Right as I entered my second trimester I took a long weekend trip to Disneyland. My annual pass expired in November last year but I decided to take one more trip to Disneyland to celebrate my pregnancy. I thought this would be my last Disney trip for at least a year or two but there is actually a chance I am going again this summer. More on that later if it happens.
Even though I know I will get her this pin again the first time I take her to Disneyland after she is born I still wanted to get a pin to wear on my belly. The pin lasted about half an hour because it was awkward when I sat down and I was just scared of it coming undone and poking me in the stomach. Cute idea that just didn't work out very well
I knew this trip was going to be a little different because I couldn't ride all the rides and had to account for some extra tiredness. Each stage of pregnancy comes with their own special circumstances but by this point the constant nausea had gone away and I only got nauseous if I let my self get hungry so there was lots of snacking. My food aversions were much better than they were even a couple of weeks before my trip but I still was mostly wanting carbs, fruits and veggies and not too much meat.
I always love tea at the Disneyland Hotel so I booked that for one of the days I was there as a good way to take a break in the middle of the day and rest in the air conditioning. The food was delicious as always and it was a good break in my day.
Another good break in the middle of the day is sitting in the Carthay Circle Lounge. Normally I stop in there for a break and have a snack and a cocktail or two but obviously that later part was out for this trip. One day I tried there non-alcoholic wine soda and it was a fail. It just tasted like grape juice and not even very good grape juice.
After the grape juice incident I learned my lesson and just asked the bar tenders to make me something yummy and non-alcoholic. I took a break there on two different days and had multiple delicious mock-tails. One was sort of like a mojito and one had grapefruit juice. The Food and Wine Festival was going on while I was there and they had this non-alcoholic watermelon drink that was so refreshing and just fantastic. I may have had that one more than once it was so good.
While I couldn't ride anything with the word mountain in it or basically any of the "thrill rides" there were still plenty of rides I could ride. I love Fantasyland so I was perfectly happy taking the time to ride all of the rides there as well as multiple trips on Buzz Lightyear and Midway Mania. I also enjoyed going to the Animation Academy and seeing shows.
I was a little bit concerned about nausea and rides but actually there was only one ride that bothered me. Surprisingly it wasn't the tea cups! Totally fine on the tea cups but nauseas if I rode sideways on the Disneyland Railroad. Some of the railway cars have passengers face sideways and some have them face forward. I quickly learned I needed to only ride on the ones that faced forward.
Even though I couldn't ride most of the "E-Ticket" rides I still decided to get MaxPass to take advantage of not having to walk extra to get Fastpasses to the ones that I could ride. The Fastpass rides that I could ride at 14 weeks pregnant were Buzz Lightyear, Roger Rabbit, Haunted Mansion and Small World in Disneyland and Midway Mania and Soarn' Around the World in California Adventure. There are 17 rides with Fastpass and I could ride 6 of them plus MaxPass includes PhotoPass so it was worth it for me for the convenience factor and because I planned to take full advantage of getting photos taken.
One day while I was there my sister-in-law, who is also pregnant, was able to come so we took full advantage of the photographers to document the first time these cousins met and their first trip to Disneyland!
This bench will always hold a special place in my heart and on this trip to celebrate being in my second trimester of pregnancy it felt appropriate to take a picture of it. After our first round of IVF before we began our second round I took a trip to Disneyland to relax and get away. I was having lunch/cocktails in Carthay Circle Lounge and my phone rang. It was the doctor calling to say they had the PGS test results for the one embryo that had made it to day 5 had been biopsied for testing. We were told it took about 2 weeks for the test results so I wasn't expecting the call for at least another 3 or 4 days but I answered the call and came out to this bench to take it because the reception is in the lounge is notoriously bad. The doctor told me that the embryo passed all the test and was healthy and viable. After I hung up with the doctor I sat there and called my husband crying from happiness that we had an embryo to implant. I was in the happiest place on earth and I was just so happy and hopeful sitting there.
Overall I had a wonderful time in Disneyland and would recommend going in the beginning of the second trimester as long as most of your morning/all day sickness has passed. I came in with realistic expectations of what I could and couldn't do and made sure I planned plenty of time to rest in my day. I could have gone back to take a rest at the hotel but I decided to just rest in the park. I knew I wouldn't make it late into the evening so I had in my head that I would just try to make the fireworks one night and not worry about trying to see any of the nighttime shows. My sister-in-law and I wanted to try and see Fantasmic the day she was there but neither one of us made it that late so we just called it a casualty of pregnancy. As long as someone is willing to have reasonable expectations and listen to their body I think a Disneyland trip is totally doable.
