My 12 Week Pregnancy Update With Baby #3! Baby Kicks, Health Update, Tooth Problems, Thyroid

Hi guys, this is Ming with the blog girlsandhomestead.com and today I'm going to do my 12-week pregnancy update. If you guys missed my pregnancy announcement plus my 10-week update, I will link that video down below. I absolutely love doing pregnancy updates and now that I'm pregnant again, I'm excited to be doing them again. I did these during my last pregnancy about every other week and that is my plan to do again. And it's just so fun to keep you guys updated and also have this record of how my pregnancy went to look back on because you really do forget things really easily when you're a mom. And I always look back and think, like, I wonder what I was feeling at this stage in Sophia's pregnancy. And I don't really have a good record of my first pregnancy because I wasn't doing YouTube then and I really forget to write things down. It's terrible. So let's get right into this update. So one of the most exciting updates is that I felt the baby move about a week ago for the first time. It's pretty early. It was like at 11 weeks or so, which that seems pretty early, but I also, this being my third pregnancy and I know what I'm like looking for now, I'm like almost certain that that's what it was. And I felt it like almost every night. That's normally when my babies are most active, when I get in bed for the night and I'm holding still because when you're moving around and like walking during the day, that kind of like rocks them to sleep while they're in your stomach. But then when you lay down, they're like, Hey, she's holding still. Let's like jump around. So that's kind of been the habit for all of my babies. And so this one has started to do it as well. And I, it's getting big enough that I can actually feel all the movement in there. It's very faint still, not near able to feel it on the outside yet, which I always look forward to that when Luke is able to feel the baby. It just feels like a little bit of fluttering and it's just a really cute feeling. But feeling the baby move and kick is one of my absolute favorite parts of pregnancy. So I'm always very, very excited when they do start moving and I can feel them. My belly looks absolutely massive compared to my other pregnancies. At 12 weeks, I will post a picture of my belly at 12 weeks with my first pregnancy, at 12 weeks with my second pregnancy, and then at 12 weeks now with my third pregnancy. And there's just a huge difference in the size of my belly. Like especially as they get further into the evening and I've eaten a lot of food, I look like seven months pregnant, like no joke. And I know your body just, with each pregnancy, your body just knows what to do more. So it like just goes right to growing your belly really big. I know that's like a totally normal thing and it just will get more accentuated with each pregnancy. But sometimes it's just like, like last week I was telling Luke, like the baby, if the baby is like the size of a blueberry, why does it need this much room? Like it's almost mind-blowing because the baby is so tiny and your belly just gets so big so fast, like you're further on pregnancies. So I do know that that's something that can happen with having more and more pregnancies. But sometimes I still wonder if I've got twins in there because like it just seems so much bigger than my other pregnancies. Like there was, I was a little bit bigger with my second pregnancy than with my first pregnancy. But then between my second and third pregnancy, it's just like a huge difference. It just like seems so accentuated that I don't know how there can only be one in there. But I guess we'll find out if the midwife starts hearing two heartbeats or I start measuring bigger with my fundal height or something. I don't know. We were not planning on getting an ultrasound, so we're not going to be able to find out that way. If I do start measuring big and maybe she hears two heartbeats or something, I would consider getting an ultrasound just to confirm so that we know what we're dealing with. But the plan right now is just getting an ultrasound at all. I actually had to order more maternity jeans because my belly's gotten so big that I cannot fit into any of my regular jeans, but my legs aren't fat enough to wear my old maternity jeans. Because by the time in my last two pregnancies, by the time my belly was so big that I couldn't fit into regular jeans, I had gained a bunch of weight through the pregnancy, like I was quite a bit further on. And so there was more meat on my legs to hold the pants up. So I have two pairs of maternity jeans that are size medium that are just absolutely massive. Thankfully, a friend gave me some maternity jeans that I've been just wearing when I wasn't pregnant just because I like the style. They're some really cute skinny jeans. And for the most part, no one can tell you have a pregnancy panel. But these ones I'm actually wearing right now, these ones are extra small, which is crazy to me because I am very tall. I'm 6'1", so normally I don't wear, like I'm skinny, but I don't wear super small clothes just because I have to buy extra big clothes so that they're long enough for my legs or my arms. But because these are skinny jeans, I can more get away with them being a little bit short and I just tuck them into my big wool socks and they're good to go. So these ones fit perfectly and they're extra small, but I only have one pair of them. So since I just recently had a birthday, my mom actually ordered me three new pairs of maternity jeans that are, there's one that's extra small and then two that are small. So I'm really, really excited to have some more maternity jeans because these get dirty and I don't want to wash them because then I won't have like a pair of jeans that fits me properly to wear and I'll have to wear pants that fall off, like literally. I just can't even believe how loose those are, like they're only a size medium. But if I walk around in them or especially if I put my phone in the back pocket, they like will fall off. It's ridiculous. So that's been a new experience because like by the time my belly was that big, I was just like as I gained 60 pounds during my pregnancies, about 60 pounds. And so like I get a lot of that on my legs. And so by the time my belly is big enough, I can