Breech!?!?

Starting out my 33rd week of pregnancy today and cannot believe how rapidly my due date is coming upon us. We've still done almost nothing, but I'm hoping with some days off around the holiday we can make progress and start setting up his room and getting organized. I'd like to have a good amount done before we hit early January. 

So... because things were just too calm for a while baby boy decided to add some excitement to our lives and is possibly breech! Verdict is still out and the doctor couldn't tell for sure, so I'm hopeful he's just still small and has room to move which made his heartbeat register higher than if he were definitely heads down. 

I go back in 2 weeks for another appointment and than the following week for an Ultrasound and should know for sure by then. Not sure what I'm going to do or how aggressive I'll be with trying to turn him if he is breech, but I definitely do not want to have a c-section so I'm trying to keep that in mind. 

Fingers crossed he's heads down in 2 weeks and all of this is just a silly moment in the past! **Crossing Fingers and Toes***

33 weeks!

Glowing & Growing

Well hello 3rd Trimester...

I hit 28 weeks over the weekend and cannot believe there is less than 3 months until my due date. I'm so excited to meet this baby and welcome him to our family. I feel like I'm counting down the days one by one.

We had a tough couple of weeks here, Ry had pneumonia then I got a nasty cold and to top it off our favorite sitter told us she got a job 3 days a week and can only watch Ryan on Tuesday's and Thursdays. What is that saying, bad news comes in threes? Either way, the storm has seemingly passed and things are relatively back to normal around here. With the exception of Ryan's sleeping habits which thanks to being sick for a week are off the charts.

I plan to really start to focus on getting this guys room together. We've made some progress over the weekend and ordered his crib and dresser. But other than that... we've still done almost nothing. I've got a whole pinterest board of ideas though, so that's something right!

This belly is getting bigger by the day. I can no longer bend down like a normal person, am getting BH contractions regularly and feeling baby boy move around all day long. Some progress pics below, I love seeing how much changes from week to week!

23 Weeks

25 Weeks

27 Weeks

28 Weeks

Breaking all the rules

I've been thinking a lot about the differences between my first pregnancy with Ryan and now this little guy. Pretty much nothing has been the same and this includes how many of the "do's and don'ts" while pregnant that I'm following.

For example:

• Don't eat deli meat ... I break this rule at least 2 - 3x a week.
• Don't eat Sushi - so I occasionally eat Sushi - though try to make sure it's cooked.
• Don't eat soft cheese. Fail this one hard. Isn't everything pasteurized these days? 
• Don't eat raw cookie dough (I don't even understand the point of cooked cookie dough)

Just about the only rules I do follow these days is don't drink, or do drugs. It's just so funny how things are so different the second time around. I'm sure this is not the case for everyone, but it certainly is for me. I know part of this is thanks to Ryan who keeps me busy when I'm not working. And I swear there is just less time in the day to do all the prep work that went into welcoming home our first baby.But with each passing day I'm getting more and more excited about meeting this little boy, and can tell all the nesting and planning is just around the corner : )

25 weeks down! 

Better late than never!

I'm feeling like a  slacker these days when it comes to any sort of prep for this little guy. At this point for Ryan I remember having so much more completed, or at least underway. This time around all we have is boxes of Ryan's old baby stuff piling up in the corner of the office and my sense is it is going to stay that way for a while! 

I'm at least starting to think about all the things we need to get moving on, like ordering bedroom furniture. That's probably the big one for now, and even that I know we won't use until  months after the baby gets here (at least if he's anything like Ryan who slept in everything BUT his crib for the first 6 months of his life). 

I'm almost 25 weeks and feeling okay. Still pretty tired and occasionally having stomach issues which is pretty annoying. But each and every kick that I'm getting makes it so worth it. Speaking of, this little one is so active! I have almost no memory of how often Ryan moved around while I was pregnant but it seems like with #2 the second I sit down he starts moving. And I love it : ) The only thing better will be when he's actually here in our arms!  

23 Weeks with our little boy #2!

Simple reminders

Sometimes it takes a simple reminder to make you realize how lucky you are. I got that reminder while stopped at a red light on my drive to yet another doctors appointment. As I sat in my car I saw a man pushing a child in a wheel chair down the street.

I get upset when Ryan has the sniffles, or a poop that looks just a little odd, or won't eat breakfast... you know the normal Mom stuff. But in the big picture these are small potatoes and we're so lucky. I know not everyone is that fortunate and try to think of this when life seems a little stressful, or throws a curve ball I can't keep up with. We have a beautiful new home, a happy, healthy almost 3 year old and his little brother on the way. Life is good and I am thankful.

