{"id":20210,"date":"2014-03-04T07:52:32","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T12:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/?p=20210"},"modified":"2021-06-02T07:11:42","modified_gmt":"2021-06-02T11:11:42","slug":"3-things-im-doing-differently-my-second-pregnancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/3-things-im-doing-differently-my-second-pregnancy\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Things I’m Doing Differently My Second Pregnancy"},"content":{"rendered":"

For more confessions, insights and details on pregnancy, click here<\/strong><\/a>! <\/em><\/p>\n

Since originally publishing this post, I’m thrilled to share that I gave birth to a happy, healthy and beautiful baby girl<\/a><\/strong>!<\/em><\/p>\n

Through most of my second pregnancy, I approached it similar to my first: trying to remain active, eat healthy foods, get sleep and listen to my body. However, there were a couple things I chose to do differently this time around.<\/p>\n

\"second<\/p>\n

Things I Did Differently With My Second Pregnancy<\/h2>\n

1. More Strength Training.<\/h3>\n

Well, I guess I should call it strength exercise since I\u2019m not really training for anything\u2026 well, labor? I digress.<\/p>\n

During my first pregnancy, I did a wonderful job at walking and prenatal yoga. I did some weights, too, but really focused on the others.<\/p>\n

This go \u2018round, prenatal yoga hasn\u2019t didn’t really work out for me. There was nothing offered within a 40-minute drive from my house and I know myself: at-home options don\u2019t hold my interest.<\/p>\n

So during my second pregnancy, I switched up my cardio to include walking, stair stepper, bike and elliptical. I kept things interesting and wasn\u2019t too hard on the same joints over and over again.<\/p>\n

I also kicked up the strength training in large part to Jess\u2019 prenatal workouts<\/a><\/strong>. I never knew how much I could do before and these workouts let me feel challenged without overdoing it.<\/p>\n

Carrying Hailey around certainly helped, too, but I\u2019ve a lot done more planking and total body strength to help aid in labor and recovery. At the very least, it got my endorphins pumping!<\/p>\n

\"Things<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Loyally Taking my Vitamins.<\/h3>\n

I\u2019ll admit, this didn\u2019t happen my first pregnancy and didn\u2019t happen at the beginning of the second one either. Why?  I didn\u2019t trust them. I questioned vitamin\u2019s sourcing, their effectiveness and they usually upset my stomach, too. I figured I ate such a varied diet that I didn\u2019t need them.<\/p>\n

Well, then my energy began to suffer, cravings for meat intensified (remember that?) and I realized I might need a little support. I never expected the huge difference I would feel when I started taking my prenatal vitamins<\/strong><\/a> regularly.<\/p>\n

My energy after I started taking the vitamins was much better than the 3 previous months, and symptoms that I didn\u2019t even know <\/em>were symptoms of deficiencies (like my sensitive tongue last pregnancy<\/a><\/strong> – a symptom of iron deficiency!) disappeared.<\/p>\n

I started sleeping like a rock all night, I passed my glucose test this time with flying colors, my hair started growing faster and my lashes and eyebrows suddenly started filling in. Plus, my stomach didn’t hurt when I take them.<\/p>\n

3. Not Obsessing Over Labor.<\/h3>\n

Last time I read so many books on labor, specifically natural labor. Hours upon hours of time were put into reading birth stories online, practicing my breathing and focus and preparing David to know his lines: No epidural, let her walk around, no monitoring!<\/em><\/p>\n

Well, then I was 10 days late and had no choice but to be induced. I went natural for as long as possible, but Hailey was sunny-side-up and eventually I needed pitocin and an epidural (you can read the full story here: part 1<\/a><\/strong> and part 2<\/a><\/strong>).<\/p>\n

\"Things<\/p>\n

Trying to go natural this time takes more than mental strength. It also requires the stars lining up, going into labor on your own, the baby in the right position, etc.<\/p>\n

I have the highest respect for women that successfully have un-medicated births (seriously, high fives mamas!), but I\u2019ve also learned that what matters most to me is having baby girl arrive healthy and safe.<\/p>\n

A method of arrival into the world or into your family does not make a woman more or less of a mom.<\/p>\n

Plus, labor is just a day, then you have that whole \u2018taking care of a newborn\u2019 thing to do \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve had more than one child, d<\/strong>id you do anything differently the second time around?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Things<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From fitness to vitamins to stressing out about a birth plan, here are a few things I did differently between my first…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":21650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1482],"tags":[1421,1351,669,1462],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20210"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}