fit in those jeans because my limbs are big. So it'll be nice to also have those maternity jeans just for wearing even when I'm not pregnant because maternity jeans are just comfy. So having more of them will be nice because I mean we do plan on having quite a few more pregnancies, so they will definitely come in handy and I'm just so excited. They're coming in the mail. They haven't gotten here yet, but I'm so, so excited to get them. Maybe once I get them, I will do some sort of a video on some of my favorite pregnancy outfits and just styling different things with some of my new jeans. That would be really fun. Let me know if that would be something you guys would be interested in seeing and I will work on putting something together. So I had mentioned in my first pregnancy update that I was having some tooth problems and so I wanted to kind of touch on that a little bit because I feel like this is a totally a pregnancy thing because I have not even been to the dentist for like four or five years or something like that. It's been a long time because I take really good care of my teeth. We eat a lot of healthy foods that are really conducive to tooth health. We drink a ton of raw milk and a lot of raw dairy products. We have a lot of healthy fats in our diet. We follow the Weston A. Price Foundation's diet, which Weston A. Price was a dentist and so a lot of his ideas about food are geared towards tooth health. I make my own toothpaste with activated charcoal and turmeric and different things. So I take really good care of my teeth and I've never had an issue up until this third pregnancy with my teeth. I was actually talking to a few different moms and then also my naturopath and my midwife and they all agree that this sounds more like tooth issues that come from pregnancy because pregnancy can actually be really hard on your teeth. Like the baby is going to pull calcium from wherever it can get it and I actually have talked to a lot of moms that say, yeah, kind of like around my third pregnancy, like especially if they're close together, like they start having teeth problems. My sister-in-law says that the only time she ever has teeth problems is during her pregnancy. She'll get pregnant, her tooth will start hurting, it'll hurt during the whole pregnancy and then as soon as the baby's born, it like goes back to normal. So I feel like this is totally a pregnancy thing that I'm having problems with my teeth and so I'm like in that way, like wanting to just get through the pregnancy so I can like get my teeth healthier and like be able to take all the x-rays and like see what's wrong and see if anything needs fillings or anything because I'm like not feeling comfortable with taking like full x-rays while I'm pregnant. So anyway, I had mentioned in my last update that I had a really bad cavity in this back tooth on the bottom. A chip had actually fallen out of it. I went and got it looked at. They said that the cavity was getting like too close to the nerve and I was going to either need the tooth pulled or a root canal. I did a bunch of research on root canals and I discovered that like pretty much 100% of the time, root canals always get infected. Even if you're asymptomatic and you're not showing any signs that there's an infection, your body will be fighting off this infection for the rest of your life and you can get some wacky things that seem to have nothing to do with your teeth as a result of having that infection your body's constantly fighting off that like kind of weakens your immune system. Like you can get rheumatoid arthritis from root canals like just because your body's working so hard to fight off that infection that like it causes other random problems. So I knew for sure I didn't want a root canal and so since it seemed like the only other option was to get it pulled, I got my tooth pulled. Thankfully, it's all the way in the back so you really you can't even notice at all and I'm feeling just fine about that. It's like feeling really healed. It's not hurting anymore and it's just really nice that because that tooth was like hurting really bad by that point. So it's just nice to have it gone. I have been having a few other spots hurt like up here, these two teeth and then down here. There's those two spots seem extra sensitive which I've always had somewhat sensitive teeth so I don't know if they're just like feeling a normal amount of sensitive but I'm just like extra concerned about it because those are more in the front like you would notice if those had to be pulled which I'm like really worried about. So I do have a dentist appointment in the beginning of May. The dentist I wanted to go to was all the way booked out until beginning of May unfortunately so I'm going to go and have an appointment and just have her look at everything, maybe get a couple of x-rays because I talked to my midwife who is very naturally minded and she said it's better to get an x-ray and see what's going on than possibly have a tooth abscess because that can be really dangerous. So as much as I hate x-rays and especially while I'm pregnant, depending on like if the teeth are getting worse, I may have her take some x-rays and then the midwife also said the x-rays have gotten a lot better. They're digital now and so they use like a tiny, tiny bit of radiation, such a small amount that it's not going to do like anything to the baby. If I have an abscess or an infection or something, that's going to be a lot more dangerous for the baby. So I'm like trying to weigh the pros and cons of maybe getting another x-ray to see what's going on because if it's something that we could get filled now instead of waiting until the end of the pregnancy and then if we wait until the end of the pregnancy, then I might have to get the tooth pulled if it's getting bad enough. So we'll see. I'll talk to her in May and we'll see how the teeth are hurting then, see what's going on. But yeah, I've been thinking about that lately and I've been just really concerned about my teeth because I would like to keep as many teeth as possible and it's just annoying that I know the pregnancy is causing this. I really can't do anything about it because I'm pregnant now and while I'm pregnant, the teeth are probably just going to keep getting worse because that's just kind of what happens. So what I've been doing is my naturopath