We’re expecting! Baby #3 due in January 2021

Surprise! We’re excited to announce that baby #3 will be arriving in January 2021.

We have always wanted to have three children. Even when I was pregnant with Connor, I felt like it wasn’t meant to be my last pregnancy.

We had decided to start trying in January. I was nervous intermittent fasting might mess with my hormones and ability to get pregnant. Spoiler, it didn’t!

I did widen my IF window from a 16:8 fasting protocol to a 13:9/14:10 which means, I fasted from about 8:30 pm to 10:30 am.

I did not get pregnant right away like with Tommy. With Connor, it took us about 4 months due to our joint crazy travel schedule. When the pandemic hit, we decided to put our baby plans on hold in the middle of March.

We were headed to the Cape for a week in May and I brought along a couple cheap tests, ya know the Amazon ones because they were in my make up bag from earlier in the year when we were trying. I was almost positive I was not.

Well I was late and wanted to blame it on intermittent fasting and stress but on the second to last day at the Del Mar Cape house, I took the test and sure enough I was beyond shocked to see two bright red lines. I wish I could say we jumped up and down with excitement as we always wanted three children but being pregnant during the “quarantine” felt slightly paralyzing.

At the time, pregnant women were not known to be dying at any higher rates than non pregnant women but in the coming weeks, it would come out that pregnancy would make me higher risk to be hospitalized and intubated by as much as 70% compared to my non expecting counterparts.

I called my doctor’s office immediately to make an appointment. Luckily my OB switched from a Boston to Wellesley office after Connor was born so I decided to just begin my appointments out in the ‘burbs even though we hadn’t yet moved. The office is 5 minutes from our new home as is the hospital I’ll be delivering at! They didn’t have any special protocols and just said to wear a mask and reschedule if experiencing symptoms or exposure to someone who was diagnosed with Covid-19.

Even though I’m 36 now, I wasn’t seen until 9 weeks. This felt like forever but is normal. I just was always seen around 6 weeks with the other kids! Nick was not allowed to come with me. I had my temperature checked upon arrival and was asked a series of Covid-19 symptom and exposure questions, all to which I answered no and was allowed to proceed to the OB/GYN office. I, of course, had to wear a mask the entire time as did everyone else.

The office was quiet! There were not many people there. The waiting room had chairs facing different directions so you couldn’t sit next to anyone. I had a normal ultrasound and meeting with a midwife before having a blood work done.

I was told that I could come in for regular appointments but most would be done virtually. I am OK with this as it’s my third pregnancy. I’m now much more calm about pregnancy during a pandemic and very excited. How can you not be after seeing the heart beat on an ultrasound.

Kid’s Reaction

We told the kids right away and they are pretty neutral on the idea. Tommy thinks it’s a boy and Connor thinks it’s a girl.

Sex

We haven’t decided if we plan to find out the sex yet! Personally, I’ve never been able to wait but I am wondering if I’m missing out on some right of passage that every mother should experience but it’s also causing me major anxiety! Am I forever a boy mom or can I start shopping for all things girly and get rid of some of the boy stuff!?

Morning Sickness

I have felt good this pregnancy but for about 3 weeks felt super hungover every day, all day from weeks 6 to 9. It was a blessing having Nick work from home because I was able to sleep in a bit, have breakfast in bed and rest more than I would if we were not in a pandemic. I basically ate a lot of bagels and smoothies.

Cravings

With the boys, cravings were similar but this time around they are a little different. I’ve been craving baked goods like cinnamon rolls or scones and lots of veggies! Think, veggie pizza or pasta salad loaded with fresh tomatoes, peppers and onions. The more veggies the better which is opposite my diet with Tommy where the only veggies I ate were fried eggplant in the form of eggplant parmesan and romaine lettuce drenched in Caesar dressing.

Fitness Modifications

So far in my first trimester, I haven’t been doing a ton of modifications yet but have continued to do Diastasis Recti modifications since Connor was born. This means I usually avoid planking, push ups and crunches. This week, I’ll enter my second trimester and will begin doing more and will be sharing here.

FASTer Way

As soon as I got pregnant, I stopped intermittent fasting for the most part. I try to maintain a 12:12 split. I continued to do the FASTer Way workouts but stopped carb cycling. I need all the carbs these days and feel worse when I don’t have enough. We also recommend a gluten free, dairy free diet for fat loss and I needed all the pizza I could get my hands on. So, short answer, I’m still doing the workouts and following the macro split (we eat 45% carbs, 25% protein and 30% fat) but I’m much more relaxed with fasting and no longer carb cycling.

Overall

Overall, I’m feeling really good! I have a feeling it’s a girl but since this feels similar to my boy pregnancies it could be a boy. We are excited about becoming a family of 5 and getting the baby years behind us, lol.

I am very nervous about having a baby in January during flu season in the midst of a global pandemic however if we are all on lockdown again, I probably wouldn’t want to be going out anyway with a newborn in winter so lockdown or not, the Fit fam likely will be quarantining anyway.

Oh yes, and the move… We move August 1st and I can’t wait. We intentionally wanted a few months to settle in before bringing home a new baby but wanted kids close in age so the move isn’t adding any stress as I actually wanted a fall 2020 baby!