept all my maternity clothing and it currently occupies a couple of large boxes under our bed. I gave up on bras during first trimester the first go around, and while I bought some nursing bras I never found any that sound as nice as what you describe, @Ckni27! Soft sounds soooo good.
Last week I finally caved and bought some bralettes from Target since I was busting out of my normal ones and it was just in time since I feel like I grew yet another cup size in the last 7 days! I’ve gone from never wearing a bra around the house to always wearing one because it turns out that boobs are heavy when they are larger than an A!
I am waking up every 3 hours to nurse Baby E still and around 2 am is when I need a snack or I can’t go back to sleep. I bought a costco box of nature valley peanut butter “protein bars” (quotes because they are really more of a snack than a real protein bar) and I keep them in my night stand for my 2 am snackies.
When I was pregnant with Baby E I started having insomnia in the first trimester, waking up multiple times a night and it would take a half hour of reading on my phone to fall back asleep each time. If I remember right, around 2 am was snack time then too! If I ignored the hunger and just went back to sleep, I would wake up extremely nauseous in the morning
A friend’s husband gifted her a bedside mini fridge for pregnancy snacks and cold water. I like to share this fact so we remember that no other person has ever been so perfect in the world
but definitely, pumping and bottles, or supplementing with formula, or all formula, are all totally valid strategies! People act like these are somehow mutually exclusive. But as long as you understand how supply regulation works, and fit that in, (and your body cooperates of course) combo feeding is a real thing and tons of people do it. (Or you can have a lil asshole like my baby who is a staunch bottle refuser LOL. Those are things too 
)
