Baby 2.O

Thank you thank you thank you!  We are so excited about the upcoming addition to our family.  And yes, this explains my blog absence; this pregnancy has knocked me on my ass.  I am now 15 weeks and am just starting to feel like a human being again.  Some details... I am due on September 5, but this baby is measuring big so far just like Finn did.  The first couple of ultrasounds have shown earlier due dates of September 2nd or August 31st, but we're officially sticking with the 5th (as officially as one can stick to a due date).  We got our good news as an early Christmas present on December 23rd, and have not been very good secret keepers anywhere but here (easy enough when you don't touch your blog with a ten foot pole).  This new baby and Finn will be just about 2 and a half years apart.

Catch up time...

3.5 Weeks
I'm impatient and I always take pregnancy tests way before I should.  With Finn my first positive test was at 11 DPO (aka 3 weeks 4 days pregnant, aka ridiculously early).  So what business did I have testing this time around at 9 DPO?  None, and it was negative.  Except when I came back a few hours later and it was still sitting on the bathroom counter there was something there.  I know that you aren't supposed to look at a test after the first five minutes have passed, but I would be lying if I said I didn't let myself get a little bit excited.  The next morning, 10 DPO delivered this blaringly obvious positive (ha!).

I think a normal person might have disregarded that and thrown it in the trash.  But I sent my husband straight to CVS for more tests.  And finally, without sarcasm, later that morning was rewarded with this:

Yes, that top one (First Response Early Result) is a squinter, but the bottom one popped up with much appreciated certainty and I screamed.  I never took a digital test with Finn and I have to say that it was a pretty fun experience.  So anyway, there went my plan of surprising my husband with a cute announcement.  He got a "baaaaaaabe! will you come help look at this pee stick!??!?" and then a scream confirmation.

We told Finn, who had no clue of course, and proceeded to walk around for the rest of the day with grins on our faces.  Christmas was two days later and we couldn't keep the news from our families.  We told my husband's family at three weeks four days and my whole family knew by three weeks five days.  We definitely didn't plan to do that, but we were excited and everyone was all together, and, somehow we just told.  So that's approximately 30 people and I hadn't even missed my period yet.  Oy.

4 Weeks
I'm not sure if it was the anxiety caused by so many people knowing our secret, or just a reality of a second pregnancy, but it took so much longer for the news to sink in for me this time around.  It just didn't seem real.  I think I was more nervous about miscarriage this time around, if only because I now know how very very common it is.  It just seemed like way too lucky to get pregnant twice relatively quickly and have them both work out.  I was really a doubter this time.  I kept peeing on sticks, and watching them get darker was reassuring, but I still was in the it's-too-good-to-be-true mindset.  I had terrible cramping start up right away and last for a few weeks, but I had that with Finn as well and tried not to panic about it.

5 Weeks
Well, if you want some reassurance, morning/all day sickness showing up at five weeks will give you a bit at least.  The lovely feeling of being hungover 24/7 arrived a full week earlier than in my first pregnancy, right on the dot at five weeks.  Like with Finn there wasn't a lot of actually getting sick, just a whole lot of thinking that I was going to at any minute.  Unlike with Finn, eating did not help. There was almost nothing that I could stand eating.  Saltines, peanut butter, pasta- all my go to foods with Finn- made my stomach turn this time.  I actually understand now how people can lose weight in their first trimester (let's just say that wasn't a problem for me with my first pregnancy).

6 Weeks-9 Weeks
More of the same.  I was SO MISERABLE.  I had no energy.  I had no patience.  (And I have an almost two year old so this really did not work out.)  I still could eat next to nothing and was surviving on bowls of cereal.  Water made me throw up.  Every day I woke up feeling awful and feeling overwhelmed at the thought of getting through the day, whether it was a day of work or a day at home.  Feeling awful about having a day at home with my son made me feel more awful and full of guilt.  Feeling awful about being pregnant made me feel even more full of guilt knowing so many others who would love to be in my shoes.  But I'm keeping it real.  I hated it.  I know it's all worth it.  But I hated it.  By this point in my pregnancy with Finn I was starting to feel so much better, and so I started to wonder would the constant nausea ever go away?

At 9 weeks, 4 days I had my first prenatal visit.  For many reasons I made the decision not to go back to the midwife group where I delivered Finn.  I'm not sure how many of those reasons I'm going to go into here, but the complications I had post-partum are part of them.  There is another midwife group in our area that delivers at the same hospital where I had Finn and I made an appointment with them.  My first visit was almost two hours long.  My husband and Finn both accompanied me (thanks toddler-entertaining iPad for making that possible).  The midwife I met with wanted to know every detail about my first birth experience.  I was a little surprised at how emotional I got talking about it and the awful events that followed.  She was so comforting, so encouraging, and just so willing to spend a ton of time with me.  She had no luck hearing the heartbeat but assured me how very normal that is at 9 weeks.  She gave us the option of having an ultrasound just to confirm the pregnancy and we scheduled it for the next day.  I left feeling so comforted and happy with my decision to switch practices.

The next day we got to see our little bean, squirming all around and with a lovely and strong flickering heart beat.  Just as thrilling of a moment as it was the first time around.

{Flashback: Weeks 4-9, First Pregnancy}