First of all, thank you SO much to everyone for all of your sweet comments on our announcement earlier this week! We were really excited to share the news, so all the well wishes mean a lot! Since I basically just said “we’re having another baby!” in my last post, I thought I’d follow up with a few more details on this pregnancy thus far for those of you that may be curious 🙂
I feel like from the moment you have your first baby, people start asking you “When are you going to have another baby?” and “How many kids do you want to have?” (Which not that it’s really anyone’s business, but I’m pretty open and it doesn’t really bother me!) Neither Cam nor I are only children so we always knew we’d like to have at least two kids, but figured we’d kind of see how things went the first time around. Well, then Henry came along and he is seriously the type of kid that makes you want to have 10 babies. He’s been a great sleeper, a good traveler, super happy, and just an overall “easy” baby. (And you can spare me the comments about how that means that this second baby is going to be a “hard” baby thanks!) That’s not to say he’s perfect by any means and we’ve definitely had our challenges, but overall, Henry has made the transition to being parents relatively smooth for Cameron and I and we just really enjoy being parents more than we ever thought possible.
So with that in mind, we decided we were a lot more open to the idea of having kids closer together than perhaps we originally anticipated. (That is after the intensity of labor faded in my memory a little bit, ha!) And after having one baby, it’s made me realize that I would love to (God willing) have more than just two, so the possibility of having a bigger family was definitely another motivator to start trying for baby #2 a little sooner. Also, since I am staying home full-time to take care of Henry (and loving it!), we didn’t have any concerns about having to figure out childcare for a second child. Basically, we’re in this season of life of having babies, so why not get the show on the road? 🙂
However, since I was still nursing Henry at a year, I wasn’t sure exactly how things would play out in terms of when that process would come to an end along with starting to try for another pregnancy. I know some people do get pregnant while nursing and continue to nurse through part of their pregnancy, but personally, that thought just did not really appeal to me. I knew that I ideally wanted to nurse him for at least a year, and I was hoping we could end one chapter before starting another, and honestly, things couldn’t have worked out more perfectly. Earlier this year, I shared some details on my experience with weaning, but what I didn’t mention in that post is that I was pregnant (since it was still super early at that point!) and that we knew we were ready to try for another baby when we started the weaning process. Honestly, I would have been fine for Henry and this baby to be even a little closer in age, but for me, nursing was preventing that from happening before he turned a year. However, right around his first birthday, he just became way less interested in nursing and seemed ready to be done. And because I vividly remembered how all-consuming nursing a newborn is and knew if I were to get pregnant that I’d hopefully be doing that again, I was perfectly fine to follow Henry’s cues and start the weaning process as soon as he started showing those signs. We finished up with nursing in the beginning of February and that’s exactly the time when I ended up getting pregnant. (I think it all happened in the same week or so actually which is pretty crazy!)
Unlike last time, Cameron wasn’t out of town when I took the test and so we found out we were expecting together on Valentine’s Day, which was really special. We told our families a few weeks after, and we’ve shared the news with some close friends over the past few weeks. However, we wanted to wait until we had our first ultrasound to share the news more publicly and we finally had that done last Friday. (And everything looks great, yay!) I had my first appointment with my midwife on Monday, and everything looked good so we wanted to go ahead and just make the news public 🙂
I don’t know if the first trimester technically ends at 12, 13, or 14 weeks, but I’m 13 weeks now, so I’m pretty much through it. The first trimester is such a weird time because you have this incredible news but you may not feel ready to share it, so you’re just walking around with this huge secret. I personally hate that part of pregnancy and I feel so much better now having the news out in the open! Since sharing that I’m expecting, I’ve been getting some of the same questions from friends and family, so I just thought I’d share them here, in case any of you were wondering too…
My due date? October 20 🙂 Cameron’s birthday is October 12th, so it looks like this baby is going to share his birthday month, which is especially fun since Henry shares mine. That also means that Henry and this baby with be just under two years apart since Henry’s birthday is in early December.
