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!

Somewhere over the rainbow

After the longest 5 days of my life we've finally let go of our little baby at 7 weeks. I started to feel uneasy when I wasn't having any morning sickness, then some of my lab work just didn't seem right and finally last Friday I started bleeding.

I went into the Doctor's office and saw a Heartbeat, which temporarily put my mind at ease. But over the weekend the bleeding continued, and became much heavier. I knew it was happening, my stomach was cramping, the bleeding was more than spotting and there was nothing I could do to stop nature from taking it's course. By Monday morning I was sure of it.

The doctor confirmed via sonogram that the baby no longer had a heartbeat, and gave me the option of miscarrying on my own or having a D&C. I decided to have the D&C. I honestly just wanted it over with. After 4 days of bleeding and cramping and no end in sight I just needed relief, and I knew a D&C would be the best option to provide that quickly.

Deep down I know that there was nothing I could have done to prevent this, but it doesn't make it any easier. We asked for them to run tests on the baby to see if they are able to figure out what was wrong, though I'm not sure having those answers will provide any comfort.

This baby was a wonderful surprise, and I'm sad that it's ended the way it did. But hopefully I'll be back here soon, because Drew and I make some cute kids : )

Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart - A.A. Milne

Here we go again

Well, this happened the other day.

Since I kept this blog to document my pregnancy with Ryan it only felt natural to start it up again for this little bean.

To say we're surprised would be an understatement. We weren't exactly trying to get pregnant, though clearly not, not trying either. So when I tested and saw the positive result above the best I could do was sit down and stare at that little stick and its 2 pink lines in total disbelief.

Even though I've been cycling somewhat regularly for over a year I wasn't sure what that would mean in terms of getting pregnant, since one doesn't always lead to the other. I'm only 5 weeks in, but feeling pretty good about things.

I've had my levels checked twice so far and while my progesterone was initially a little low it seems to be rising on it's own (hoorayy). I am going on progesterone support just to put my mind at ease (can't leave everything up to mother nature) and plan to keep my fingers and toes and arms and legs crossed until our first appointment in a few weeks.

I completely forgot how long the days are and how slowly the weeks go by after first finding out you're pregnant. If I could fast forward to April when I'll be 12 weeks and out of the first trimester I would in a second.

But since I'm pretty sure time machines wouldn't speed up the development of this little baby, I guess I'll have to settle with the long wait. Here's to a happy and healthy 9 months, and a little brother or sister for Ryan at the end of October!

Fake Out

I thought it was FINALLY happening last night, but again the contractions faked me out. Starting around 10:45 pm I was having waves of pain in my groin area that seemed to come and go every 15-20 minutes. "This is it!" I thought to myself - only to find that 2 hours later they completely stopped.

I have no idea if what I was feeling was contractions, or lightening, or this baby grabbing on to the sides of my stomach resiting any my uterus's valid attempts to make him leave. But needless to say, I'm not happy to be here, at 41 weeks and 2 days, still pregnant.

Baby boy, please, please make some moves in the next two days. I think you'll prefer this option much better than what's in store if they induce on Tuesday.

Get him out of here!! 41 weeks and 2 days (a.k.a. pregnant forever).

Angry Pregnat Lady

41 weeks and 1 day, and still waiting. I wish in the midst of preparing for this baby's timely arrival, I would have thought more about what to do should he come late... 'cause I'm going out of my mind.

I'm still going to the gym every morning and filling my days with as much as my body will allow. So far, I have done a pretty good job of staying busy. It's when night time comes that the waiting game really starts to take it's toll on me. If only I could sleep, I'm pretty sure my mental state would be very different. But instead I toss and turn all night long as my thoughts runs in 1,000 different directions.

We have an induction scheduled for Tuesday, but I'm still praying that things happen naturally before that. I thought contractions were happening yesterday, but either a few random cramps, or a spell of bad gas... both equally possible.

It's a full moon tonight, I hear lots of babies are born on full     moons... here's hoping.