Here are a few ideas on how to dress up your bump for Halloween:

1. Use your bump as the main costume by paining your round belly as a basketball, watermelon, pumpkin or beach ball. Dress in black and let your bump shine

2. Gore out your bump. You know that movie where something is ripping out of your body? Using makeup and paint decorate an alien tearing out your body.

3. Play off the bump and pregnancy phrases. Dress yourself up as a baker and make your bump into an oven with a bun. I did this one year and it was so much fun.

4. Pregnant who?? Dress as a pregnant lady of someone who should not be pregnant. An old lady, a nun.

5. Pretend the bump is something else: You know who looks pregnant sometimes? Dudes with beer bellies. Play this up and dress as a beer bellied man.

:: What have you dressed up for when pregnant for Halloween? ::

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My sense of smell went crazy. I could smell everything and not much of anything smelled good. It triggered my all day “morning sickness” and had me running for the toilet more times then I could count. I had it for the entire pregnancy and like I said, it has not gone completely away.

Tips That Got Me Through It:

1. Know The Triggers

   For me the biggest trigger was chicken. Chicken anything. I could not be near it and it was so bad we had to avoid that section of the grocery store. It was banned from the house.

2. Carry Air Freshener

   One of the only smells that did not make me run for a bucket was vanilla. I carried a small vanilla scented air freshener with me and used it when needed. I had vanilla scents all over the house and even went as far as finding vanilla scented laundry detergent to clean my clothes with.

3. Drink Lots Of Water

   I know it sounds crazy and I have no logic as to why it worked, but for me the more water I drank the easier it was for me. I have a feeling that dehydration is what played into it a bit

4. Vicks Vapo-Rub

   Okay so this one might not be the greatest idea but at those times whatever smell became unbearable I would put a very small amount of vicks vapo-rub under my nose to mask the smell. It was another one I could tolerate and having it under my nose really helped.

:: Did you have a crazy sense of smell too? Have any tips or tricks to share? ::

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My husband and I had the talk before we got married. How we saw our life, what we wanted, and included in that conversation was the topic of how many kids we want.

I had always known that I wanted a lot of kids. I grew up in a larger family – I have 2 brothers and 1 sister and we were all very close in age. I love how close we all are and love that I have 3 friends for life, forever and I wanted that for my kids.

Having this conversation is hard but so important. My husband and I didn’t have the same magic number of kids that we wanted but knew we both wanted at least 2 and we went from there. I had my heart set on 4 or 5 but I know that is a large number – especially because my husband only has 1 sibling – and we had a priority to be financially able to afford one stay at home parent (me) which factored in.

We had our 2 children very close in age like we wanted. We had hoped to have them closer in age but having had miscarriages, life had different plans. Fast forward and we have 3 beautiful children who are 3 and a half years apart. Perfect.

My husband filled his ‘quota’ plus one. That is what we joke about. When the time came after the birth of our youngest to decide on the birth control method we wanted to use another huge conversation came up. We had the number of children we set out to have – but we could not close the door on never having any more.

How did you decide on how many children you want to raise? What factors come up for you?

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I woke up one morning to get dressed and I was about 7 weeks pregnant at the time. I was excited to start showing, but that morning when I was trying to button up my pants I was in for a bit of a shock. I could not get get them on!

I did not get it. I had not gained any weight, I was only 7 weeks along and I had worn these pants just fine the week before. Turns out bloating is a very popular symptom of early pregnancy. Makes sense when I thought about it. I bloat every month just before my period so why wouldn’t I during my early pregnancy?

This bloat was definitely different though. Even my ‘fat pants’ I have reserved for the week of my period were not fitting. It was too soon for maternity pants though  – they were still too big. Being stuck between sizes is not at all fun. I feared I was going to have to run out to the stores and buy pants a size or two larger just to be able to wear something until I was actually big enough for maternity pants.

Things were a bit easier for me because I was not working at this time. I quit work when I was 7 weeks pregnant because I was put on bed rest and since we knew I would be a stay at home mom when the baby arrived we were focused on getting me through the pregnancy. I didn’t have to worry about fitting into something for work so honestly, I just wore stretchy pants. Big, giant comfy jogging pants were the most comfortable for me at this stage and they were definitely accommodating to the bloat of early pregnancy.

:: Did you experience the awful early pregnancy bloat too? ::

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Food plays a huge role in pregnancy. You crave it – you have aversions to it – you will eat non stop and you will not keep it down. When I was pregnant with my first child I was curious to see what I would crave. The common items I heard were ice cream and pickles and it is often the joke combination many tease you about when you are pregnant.

For me it was orange juice. I drank it like it was going out of style and had an honest obsession with it. I was caught off guard a bit because it is not some strange weird combination but it was a craving that lasted from 6 weeks pregnant through to the end.

I was not a heavy orange juice drinker before I was pregnant – just the occasional glass when we went out for breakfast. I found it a bit too sour actually, but pregnancy taste buds did not. It was like liquid gold – I took it over chocolate and sent my husband to the store at 4am if we were all out.

My body and baby must have needed the extra Vitamin C or calcium because when I say I was obsessed – I mean OBSESSED. I would drink about 8 glasses a day – 3 liters and that was limiting myself. Better then a chocolate obsession I guess – could be how I kept my weight gain to 10 pounds total…

::What food or beverage did you OBSESS over with your pregnancy?::

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