Pregnancy Update: 20 Weeks

As of last Friday I am twenty weeks pregnant with sweet little girl #2. This pregnancy has flown by since I am busy with Caroline, but at the same time it feels like I have forever to go. Today I’m blogging about my symptoms, doctor’s appointments, exercise, and more.

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Last pregnancy I shared a monthly update with week to week details of how things were going. That is SO first pregnancy. Here we are halfway through the second pregnancy and this is my second update. I’m not keeping notes on my phone like I did with Caroline, but I have really enjoyed being able to go back and refer to those notes to see how things are different this time around.

Symptoms

One of the most annoying symptoms with Caroline was acne. My face, back, and chest broke out. My skin is responding much better this time around. Maybe my body isn’t so shocked by the changes in hormones. I’ve had some typical breakouts on the face, barely any on my back, and some on my chest. TMI warning: the breakouts on my chest are most likely from my boobs rubbing together. I have been wearing sports bras most of the time and they push them together. Last pregnancy the breakouts were on my sternum.

Constipation has been a constant throughout. Last time around it wasn’t very bad during the second trimester, and got worse during the third. I drink miralax every other night. I should probably switch to something in pill form for the sake of convenience.

My hair is still kind of falling out. With Caroline, I experienced hair loss until about 18 weeks of pregnancy. It is slowing down a little bit but I’m still cleaning my brush out after every use. I’m not sure how I still have hair on my head. I’m not looking forward to postpartum hair loss. The texture of my hair is changing slightly. It dries slightly wavy now. I’ve always had bone straight hair.

Exercise

I would like to think that I am a little more active this pregnancy than my last. Granted, a lot of that activity is chasing Caroline. Last pregnancy I focused mostly on cardio workouts and some yoga. This time I am making an effort to do more strength exercises along with cardio. I haven’t been doing yoga but I always stretch after workouts. I prefer to keep my workouts simple. The Tabata Timer app is a current favorite. If I really want to put zero thought into working out I will do a BodyFit By Amy workout video. She has a lot of great prenatal workouts on her YouTube channel.

Doctor’s Appointments

I recently had my 20 week appointment and 20 week anatomy scan. So far, I don’t have many questions for my doctor outside of things involving labor. I am a great candidate for a vbac (vaginal birth after cesarean) as long as all goes well. However, I just learned from my doctor that back to back breech babies is common. At my anatomy scan we discovered that baby #2 is in fact breech right now. This may not seem alarming to most, but she is in the same position Caroline was at 20 weeks and Caroline never turned! We also discovered that my placenta is low, and because of that I’ll have another ultrasound at 32 weeks to see if it has moved. If my placenta remains low, I could have placenta previa, where the placenta is blocking the cervix. Read more about it here. Lots of things can change over the next 12 to 20 weeks though. Fingers crossed that baby turns and the placenta moves to the side as my uterus expands!