Bump Day: 14 Weeks!

Today is the REAL official start of my 2^nd trimester. I’m still waiting for that pregnancy sweet spot to hit, but as of now I’m still feeling exhausted.  However, I can handle the fatigue as long as the constant nausea continues to stay at bay. I don’t mind napping throughout the day and having TV marathons on the couch with my pups as long as I’m pretty sure I’m not going to hurl at any moment.  

I think that seeing evidence of the pregnancy by way of a bump definitely helps to put things in perspective. Around 8 weeks, I was sick as a dog and without having had an ultrasound yet, it was really hard to push through the misery and see the end game.  All I could think about was how yucky I felt. Jonathan wanted to talk about baby names and babymoons and all I wanted to do was press a cold rag to my head. 

Now that I’m out of the morning sickness coma, we’ve been making a little bit of progress on both baby names and babymoon plans, though we still haven’t come to a final decision on either. 

If anyone has experience traveling in Europe and has a stellar idea for where we could take our last vacation before baby, please give me your ideas! We want something sunny, beachy, relaxing, and not overly touristy. Right now we’re focusing most of our research on Portugal and Spain, but we’ve got Turkey, Greece, and France on our list as well.

Majorca, Spain? (source)

Portugal? (source)

Any thoughts? 

So now that I’ve sufficiently gone off on a tangent, let’s get to the bump pics. Here are the 14 week shots.  *disclaimer* I did just eat a bowl of easy Mac right before these were taken, so that might have some influence the size of the bump. 

And now that the baby is starting to make an appearance, and my Easy Mac binges are becoming more frequent, it was time to invest in some stretch mark prevention. My skin has always been super dry but combine that with pregnancy and a harsh Scottish winter, and I’m downright scaly. 

My normal routine wasn’t any match for the reptilian skin taking over my body, especially my lower back area.  While applying some cocoa butter lotion for the 20^th time last Friday, I looked in the mirror and noticed a stretch mark. I may have over-reacted a bit, because I immediately went on Amazon and bought every top rated stretch mark remedy they had. 

So far, I’ve had a new package arrive every day this week. Still, I’m applying all 6 formulas religiously and I have to say that my skin is feeling a more moisturized. So far, my favorite is the cheapest, the Vaseline cocoa butter gel but the Vitamin E Oil also does the trick. 

Any moms out there have other stretch mark secrets? I’m pretty sure it all comes down to genetics, but it doesn’t hurt to keep my skin hydrated.