Every time I feel this baby boy kick, every time I have another doctors appointment where everything looks great and every time we reach other milestone, I'm thankful. The whole process of making a baby is so delicate and I am not going to take for granted what my body is doing.

I recently found out that my cousin and his wife lost their twin girls sometime before 20 weeks. It was absolutely heartbreaking and cruel. I'm not very close with either of them, but know they had been trying for a while and had had a few miscarriages. This was supposed to be it for them, they were clear of the first trimester and on their way to becoming parents. I cannot even imagine what it's been like for them after losing their little girls and it's definitely impacted my thoughts over the past week.

There are no definite's in life and you never know what is going to happen next, but for now I'm going to be thankful for all that we've been blessed with and not take a single day for granted.

1/2 Way There!

We've reached the half way point! 20 weeks down and hopefully no more than 20 weeks to go.

The biggest change in the past few weeks has been movement. Finally! After worrying that I wasn't feeling anything for weeks I'm starting to feel some serious baby jigs these days. Just like his big brother I started to feel this little guy move around 18-19 weeks, and now his kicks and punches are hard to miss. It seems like anytime I sit down with my feet up he starts rocking and rolling. I don't remember Ryan being this active at this point, god only knows what that means for when he makes his big appearance in January.

In other news, I can't stop eating ice cream. No seriously. I pretend to try and stop, but Ryan is into strawberry ice cream cones every single night and god help me if I don't end up with a bowl myself! I jumped on the scale today for some stupid reason. I'm about 8-9 lbs up from where I was when I got pregnant, but almost 20 lbs over my happy weight. I'm sort of praying I keep this pregnancy within the 25-30 lb gain like last time, but am starting to realize it may mean regaining some self control and saying no to ice cream (and chips, and french fries, and all things delicious). 

And in other, other news Ryan wants to name his little brother "poopy". "Big Poopy" to be exact, and Big Poopy will be allowed to sleep in Ryan's room. This all sounds very promising to me! Hopefully he won't be too upset when he learns his name of choice isn't up for consideration. 

Which brings me to another thought as I ramble on. Naming a child is really hard, specifically the second time around when it's the same gender. I really wanted to go with the middle name George after my Grandpa, but can't seem to find a middle name that works well with it. Some top runners of the moment include:

Tyler

Dylan

Joshua

Evan

Zachary 

None of which really flow nicely with "George". Ahh guess it's a good thing we have another 20 weeks to decide!

Double Trouble

I've been meaning to start this up again for the last, ohh... 17 weeks.

At first I was hesitant to put anything in "writing" after our loss in March. Then once I was out of the first trimester life just got a little crazy and next thing I know I'm almost 1/2 way through this pregnancy and have yet to write a thing! Sorry baby #2, but something tells me this is completely normal the second time around.

I'm going to try and recap the past 5 months as best I can, so here we go!

I take the month of April off from basically everything, I work out less, eat more and focus on getting my body back to normal after the miscarriage and D&C in March. I recover pretty quickly, and get my first period about a month later.

Now, it's go time! I start keeping track of all those great signs that signal your body is getting ready to ovulate, which I've never done before and honestly became a bit obsessed with (shocker). I peed on more test strips in the month of May than I'd like to admit, but lucky for us it worked. After a family trip to Disney World we came home to find out we were pregnant again! I was shocked, yet at the same time not. It's an odd feeling to try again after going through infertility treatments. I spent so much time worrying that it would be difficult to conceive again, to then get pregnant by accident, to then losing that pregnancy and having a whole new set of fears start to settle in.

Around 6 1/2 weeks the nauseousness started to settle in big time and my first ultrasound confirmed there was a beautiful heartbeat pounding away. I repeat ultrasound at 9 weeks showed our little gummy bear was still there, and at 12 weeks I was officially feeling like we "made" it - though I'm realistic and know there is a long road ahead of us.

This pregnancy has been NOTHING like Ryan's. With Ryan I was sick up until about 13-14 weeks but then felt pretty good. Now I'm coming up to 18 and still find my stomach is at odds during the day, good thing some food seems to help settle that (I'm really good at eating food). I've also been beyond exhausted, which I attribute to being pregnant while taking care of a toddler who never sits still. But other than the normal pregnancy symtoms everything has been pretty good over here and we just found it baby #2 is another BOY!

I cannot even believe I'm going to have 2 boys. I'm an only child, all my friends where mostly other only children or had sisters so this whole brother thing is a totally foreign concept to me but I'm so excited. Here is how we shared the big news with everyone, turns out my kid will do just about anything for a lollipop.

I am making a promise to myself and our little guy #2 to do a better job of keeping track of this pregnancy. So until next time!