26 Weeks 2 Days

The poor second child...I am so bad at updating this! But, it's mostly because this pregnancy has been so much easier! I'm not sick, my heartburn and back issues are totally manageable thanks to Pepcid AC and my chiropractor and I'm even sleeping well still (when am able to sleep - mostly thanks to Van and his getting up at least once most nights).

I was so miserable in my first pregnancy compared to this one - it's night and day. In fact, I've gained almost 25 pounds to prove it! That's okay - I'll take feeling good even if it means weight gain. I think I was just spoiled having gained basically 0 pounds with Van.

I do have another anterior placenta which means I rarely feel the baby move again. I'm not as worried about it this time, but I bet I'll have to have a lot of non-stress tests near the end. Joy.

We did find out we're having a girl, which might explain how much better I feel. I've heard you feel different based on the extra estrogen or testosterone. I had morning sickness and the exhaustion still, but ever since 14 weeks, it's been mostly smooth sailing.

I feel like I should knock on wood at this point - surely I'm jinxing myself now!

Next week we have our gestational diabetes test and 3D (just for fun) ultrasound. After this appointment, I start going every 2 weeks! Amazing how time flies...

The other big difference is that I'm not really thinking about this pregnancy...I obsessed when I was pregnant with Van. It was new and honestly, I didn't have much else to do. Now I'm so busy with Van and I know what's going on and what to expect that I am able to live my life and not constantly think about it.

I haven't had knee pain so far, which is something I will dread if it happens. I don't think it happened until around week 32 or 34 last time, so I'm hoping to avoid it all together. That was brutal.

It's going to be a long, hot summer, but at least I get to enjoy being outside this time. Last year, Van was a newborn so I didn't really have a summer. But this year, it's full of walks, swinging on the playground, going to the pool, etc. I'm glad to have this summer with just me and Van.

Wait! I do have 2 complaints about this pregnancy - I have a weird pregnancy mask going on - it's on my cheekbones so it could be worse, but it really looks like I was drunk and decided to put on a lot of bronzer. I've had a few people tell me they thought I was experimenting with make-up. The sun makes it worse, but I just rub on some SPF 70 and go about my day. Hopefully it'll fade. If not, it'll look really weird this winter when the rest of my skin gets more pale.

My other complaint is spider veins...I have 3 areas on my legs that have broken capillaries - they are little blue/purple things...the don't stick out and are not a big vein, so they aren't varicose veins...I'm really hoping that when all this is said and done, I can get a few quick injections and have them go away. I should research this. Two of them are on my upper inner thigh, which don't bother me as much since most people don't see that area, but now I have 1 on my lower calf...sad because of running 9 half marathons and having skinny ankles, my lower legs were not bad.

Hopefully both of these issues can be taken care of.

We haven't done a ton yet to get ready for this girl - like pick out a name. We have a few we like: Mazzy, Piper, Adelaide...Steve and I both made a list of 10 names and then shared them and we don't really have the same taste in names. Trying to avoid a popular name but I don't want it to be too different (Mazzy, for that reason, is probably out). I love the name Charlotte but it's way too popular sadly.

We did convert the guest room to the nursery and moved Steve's office to the extra room downstairs (and the former office upstairs is now our guest room). I painted it a really pale/mint green and ordered a white crib (which is sitting in the box in the room) and bought a white dresser/changing table and painted the drawers pink. The accent colors are going to be different shades of pink.

My friend, who has 2 girls, both born in late summer so it's the same timing as me, gave me all her girl clothes, so I need to organize, wash, etc. There is still lots to do and my time is running out.

Looking at my posts with Van, I was exhausted around 35 weeks, so I'm going to try to have everything done by then...that means I have about 8 weeks left. I still need to finish baby proofing the house for Van, I'm going to redo his room (seems only fair) from a nursery to more of a toddler room and I need to do a few other odds and ends.

We did manage to mulch, edge and plants the flowers and vegetables this year (we did next to nothing last year since Van was just born), so at least the outside looks good.

That's really about it. My goal is to be ready to go, bags packed, etc, by 38 weeks just because my mom went 2 weeks early with me (I'm her second) and my first labor and delivery were so much like hers (pretty much to the day and hour - and even how our water broke, etc) that I can see it being the same this time too. Or it could be totally different. Either way, I want to at least be mentally prepared to go and be ready at work, etc.

Van is doing so great - I can't believe he's 13 months old! I'm so in love with him! He's just beginning to really walk and is so fast - he's the reason why I keep moving this pregnancy. I don't have time to sit down until he's asleep, which is 8:30. It's go go go all the time.

