My Second Trimester

Week 12-16

If you have read my earlier post about my first trimester, you will know how awful those three months were for me. I kept holding onto the thought that by week 12 I might feel normal, while trying to ignore that some people had told me the sickness and tiredness could last the whole pregnancy for some women! Apparently on average, the nasty symptoms ease off by week 16, and thankfully mine started to go at week 14. I began to get some energy back, and then the nausea started to reduce so that I was no longer having it all day every day. By week 16 I felt a lot better.

Flu Jab: Yes or No?

For weeks I have been debating whether or not to have the flu jab as the risks have always seemed unclear to me. The jab is always recommended for pregnant women, as we are deemed the 'high risk category'. This is apparently because pregnancy lowers your immune system, so if you have the flu, you can have far more serious side effects from it, which can even include death.

I am asthmatic, so have had the flu jab yearly for many years now, but the jab now contains bodies to protect against swine flu, and I have always been quite dubious about this.

The Unmentionable Side-Effects of Pregnancy...

Now I have started the second trimester of my pregnancy, I thought I would list the lovely side-effects that can occur in pregnancy. Some of these I now have first-hand experience of, and others I have so far had a lucky escape from

The 12 Week Scan

I thought I would write about my first ever scan that took place a couple of weeks ago, as so far it has been the best experience of my rollercoaster pregnancy.

That particular day was my worst ever in terms of sickness, as from 6am to 2pm, I could not even keep down two sips of water and I felt so drained and unwell from the dehydration it was ridiculous. So it was not the start of the day that I had been dreaming about for the last 12 weeks!

Pregnancy Tips for Nausea, Sickness and more

Considering I have spent the last three months trying to deal with severe nausea, sporadic sickness and constant tiredness, I thought I would give you some suggestions of what can help to alleviate or at least minimise these symptoms (sometimes lol).

Dry Food

A number of people told me to eat something small and dry before getting out of bed in the morning, and this can help to reduce the nausea. I recommend a dry cracker or rich tea biscuit, as they are quite easy to eat at that time of the morning.

Most days this did help me, as it lined my stomach and would show me if I could keep things down before I attempted a breakfast. Some days I could not even keep this down, but it is less painful to puke up a cracker then it is to puke up a whole meal or even worse, being sick on an empty stomach which just burns!