I know you guys are anxiously waiting for a birth story and lots of photos (right?!), but we’re still in recovery mode and soaking up all the newborn snuggles. Join me on Instagram for daily baby updates and I promise to have you all the details on the blog next week! In the meantime, let’s take one last look at the baby bump, shall we?
One of the things on my to-do list before baby’s arrival was to finish up some organizational projects. When we were cleaning and organizing our first floor last month, I moved many plastic tubs filled with photographs and mementos from the last twenty-ish years. Josh & I took a hard look at everything and tried to let as much go as possible, while still maintaining a healthy collection of our favorite things. There was one tub that still gives me anxiety — it was filled to the brim with loose photographs — and I’m making it my goal to empty it during my maternity leave. In the meantime, I removed all of the photo disks and copied them all to my external hard-drive for preservation. I spent many a night organizing them by year and subject matter, culling duplicates, and editing those I love the most. I was thrilled to find the full album of my belly photos during Sophie’s pregnancy and had to take a minute to compare each week. Until now, I’ve only shared a comparison photo for the first week of every month, but today I’m sharing a side by side of every week and took care to make sure they were a similar angle (I had to flip a few) and showed the same portion of my body. I’m sad that I don’t have more belly photos from Ella’s pregnancy, but I do love how fun it’s been to compare these two sets!
Week 12 | Confession: Much of that belly on the right was bloat and fertility drugs and laziness. I’m amazed to see how much smaller I was at the beginning. I’ve said many times this pregnancy that I am “twenty pounds lighter” and while that feels like the truth, it’s probably not accurate. I didn’t really weigh that much different at the beginning of this pregnancy, but by body composition was much different. I had way more muscle, much less fat, and very little bloat at all. Yay, exercise!
Week 13 | Why were all of my clothes so baggy back then?
Week 14 | I vividly remember throwing up in that dress on the way to work. I hadn’t told anyone I was pregnant yet and I was in traffic and couldn’t get to the shoulder in time. Let’s just say that cleaning yourself up in the bathroom at Chick-fil-A is humbling, at best.
Week 15 | This is one of the truest depictions of the difference in my body.
Week 16 | The bellies seem pretty similar here.
Week 17 | I have to do a double-take sometimes — the dark hair makes me look like a completely different person?!
Week 18 | I feel like this was another comparison where the belly (and boob) proportions look pretty much the same.
Week 19 | That striped dress was one of my favorite maternity dresses this time around, but WHAT IN THE WORLD was I thinking back in 2009?! I did love that dress a lot and I’m sad I didn’t have it this time around, but pairing it with orange accessories and a too small coat was the wrong call.
Week 20 | I can tell a huge difference in my face and waist here, but the bellies are similar in size. We had just found out that Sophie was a girl in that photo and freaking out that we didn’t let the ultrasound technician tell us what this baby was!
Week 21 | That belt?!
Week 22 | Another of my favorite dresses to wear with Sophie and one of the things I missed most from my maternity stash. I bought it full-price at Gap and it seemed like such an indulgence, but it was perfect for football season, the holidays, and Valentine’s Day!
Week 23 | This was pretty close to Christmas, hence the flannel pajamas. Also, I’m pretty sure I would have been smiling at tiny Ella, helping K out with the camera equipment.
Week 24 | One of the few weeks that I stood in the exact some position, by accident!
Week 25 | Why did we think wearing sleeveless tops over long sleeved in the fall and winter was cool? Also, as much as I love that black maternity dress, this photo feels the least like me.
Week 26 | These are some of my favorite photos from each pregnancy. I loved having my hair that short, the grey dress was my single most favorite maternity piece (also from Gap and dearly missed), and I felt really pretty that day. The photo from this pregnancy is one of only a few that my sister took (she just happened to be at my house while I was working on that week), and I love that I’m wearing my favorite concert tee and cut-offs. This was probably a work-from-home Tuesday and the best, most comfortable part of my pregnancy.
Week 27 | The difference between a summer and winter baby!
Week 28 | I’ll never forget wearing that dress to work while pregnant with Sophie. An older secretary in my office said to me, “I love that dress! Well, except for all the orange and purple.” What does that even mean?
Week 29 | Everything about that picture on the right embarrasses me. Did I actually wear that headband in public?
Week 30 | That red sweater was from J.C. Penney and I bought it to wear on Valentine’s Day. Isn’t it weird how you remember things like that? The striped tank on the left is the only shirt that I (accidentally) wore more than once during this series. I wore it at 12 weeks, 30 weeks, and again at 32 weeks.
Week 31 | I think I shared the comparison of these photos earlier this year, because I’m pretty sure Jennifer texted me to ask what I was wearing. Y’all, 2009-2010 was not a good year for personal style.
Week 32 | Those bellies are so similar! After all the comments about how I must be carrying a boy! because of my belly size & shape, it cracks me up to see how it looks exactly like my belly with Sophie.
Week 33 | Maybe I shouldn’t have committed to commenting on every set of photos, because I don’t have much to say about this one. Ha! Except, again, what is that cardigan I’m wearing?
Week 34 | Remember when knit gauchos were a thing? I wore them religiously when I was pregnancy with Sophie.
Week 35 | This is another one of those comparisons where I feel like you can truly see how different my bodies were/are. While my bellies were pretty consistent among my pregnancies, my face is much less full this time and I’m not nearly as wide across the middle.
Week 36 | This is the photo I shared on Instagram Stories last month and got so many reponses to the difference. I had so many people say I looked younger this pregnancy. I think it’s the tan and the dark hair, because the crows’ feet are much deeper, but I’ll take that kind of compliment any day!
Week 37 | I’m wearing one of my favorite tops from both pregnancies in this one! I think that turquoise sweater was one of my very first Target clothing purchases.
Week 38 | I went back and forth about whether to share the photos from this week, simply because it’s the only shot with Sophie where we weren’t on a white background. It was Easter weekend and since we were already taking family photographs outside, Kamin took my belly photos there, too. In hindsight, I regret it so much — I wish those photos were consistent with everything else we took, but I am glad that I have the photo to mark the occasion. I tried cutting out the background, but there was so much light on my dress that it looked ridiculous. On the other hand, I loved my 38 week photo with this baby too much not to include it.
Week 39 | Here we are, a thirty nine week comparison. I can’t believe how many things are exactly the same and others are so different. What do YOU think?!
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