Baby Wong: Second Trimester
it’s a girl!
Hello second Trimester! This honeymoon phase of pregnancy went by in a flash. The global pandemic really slowed down life around us and gave me a chance to be in full nesting and resting mode. I finally feel really pregnant and am starting to get a nice round belly. I cannot wait to see what this phase brings!
baby wong is a…GIRL!
Perhaps the most exciting part of the second trimester is finding out more about the life growing inside you. At first we liked the idea of being surprised at birth of what our baby would be. However, after I started growing and going through baby items, I just had to know! We still wanted it to be a little bit of a surprise so we decided to plan a mini baby gender reveal. Pre-covid we had a dream of doing the reveal and baby shower with all our friends and family but the obviously wasn’t going to work out.
My parents live here in Colorado so we decided to do a socially distance reveal with just them! Rashawn saw a gender reveal online where a basketball exploded with the color and we KNEW we had to do that! The 20th week appointment was a little different, as Rashawn was sadly not allowed to be there with me due to the Covid rules. The nurse let me FaceTime him the whole time while we got to check out all of baby Wong to see how she was growing. I told the nurse at the beginning we wanted the gender to be a surprise so she hid it from me and turned the monitor off when it was time to check! She printed the ultrasounds out and put them in a sealed envelope. I took that envelope to my dad and had him fill the basketball with the right color! About a week later we went to a hoop close to my parents house.
Rashawn took the shot and as you can see, we were SO SURPRISED! I thought my intuition was telling me a little boy so in my mind I was so sure we were having a son. When it exploded Pink we could not believe it! These will forever be some of my favorite pictures because they capture our emotions so well. I don’t think I have ever had a surprise as good as a little girl!
how am i feeling?
Gosh what a glorious time of pregnancy! I have been feeling sooo good and love watching this belly grow. I truly feel so blessed to have had such an amazing pregnancy so far. I have not been to tired, nothing has swelled up, and I am just starting to feel those magical flutters and kicks!
I was so worried how I wasn’t showing at all during the first trimester, but ever since I hit 22 weeks this belly is here to stay! I can only imagine how big it will grow. I officially can’t wear my old clothes and will be onto the maternity section of the store ha! I am pretty excited though, shorts and dresses are all I live in in the summer anyway, so how fun is it to have a little belly to strut around with!
I get heartburn at night sometimes, and while I know its an old wives tale, I secretly hope that means this gal is growing a beautiful head of hair :) Otherwise like I said, I feel so lucky to be feeling so good.
Perhaps TMI, but one of the funniest things to happen is how big my boobs have gotten! I have always been very small chested, but pregnancy has brought these bad boys UP! I was so worried at first until my midwife told me my body is just setting me up to be a killer at breast feeding, so i’ll take it!
appointments during covid-19
Boy have the times changed! Rashawn has never missed an appointment and it truly just makes me love him more watching how excited he is for each one and the updates. However, COVID has really changed the game! Right at the start of my second trimester, the doctors announced that only the patient will be allowed at all appointments. Meaning not only OBGYN but chemo appointments, eye visits, physicals, EVERYTHING got pushed to just the patenit. It really put things into perspective for how lucky we all were to always have support with us at the doctors no matter the occasion.
The first appointment I had to go alone to was the biggest one! At 20 weeks they do an in-depth ultrasound to make sure baby is growing just like she should and to find out the gender if you want. I had to get dropped off, was required to wear a mask, and get my temperature taken at the door. It was all so strange and truly felt like I was in some sci-fi movie! Once I got to the scan I was able to FaceTime Rashawn and it made me feel better to have him ‘there’ with me. I felt bad for the fact that this child is just as much his so it didn’t seem right for him to not be allowed! But we defiantly made the most of it.
At my 24 weeks, I wasn’t even allowed to go to the doctors!! They scheduled an online appointment - which was just mind blowing to me because that marked almost 6 weeks without having any of my vitals taken or being seen by an in person doctor. It was just scheduled with a random doctor so it felt even weirder to be talking to a stranger on Zoom about my pregnancy. It was a very short call as she obviously couldn’t listen to the heartbeat or take vitals. At this point we were getting pretty close to having decide where to give birth too! All in-person tours of the hospitals were cancelled so that made it extra stressful for me to try and decide. I am a very positive person but these were defiantly times where I had to hold my head extra high!
what have i been doing?
The nesting phase is REAL! It has been a dream to start putting things together for our little princess. We have a two bedroom place, so one of the rooms has been our office/guest room! We decided why not go full blown parents and turn it into a nursery! We each went through our desks and tried to get rid of anything we could. I decided to move my desk and computer into our bedroom and for now Rashawn is just going to share the nursery with his baby girl until shes bigger and needs the room :)
We got a crib, dresser, storage and lots of new pretty pink things for the room! It has been so fun building things together and imaging what life will be like as a family of three. We spend lots of our day getting the room ready and I have started designing some posters and things to hang up in the room! With all the free time, I also have taught myself to crochet and picked up my knitting again! I have made lots of cute little toys for her and a baby blanket.
Perhaps my favorite project was redoing this rocking chair! It actually holds such a special place in my heart as it was my Omi’s (grandma), moms, and now mine! So my baby girl will be the third generation to be rocked here. Such a special treat to still have it in my family! Because it is now over 50+ years old I needed to give it a little loving! I decided to give it a fresh coat of paint and sew on some new cushion covers! I love the way it turned out can not wait to rock my own daughter here just like I was :)
what i have learned
Second Trimester has been great for learning a lot about what life will be like with baby girl here. I feel like in the first trimester I mastered what being pregnant would be like and all the changes happening to me and this little girl. I read the book What To Expect When Your Expecting: The first year, and it opened my eyes to so much! Learning about breastfeeding, sleep schedules, different learning stages and so much more! It really helped set my mindset for what its going to be like being a mom (even though I know nothing will prepare you like the real thing!)
It has also been fun learning about all the things babies need! We were unable to have a traditional baby shower, but our amazing friends and family helped us out with an online registry at Target and Amazon. It was so cool to scroll through hundreds of items and talk about what we would use or think we need! Being a nanny gave me a lot of first hand experience with items I used with the kids so I feel like I have a good understanding of wants vs needs. However, so many people warned me a lot of it will just be trial and error with your own kid! You never know what they will like until they are here :)
This phase of life and pregnancy has been a dream! I cannot wait to watch this belly continue to grow, feel lots of kicks, and work my way into the Third Trimester and Birth! Hopefully we can decide on a name too :) I feel SO ready to meet this little girl!!