I will try to be better at posting a few more times before the new one gets here - it's nice to be able to look back at my pregnancies.

Here are a few pictures from this past year...I'm so happy he'll have a sibling to play with...I hope this new change isn't too hard on him. He has NO idea what's coming:

 

12 months

 

He made the perfect Elvis for Halloween

 

3 months

 

Hellooooooooooo ladies!

 

9 months

 

6 months

 

6 months - and this was our Xmas card photo - he looks like an angel

 

 

9 Weeks, 4 Days

Crazy to think that in a few days I'll be 25% done with the pregnancy (not that I'm counting).

My ultrasound went well...I was so nervous up until the day of, but I was eerily calm at the ultrasound. It's such a nerve-wracking experience once you've had 2 miscarriages - it has definitely taken the joy out of moments like that.

The ultrasound tech immediately went to the baby and said that she saw a heartbeat and that the baby looked to be the appropriate size. Then she did the boring things (measuring my ovaries and things like that) before going back to the baby. I'm measuring right on time - and my due date didn't change. The heartbeat was 179, which was perfect. The baby was upside down and the tech said she could see part of my placenta (it is still developing, so it isn't complete) and said it looked to be anterior again (which is what it was with Van and prevented me from feeling him much - and was the reason I had multiple non-stress tests - ugh!).

I need to go back and look to see what Van's heart rate was during my first appointment. I think it was similar. The old wives tale is that a faster heart rate means girl and a slower heart rate means boys, but 179 is pretty fast and I ended up with a boy, so not sure how accurate that is.

The nurse we met with after was cool and didn't go through everything with us again (since we have a 9 month old). She said that the take-home packet was exactly the same still. I did a PAP smear, peed in a cup and we were free to go.

Unfortunately earlier this week my dr called and I have a UTI, which can cause pre-term labor (which speaking of, I didn't take my antibiotics at all today - great job!). I have never had one (that I know of) and have no symptoms. I've since read that if you have one during early pregnancy than the odds of having more throughout is much higher. And some women just end up taking antibiotics their entire pregnancy because of it. Since my 7 day dose was $40 after our insurance, I really hope that this clears it up. Of course, remembering to take it will help quite a bit. At least I remember to take my pre-natals!

My morning sickness has been awful and not as bad all at the same time. Much of the same - not as intense, but all day long (off and on). Some days are pretty much all day, and others are not. Yesterday was an unusually good day...only sick for maybe an hour. It's a double-edge sword. Being sick is an indication that things are great, but feeling like shit sucks. When I have an unexpected good day, instead of being happy for the small break, I'm nervous that something is wrong. In some ways I hope to feel like crap again tomorrow. And when I do, I'll wish I felt better.

I actually started this entry at 1 am (couldn't sleep) and now it's 2:45 (had to take over an hour break because Van woke up and is actually currently standing in his crib, but my patience to rock him is about an hour or so - JUST GO TO SLEEP). I need to bite the bullet and start to let Van put himself to sleep, but the whole cry-it-out method sounds awful to me and I don't think I could do it. Of course even though Van isn't crying now, I'm ignoring him. He rarely cries - my mom said it's because he doesn't have to - as soon as he sits or stands up, I go in there. But, if I catch him early, he's so much easier to rock back to sleep - except for tonight.

My point is, I've been awake for almost 2 hours and I feel fine...makes me super nervous! I just want to get to 12 weeks. My next appointment is a week from this upcoming Friday (so a little less than 2 weeks). I'll hear the heartbeat with the doppler and last time I was able to find the heartbeat at home with my doppler right after. I tried to find it the other day, but wasn't successful. It's hard this early, but it's something else that makes me nervous.

I did talk to my doctor about my pregnancy insomnia and she prescribed me Ambien. I haven't even filled the prescription yet because I'm afraid of the side effects. She told me that she has taken it before and she did things in her sleep she never remembered (like peel an entire grapefruit in one big peel and eating it and she only found out because she left the peel on the counter). Makes me nervous with Van - and my husband is such a deep sleeper that I don't think he would notice if I got up and started doing things.

She also said I could take Benedryl, which I have, but it doesn't do much for me. It helps me fall asleep, but I have no trouble with that. It's staying asleep that I have issues with (I'm usually up from 1-3 or 3-5). Not a huge deal on the weekends, but when I have to work the next day, it's hard. I could try to take another Benedryl when I wake up, but I haven't yet. Not sure if it would make me too tired the next day. I could try that on a weekend I guess.