put me on a calcium supplement. I've also been drinking at least a quart of raw milk a day plus raw cheese. I've been trying to eat as much of that as I can and just a lot of things that are really good for my teeth. I've been keeping up on all my supplements and vitamins and everything so my body's not as stressed. I'm also weaning my son. We are down to nursing every other day, once in the morning. So he's pretty much weaned. I feel like once I don't have to be producing milk and growing a baby, that'll be quite a bit of stress on my body as well. So maybe it'll put some of that nutrients back into my teeth, hopefully. So that's a whole thing that I'm like, sorry to ramble on about this forever, but I'm just like, I've been a little bit worried about my teeth, so it's nice to talk to someone about it. And while we're on the topic of health problems, a lot of you guys know that I have Graves' disease, which is hyperthyroidism. So my thyroid is overactive. So when I am pregnant, my thyroid actually will go lower, which is really nice. Once the baby is born, my thyroid will spike up really high, and then I have to use some herbal tinctures and be really strict with my diet to get it back down. And then once I'm like six months or so postpartum, it levels out, and all I have to do is avoid gluten and it'll be fine. I haven't been able to quite get my thyroid down to a normal level this time in between pregnancies. So it was still pretty high when I got pregnant. I've actually had some problems like kidney stones caused by thyroid, hyperthyroid. Kidney stones can be caused by breastfeeding and hyperthyroid. So I'm pretty sure that's why I got the kidney stones. My only symptom of the kidney stones was getting chronic bladder infections, but I have some really exciting news. I've stopped getting bladder infections. It's so exciting. I was getting, like starting when Demi was like a month old, I would get a bladder infection every day until like a couple weeks ago. I've had bladder infections for over 10 months every day. I've had to take D-manos four times a day. Thankfully, I was able to manage it with something natural like D-manos. They were caused by the kidney stones. I don't know exactly why it caused that, but when my naturopath found out I was having chronic bladder infections and nothing would help it, we got an ultrasound and confirmed I had kidney stones. So since having bladder infections was the only symptom of that, I was just kind of waiting until the bladder infections stopped until I could assume the kidney stones were gone. This last week, I have been able to go a whole week without taking D-manos, where before I was having to take it four times a day religiously or I'd get a terrible infection. So I'm like so excited about this and I'm kind of assuming it's because I've like mostly stopped breastfeeding because that can be a big factor in kidney stones is breastfeeding. And then also, when I'm pregnant, my thyroid starts to go down. So I'm assuming between those two things, my thyroid's starting to go down and stopping breastfeeding, my kidney stones may have passed. They were actually hurting like last month, so they probably passed then. So I am like unbelievably excited about this because it's been something I've struggled with for a long time this last postpartum period. It's been like really frustrating and also really frustrating because we eat really healthy and it's just been something that I've been surprised that I got, but thyroid problems can cause a lot of other random problems. So it's just something that I have to deal with. And now as for more direct pregnancy symptoms like exhaustion, I was extra exhausted this pregnancy. I'm still feeling pretty tired, but it's starting to get better. I'm starting to have a bit more energy, which is really nice. I've been able to start like making more like really good dinners from scratch and having them like ready when Luke gets home. I've gotten my kids back on a really good schedule for the day. I've been able to start getting up earlier, which is really nice because then get up and do my Bible reading. I've been able to stay up a bit later and make sure the kitchen's clean before I go to bed. So there's just all these things that make my life a bit easier that are just really nice when I have enough energy to do them. So I'm excited to be getting some energy back. My nausea isn't as constant anymore, which is really exciting. I just will like feel nauseated if I smell something that maybe isn't that great. It's just not like all the time, 24 seven, like it was in the beginning, which is also really nice. I've totally stopped having my vertigo symptoms, which was like almost 24 seven with the nausea, like at the beginning of this pregnancy, which was really horrible. And that's been gone for weeks now, which is really nice. So yeah, I'm like feeling better. My bladder infections are going away. I am like, I'm feeling good. Still tired here and there, but I do have two little kids, so that could have something to do with it. So anyway, let me show you my bump. Okay, so here's the bump. It is still morning time. So this is actually looking pretty small compared to how it will be like closer to bedtime. But this is like still quite a bit bigger than I looked at 12 weeks with my first two pregnancies. It's like sticking pretty far out there. So here are my one pair of maternity jeans that fit. I really like them. They're very comfortable. And here's the bump. My midwife mentioned last time that I have a little bit of an umbilical hernia right here from my last pregnancy. So we'll just keep an eye on that and hopefully it won't get worse. But there's the bump. So you can see like I'm still like pretty skinny. Like my hip bones still show, but like the bump is just getting bigger without me getting as much weight as fast, which is different and kind of nice. So yeah, there is the bump. So that is all for this 12-week pregnancy update. I really hope you guys enjoyed this video. It was definitely a very rambly long video, but hopefully you guys enjoyed just hearing kind of like a health update for me. It's definitely going to be nice to have this for me to look back on and just see what was going on and seeing when that stuff started to get better. And I'm just like very excited about my kidney stones hopefully being gone.