When I was pregnant the first time, I was basically a walking baby app. I do still have a look at Flo to remind myself, when I remember (baby is currently an aubergine… See I totally know!)
“The first time, everything was new.
The second time, everything is known — and there’s something beautiful in that too.”
I knew how many weeks I was, what fruit size that meant, what organs were forming, and exactly how big the baby’s foot was supposed to be (answer: roughly the size of my emotional instability). 
This time? Someone asked me recently how many weeks I was, and I said, “Well, I had my 20 week scan a few weeks ago, so around 23/24”
It’s not that I don’t care — I really, really do. It’s just that life doesn’t pause for the second one. You’re still doing the nursery runs, the bedtime routines, the laundry mountains, the work, and trying to remember to eat something that isn’t leftover fish fingers.
It’s like being pregnant in the background of your own life.
With my first, I was Googling everything: “is this cramp normal?”, “best pregnancy pillow”, “what to pack in a hospital bag”.
This time, my search history looks more like: “how to get toddler to nap when pregnant”, “safe caffeine limits”, and “can I survive on toast?”
The bump updates have gone from lovingly captioned mirror selfies to “oh, I think I might have grown a bit”
But here’s the thing I keep reminding myself: it’s not less love. It’s just different love.
The quiet, familiar kind that already knows what’s coming — the chaos, the exhaustion, the unbelievable joy that somehow makes it all worth it.
The first time, everything was new.
The second time, everything is known — and there’s something beautiful in that too. There’s less panic and more trust. Less frantic Googling, more instinct. Less “what ifs” and more “I’ve got this (mostly)”.
Sometimes I feel a pang of guilt for not keeping up with the same milestones — for not reading the weekly updates or tracking kicks like I used to. But then my toddler throws her arms around my bump and says, “There’s a baby in your tummy” — and I realise this baby’s already part of something bigger.
This time around, it’s not about the perfect pregnancy journal or the curated bump pictures. It’s about surviving the day, keeping everyone fed, and catching those small, quiet moments when I stop, hold my belly, and feel a kick. Just for a second, the world slows down — and it’s just us again.
It’s not less special. It’s just less still.
And that’s okay.
Because love doesn’t measure itself in weekly fruit sizes — it grows quietly between the chaos, in the middle of real life, where it matters most.