Overall, I prefer not to take drugs when pregnant, but not sleeping for 40 weeks (and then for a few months after) is hard. Basically a year of little sleep. We'll see if I can last without breaking down and trying the Ambien (I could start with like 1/4 of a pill and see if that's enough to just keep me asleep).

I have an appointment on Friday for my Maternity21 test (the blood tests that will let me know if there are any chromosomal abnormalities and will also tell us the gender). Unfortuneately I need to reschedule. My doctor's office is in a hospital and since it's flu season, kids under the age of 18 are not allowed. I called to make sure (my husband works, my mom is in FL and my MIL is having cataract surgery next week so I do not have a babysitter) I couldn't bring him and the doctor's office couldn't tell me one way or another. While they are technically in the hospital, they are in a wing that is simply doctor's offices, so I'm not even really in the hospital.

They connected me to the front desk and they thought it would be fine, but there are seriously signs everywhere that say those under 18 are not allowed in. I do not want to drive 45 minutes to find out that I can't go in, so I'm just going to reschedule. Sort of annoying that I have to reschedule to a day that I work just because my son can't go with me. I get it, but that's definitely an inconvenience of having a doctor's office in a hospital. Glad flu season is almost over. I am off one day a week and it seems silly to not schedule my appointments on that day, and there will be some appointments where Van has to come with me.

Okay, Van is just sitting in his crib waiting for me. I should just let him figure it out, but I want to go to bed and I won't be able to fall asleep if he's still awake, so it's just easier if I spend 10 minutes rocking him to sleep. Why is he not tired? So annoying. Why am I not tired? Even more annoying.

Part 2 (well, more like part 4)

I can't believe Van is 9 months now! I used to sort of roll my eyes when people talked about how fast time flies when you have kids, but now I get it. I'm not sure why - I'm busier for sure, but I also don't do that much all at the same time. It doesn't help that it's winter and it has been brutally cold. Van was too young to enjoy the summer, so I'm very much looking forward to going on walks, to the playground, evenings running around the backyard and going to the neighborhood pool. So much to look forward to! Although at the same time, I don't want to wish the next several months away. Every day I think that he'll never be this exact age again and I try to enjoy every moment I have with him.

Van is crawling all over the house and pulling himself up on everything he can. He's so loving and sweet. Quick to laugh and he "talks" quite a bit. Nothing purposeful yet, but there are lots of mamama's and dadada's. I have never been so in love in my entire life. Here are a few more recent photos (recent being the past few months - clearly I need to download photos from my phone, but since it's almost 3 am, I'll do that another day):

 

Wow, I look really tired in the photo above. It is amazing how you learn to survive on little sleep. Although at this point, his bedtime is roughly from 7:30 - 7:00, so a big part of it is the insomnia that I've battled the past few years. I also have pregnancy insomnia again. Yep, I'm pregnant.

 

This is actually the second time I've been pregnant since Van was born. It took us 9 months to conceive him. Literally the 2nd time Steve and I had sex after he was born, I got pregnant (and yes I was breastfeeding, but my supply was never enough and I had to supplement). Van was only 3 months old and I was going to have 2 babies less than a year apart. In fact, both Van and the new baby would have had their first Easter at the same time. If you had told me last year, at 9 months pregnant, that at Easter the next year I would have 2 kids, I would have not believed you. But obviously, sadly, that didn't work out.

 

I sort of knew from the beginning...I never once felt pregnant. After how hard my first trimester was with Van, I had a hard time believing that my next pregnancy would be a complete 180. We went in for our first ultrasound and there just wasn't a baby - it never developed, but my body created the gestational sac and hormones like I was pregnant (just not enough to make me sick). I passed the tissue and sac a few weeks later and we were told to wait 3 cycles to try again.

 

Originally we wanted to start trying again in October so this set us back a few months, but we got pregnant again on our first try (after the 3 cycles). On a side note, I have to say, for me being 36 and Steve being 40, the fact that we have gotten pregnant 4 times in a little over a year in a half is nothing short of a miracle. My mom told me that the women in our family were fertile, but since it took me 9 months to get pregnant the first time (which ended in a miscarriage), I didn't believe her. Not sure what we were doing wrong then.

 

Anyway, this pregnancy feels more like how I did with Van. I have morning sickness and my HCG levels rose appropriately in my 5th week (and were higher than they were in week 7 of my last pregnancy). My morning sickness is different though - in general I feel the same - hungover and motion sick, but with Van it was only from 3:30 pm until I went to bed. And giong to bed cured me. This time, it's not as severe, but it lasts all day. And with Van I never wanted to eat. I hated food and was perfectly content to skip meals. This time however, food is my friend. Eating makes me feel better and if I go too long without eating, I feel so awful. And then it's hard to feel better after.