How am I feeling? Overall, I’m feeling good thankfully! That’s not to say I’ve felt great every single day over the past few months, as there have definitely been some days that I’ve felt worse than others. At the very beginning, as in before I had even found out I was pregnant, I got a fever that lasted for a few days (while Cam was out of town, so that was awesome) and I had a feeling it meant I was pregnant since we were trying and I had read that getting sick can be an early sign since your immune system is lowered, and sure enough, I was right! I definitely had some nausea starting around week 6 and there were some days in the following weeks that I’d wake up and just lay on the couch for awhile while Henry played with his toys. Meat and veggies started to sound not super appealing around this point as well, which made meal planning/cooking super fun. But even though I had some mild nausea and didn’t feel 100% like myself, I didn’t have any of the extreme morning sickness/exhaustion I know a lot of people experience and was still able to go about our days normally for the most part. I started keeping saltines by my bed and I’d eat a few before I’d get up in the morning, and that definitely seemed to help. The nausea continued on and off and I did throw up twice or so around weeks 8/9, but thankfully that wasn’t too bad. I would say the nausea started to improve around week 10 or so, but have still felt a little queasy here and there over the past few weeks. The biggest thing is that meat and veggies still just do not sound that appealing, which is a little frustrating. It’s not like I have an extreme aversion to where they make me sick to be around them, but they just don’t sound very appetizing and I feel like I really have to force myself to eat them. I also feel like I don’t really have too much of an appetite at meal times and it will take me forever to finish my breakfast/lunch/dinner if it’s something healthy 🙂 I’ve definitely been indulging in snack-y type foods more because things like crackers/pretzels/carbs are just what sounds good. I usually have a pretty big appetite so it’s weird not to be very hungry and have nothing sound super appealing. The other symptom I’ve noticed is that I seem to be getting more headaches…but I have a feeling that’s partially due to my diet and the fact that carbs/fruit sound way better to me than protein most of the time, and so I don’t think I’m always eating filling enough meals. I’m trying to be better about eating things like an apple with peanut butter or trail mix or something a little more hearty if meat/eggs/other proteins don’t seem appetizing. I definitely have days where I wake up and don’t feel 100% like myself, but I feel like every day keeps getting better and I’m feeling much more normal. And at no point during the first trimester did I ever feel super sick or really exhausted, so I’m thankful for that! In terms of energy, I’m actually feeling really good and not tired at all, so if I could just start craving healthy food we’ll be all set 🙂
Similarities/differences this time around? Overall, I feel like this pregnancy has been super similar to Henry. I felt so great during my pregnancy with him that I felt like I blocked out the fact that I did have a little bit of nausea the first trimester with him too. Because it was relatively mild and short-lived, I sort of forgot about it; but I feel like reading back through this post, my symptoms have been extremely similar. I haven’t had any crazy cravings yet, but I’ve found myself wanting pickles, lemonade, and the occasional salt bagel, which were all things that sounded good to me when I was pregnant before. What’s different this time is just that my life is so different from before since I’m home with a toddler! In some ways it’s harder because I have Henry to take care of even when I feel like just laying around; but in some ways it’s also easier since I’m not working because I do have more freedom to relax during the day without having to worry about conference calls and returning emails. Overall though, the biggest difference this time around is that I don’t have the time to sit around and think about the fact that I’m pregnant like I did when I was pregnant with Henry. I wouldn’t say I forget I’m pregnant, it’s just that I’m not sitting around thinking about it all the time because I’m busy chasing after Henry all day. I also suppose I feel a little more calm about things in general just because I’ve been through this before. And finally, the other big difference is just the fact that I feel like I’m starting to show so much sooner than I did with Henry! (Which I know is normal) I felt like before I didn’t really start to pop until closer to 20 weeks and it took me awhile to feel like I needed to start wearing maternity clothes. This time around, I just feel like my body’s muscle memory has started expanding things already and it’s crazy. One of the things on my list to do this weekend is to bring up my container of maternity clothes that I packed away in the basement and put them in my closet because I want to start wearing them! I figure since I own them already, I may as well be comfortable!
Are you going to do bumpdates here on the blog? Nope, not this time around 🙂 Last time, I was super consistent about sharing updates with photos every few weeks, and although it is neat for me to be able to go back and look at those, especially now, it also got kind of tedious towards the end. I also don’t blog quite as frequently now as I did in my pre-Henry days, so I don’t want to hold myself to having to keep up with that. However, I’m sure I’ll be posting bump photos here and there on Instagram and I’ll most likely do some sort of check in post at the end of the second and third trimesters, as well as some other pregnancy related posts, between now and October.
Are you going to find out the gender? Yep! We won’t find out for sure until our 20 week ultrasound though, and that’s not until the beginning of June. But after that we’ll definitely be sharing the news!
Am I planning to have a natural birth again? I’ve actually had quite a few people ask me this and my answer is always that I’m not sure! Each birth is so different and it’s something that is really out of your control, so even though you can have a “plan” in your mind, it’s really hard to predict how it’s all going to play out ahead of time. With Henry, I had hoped to have a natural birth if possible, but wasn’t dead set on it by any means, and I told myself I’d just see how I felt in the moment. When I was actually in labor, I told myself if I could make it to 8 cms and felt like I was still handling the pain, I’d just keep going without any pain meds or an epidural. That’s exactly what happened and I very quickly discovered that getting from 8 cms to actually pushing out the baby is incredibly painful. So while I’m thankful for Henry’s birth story and that I was able to have the experience of an all-natural childbirth, I’m also not a masochist. Henry was a big baby and both Cameron and I were big babies and all our siblings were big babies, so I’m definitely much more open to exploring my options this time around and hopefully having a less painful experience. But I also know that second babies sometimes come much more quickly so I very well may end up having another natural birth if it ends up being a fast labor. We’ll just have to wait and see! And while I can’t say that I’m exactly looking forward to labor/giving birth again, I think the biggest difference this time around is knowing that my body is capable of it, which is huge. Plus, I also know how awesome having a newborn to snuggle is so there a lot more incentive vs. the first time around when it’s just a totally new and overwhelming experience. Also, I am using the same group of midwives and delivering at the same hospital again this time around, so it’s nice to have the familiarity there as well.
Finally, I thought I’d share just a few outtakes from when we took the announcement photo of Henry this weekend. Thankfully, we got a couple good shots right away…because after that it started to go downhill fast…ha! As much as I love the sweet ones, these really make me laugh 🙂
He was not very happy that I kept sitting him down in his chair…not at all. LOL.
I thought that moving the chair to the grass might help, which it did for like a second…
Then he was pretty quickly over it again, ha 🙂
Ahhhhh toddlers 🙂
Thank you again for all your support on our pregnancy this time around,
it really means so much! I’m looking forward to sharing more over the
months to come and I appreciate you following along!
