I’ve always heard, “no two pregnancies / births are alike” .. so I was SUPER curious to see how my second pregnancy and the symptoms I experience would compare to my first with our daughter Sage!

Let me start this off by saying – we were trying to conceive! So I feel like it’s much easier to pick up on symptoms instead of writing them off as something else, when you are in a season of actively trying. 

We tried to conceive in November, then when my cycle came in December, I decided to track it using the app Flo to really nail down the best days to conceive that month. We were going on family vacation the week my cycle was supposed to come, so I brought BOTH pregnancy tests and period supplies with me – just in case.

The very first morning of our vacation I decided to take a test.. I was 10 days post ovulation according to Flo, and at this point had zero symptoms. I honestly wanted to know if I could drink pina coladas, or if I had to make them virgin pinas for the week ha! 

It was POSITIVEEEE! (See our pregnancy announcement & pics here.) Even though we were trying, nothing can prepare you to see that word pop up on that teeny screen! I was just barely 5 weeks pregnant – super early! I felt great that entire week, soaked in our little secret poolside, and thennnn the drive back to the airport came, and my first round of car sickness. I was 6 weeks, 1 day, and we had to drive on curvy, bumpy Dominican Republic roads for 2 HOURS! I dumped out a box of almost empty cookies as a just-in-case barf box, and huffed Peppermint oil the entire time. I was sooo unbelievably nauseous. Even when we arrived at the airport it took my stomach a good 45 min to settle down.. BUT, I never puked!

*Fun fact, many hospitals have patients sniff Peppermint oil for nausea, too! Here is the one that I use, plus other products I’ll chat about throughout this post.

pregnancy symptoms: week 6

When we got back home, I couldn’t even ride to the grocery store without feeling nauseous. I’d whip out my Aromaease and Peppermint oil and huff them the entire way, both are known to help settle feelings of nausea, and they worked like a charm. 

The week we returned home (still 6 weeks), the daily nausea came. Sometimes it was in the morning, other times in the evening. In the morning, I had a glass of water and something bland ready to eat. If I didn’t eat, the nausea became muchhh worse! My go-to for a while was a bagel with cream cheese and ginger ale – loading up on those carbs to keep me full! Plus that made it super easy for me to take my prenatal without that making me feel sick. This pregnancy I found a prenatal that is created with folate vs folic acid. I have the MTHFR gene mutation, so my body can’t assimilate folic acid. If you have this too, here is the prenatal I chose: Seeking Health: Optimal Prenatal.

At this same time the fatigue hit me, my nipples became excruciatingly sore almost overnight (and I’m still breastfeeding, so painful!), my sense of smell started to heighten, and I started having to pee often, even getting up in the middle of the night already (never had to do that with Sage the entire pregnancy). 

I remember feeling tired when pregnant with Sage.. but being pregnant WITH an energetic little toddler who still nurses through the night, is a kind of exhaustion I’ve never experienced before! Some days I felt like I was doing the bare minimum to make it through the day, my brain was so foggy I couldn’t function and just wanted to lay on the couch all day. The only remedies were to take advantage of being a work from home mom and take manyyyy naps with Sage during this time, and drink a Zyng in the afternoon! (Zyng contains white tea, a form of green tea, so it has natural caffeine in it!) Coffee made me way too jittery!

pregnancy symptoms: weeks 7-8

When 7 weeks hit I was still SO tired, had some light cramping, and I started to feel bloated. My jeans were definitely fitting MUCH snugger already! When they say you ‘pop’ much sooner with your second, they’re right! It’s like your body says, “ohhhh, I know this drill!” and just starts to do its thing.

My sense of smell really started to go wild… I feel like I can smell colors??? It’s fascinating. I experienced this with Sage too around this time. I had a MAJOR aversion with her to Italian food, all pasta/pasta sauce.. This time it’s random scents. We don’t use any artificial fragrance in our home, so I think that helps a lot. We clean everything with Thieves cleaner, that has a much lighter scent vs many harsh conventional cleaners. I preferred diffusing very light scents during this time: orange, lemon, lavender, peace & calming, RC, etc. This helped so much to get rid of odors that made me nauseous – like if something was cooking that just wasn’t sitting right with me. Orange can also help with nausea so that one was a win-win! 

This second pregnancy, I’ve had ZERO food cravings. I could honestly go hours without eating (but like I said,then I became super nauseous), but I just don’t feel crazy hungry at all. I even lost a pound in my first trimester because no food was overly appealing to me! With Sage I lived on mayo, cheese, and chip sandwiches with a glass of milk (GAG.), so wild right?!

At 8 weeks the fatigue, bloat, and nausea continued.. And I also experienced something I had heard of, but myself never had experienced while pregnant with Sage.. round ligament pain! We took a long walk on our land, probably the longest one I had taken in a longggg time.. and the next two days in the evening I had these sharp, shooting pains that started above my hips, and shot down to my pelvis. It was bizarre! And a little frightening. What gave me peace of mind was, when I laid down, they went away. 

I had my first pregnant chiropractic adjustment that week. I had them every 2 weeks while pregnant with Sage, and they make a WORLD of difference in my body! So I’m excited to continue this to help my body adjust and align to support this pregnancy. Make sure to find a chiropractor who specializes in the Webster technique – this is for pregnant mamas!

I’m not sure when this started but.. HELLO MOOD SWINGSSSS. The littlest thing would send me into a spiral. (Thanks hormones coursing through my body!)  I realized that scrolling social media right before bed wasn’t helping, so I started to read books on my kindle to help me to relax. I diffused a lot of peace & calming essential oil (my chill out fave), and harmony oil over my heart!

pregnancy symptoms: weeks 9-12

These symptoms all continued through weeks 9, 10, & 11.. The closer that I got to my second trimester, the fatigue, nausea, and mood swings began to lessen, and now my only symptoms are my crazy sense of smell, sore nipples, and that this belly is really starting to POP.  I said goodbye to my jeans around 12 weeks, packed them right away, and pulled out my maternity leggings for this bump to hang all out in! (I’ll do another post on my fave maternity leggings /jeans!)

Comparing this pregnancy to my first, I have to say the nausea, fatigue, sore nipples, and heightened sense of smell were my earliest, and most persistent symptoms with both pregnancies, just in very different ways! So though both pregnancies both have similarities, I have to echo the opinion that “no two pregnancies are the same”.. This one is definitely proving that to be so true! 

Share in the comments, were your pregnancies alike or different??

Click here for products talked about throughout this post.