 

And now if Van wakes up in the middle of the night and I rock him to sleep, I have to go downstairs and eat something afterwards because I just get so hungry. I have never eaten in the middle of the night before. I tried to resist the first time, but my stomach was growling and I felt awful.

 

With Van, my overall weight gain was a few pounds (I lost 15 the first trimester, maintained the second trimester and gained 15-20 the third, but lost it all in the hospital before I even went home). This time, I don't think I'll be so lucky. I certainly haven't lost 15 pounds so far!

 

I'll be 8 weeks tomorrow and our first ultrasound is on Friday...I'll be 8w2d, which is exactly how far along I was when I had our first ultrasound with Van. With 2 miscarriages, I'm so nervous and terrified of having another one, but with being sick, I'm hopeful that's a good sign (usually when you're sick that means your pregnancy hormones are high and that's a good thing). If we go in and I find out something's wrong, I'll be so mad/sad for so many reasons, but the kick in the pants will be how sick I've been for no reason. It's been a few weeks now of just feeling like crap 90% of the time (and going to bed doesn't help this time around - hard to fall asleep when you feel like you might get sick).

 

So hopefully this is the start of our journey and I can blog about Van and my new pregnancy. I have to admit I didn't love being pregnant with Van - I was never comfortable. I had horrible morning sickness and food aversions (which it isn't fun to hate food for almost a year), debilitating heart burn (with an allergy to heartburn medicine so I suffered almost my entire pregnancy and only used Mylanta to help soothe), a sore back, insomnia and then incredible knee pain at the end.

 

I can't do anything about the morning sickness, but it ended at week 12-13 last time, so I keep thinking I only have about a month left. When I was 2 weeks away from my due date, I was so miserable with heartburn that I finally caved and tried another medicine and found one I'm not allergic to (Pepcid AC) and it works, so that problem will be solved. I have already been to the chiropractor once for my back this pregnancy and she was a miracle worker last time, so I feel like that problem will be under control. I just need to work on the insomnia (and I'm going to talk to the nurse at our appointment this week)...that was really hard last time. Working full time and not sleeping past 2 am was not easy. And now that I have Van, I just don't think it's safe. Hopefully there is a sleep aid I can take.

 

I'm worried about my knee pain - that was so incredibly painful the last 6 weeks of my pregnancy and it hurt worse after Van was born (for about a month). I could barely go up and down stairs and walking brought me to tears. I went to an orthopedic surgeon when Van was 2 weeks old and they did x-rays and couldn't find anything wrong. And then I woke up one day and the pain was gone and it hasn't been back since. The advice he gave me was to strengthen my knees before I got pregnant again. I didn't do that (at least not intentionally), so I'm going to be so careful to not injure myself this time.

 

Last time I hurt my knee at work and it never healed and just got worse. And then because I favored one leg, the other knee ended up being the bigger problem. And then when I had my epidural and couldn't feel my knees and had them bent in half, up by my head, it made them even worse. Everyone (well, the chiropractor and orthopedic surgeon being everyone) has recommended swimming to strengthen. I've known I was pregnant now for 4 weeks and I've swam laps once. I need to go the pool on my days off - that's 3 days a week. And then I can jog around the pool this summer with Van in my arms after work (I love having a pool down the street).

 

My due date is September 10 (unless they change it after the ultrasound, but I'm 100% sure that's my correct due date), so I'm hoping this summer isn't a crazy hot one. I'm a little nervous about that. With Van, I was easy to overheat and it made me very uncomfortable and for some reason led to tears. It was one of the only things I was irrationally emotional about. It's going to be a long summer if I cry everytime I'm warm.

 

Hopefully I can sleep now...decided to try to do something when I wake up in the middle of the night instead of just tossing and turning in bed. It's worked pretty well so far. Eating has helped the most. I'll have a bowl of cereal and come back up and fall asleep immediately. I'm going to get so much fatter though - I would rather just sleep through the night.

 

On that note, I'll update again after our ultrasound...I'm so nervous. Going through another miscarriage and then having to heal and wait will be...awful. Just so awful. I took Friday off of work. Our appointment is 3 hours to start with and then I'll either be joyously happy and will want to tell our close friends and immediate family (only my mom knows and she hasn't even told my dad) or I'll go home to be sad and snuggle with Van. Either way, after what we've been through, I can't imagine going to work after.

 

This just has to work out...