Week #18

18 weeks

Baby Boy Turner is due on November 3rd, 2016!  This pregnancy has so far been very similar to Callie's, except that symptoms happened waaaay earlier.  I had all-day nausea and morning sickness starting around 6 weeks, and I started showing a little baby bump around 10-11 weeks along.  I haven't had any strong food aversions or cravings, although chicken was a little touch and go there for awhile, and it's still not my preferred food, to Bryann's dismay.

It's been helpful throughout this pregnancy to go back and look at my posts about my pregnancy with Callie.  My memories have not been as accurate as my recordings, and I'm so glad I wrote about what I was feeling and thinking as I was experiencing everything!  According to my memories, my pregnancy was care-free and la-di-da, when in reality, I had similar bouts of anxiety, and physical discomfort.

Now that I'm well in to my 2nd trimester though, I'm feeling much less anxious, and they days are passing more quickly.  We had an early genetics test, so we are comforted that there were no genetic abnormalities detected, and as a bonus, we got to find out that we were having a boy well before our anatomy scan!

I had convinced Bryann we were having another girl, so it's been a bit of an adjustment for us, but we're both really excited about having a baby boy, and Callie is SO sweet and talks about her baby brother all the time!

What Baby T has been up to

• Kicking, and growing, and making me feel wonderful to be aware of him all the time.  
• Baby boy is the size of a turnip (growing in to a bell pepper) this week and is measuring 5 oz, 5in., which says more about my size and weight gain, considering I look like I have a small melon in there...  Maybe we'll find out at the ultrasound that he's actually enormous, and I haven't just been eating too many hamburgers... 
• His skeleton has been changing from soft cartilage to bone, hearing is developing (which explains why I felt him kick pretty actively whenever we were at a Broadway show last week).
• He's also in the middle of a growth spurt, so I can expect to look more and more pregnant over the next few weeks.  I guess that means I NEED to keep eating hamburgers, so baby boy can keep growing!  

Pregnancy symptoms include:

• There seems to be a very specific window of time where I'm nauseated.  When we were in NYC last week, I didn't feel nauseous once!  But I was sleeping in until 9am.  We get home, and as soon as I'm up at 7am again, I resume my morning routine of dry-heaving for about a minute.  I thought I was over the nausea... but alas...  true "morning sickness" is my curse.
• I have to pee constantly.  I was up 3 times last night.  Before I was pregnant with Callie, I thought the peeing was just bc the baby was on top of your bladder.  But nope!  It is my constant companion.  
• I'm also walking slower and out of breath easier than when not pregnant.  I even walk slower than Bryann now, which is really saying something.  He also has to push me up stairs already, which is only mildly embarrassing for only being 18 weeks along.  

What I miss/What I'm looking forward to:

• It has been stupidly hot all the time, everywhere I go.  I miss having a nice, ice-cold, Portlandia-style artisan beer after work on my deck, while Callie plays on the porch or in the grass, and just relaxing.  Alcohol will forever be on the list of what I miss during pregnancy!
• I'm looking forward to my ultrasound appointment on June 13th.  We already know the gender, and we are already fairly confident that there are no genetic abnormalities.  But I love checking in and seeing those little arms and legs, and seeing him move around!  We're so in love already.  <3 

... and since I'm not doing blog posts for the previous weeks, here are photos from week 15 and week 12.  :-)  

15 weeks

12 weeks

11 week bump!

We are Due with #2... again!

I figure it's about time I start writing about this pregnancy.  A series of pregnancy losses and a 13-week miscarriage really puts a damper on one's excitement about another pregnancy.  This pregnancy has been exciting, but more so anxiety-inducing and terrifying on a near daily basis.  And it's been difficult to let myself get excited about it, and share my joy with others, for fear of losing another baby.  For fear that jinxing is really a thing, and I'll bring more heartache on myself if I let myself be happy.  So I've been pretty quiet, and reserved, and just not my usual self this go-round.

But things are going really well.  And we're REALLY happy.  And I'm 18 weeks along.  So it's time to share, and let joy in.
...

When I found out I was pregnant last May, I wrote this post.  It's been sitting in here since then, and I hadn't been able to face it after the loss, nor able to write about anything else since.  I've revisited it a few times during this pregnancy, not sure what to do with it.  I considered deleting it, but it doesn't feel right.  So I've left it, in it's entirety.  When I read it, it makes me feel silly, and naive to have thought that everything would go as smoothly as with Callie.  But I remember how incredibly overjoyed I was to find out I was pregnant.  And I don't want to delete that and pretend it never happened.

I lost this pregnancy below at just 5 weeks on May 5th.  I got pregnant again in July, and carried until 13-weeks, and ended up losing that pregnancy on October 3rd.  I was pregnant again in December and lost it again at 5 weeks on my birthday, January 3rd.  All told - 2 "chemical" pregnancies, and one miscarriage.  So... we are still very fertile.  My body just had a hard time holding on to them.

Anyway, to be a good steward of my past joy, here's the post from the first pregnancy last spring.
...

Just yesterday, I found out I am pregnant!!!!!!   (I don't think I can put enough exclamation points on that sentence, so this aside will hopefully drive home the point that I'm SUPER excited!)

I am almost 4 weeks pregnant (calculated from last menstrual start date) and #2 is due January 15, 2016.  It's no secret that we were going to try for baby #2 after we got back from our cruise, but I think it'll be a surprise that it happened so quickly.  Lesson learned - we are super fertile.  Be careful!

I had actually been testing since the middle of last week with EPT's.  I took 3 of them last week a few days apart from each other, and they all came out negative.  I figured with that many negative EARLY pregnancy tests, I was probably not pregnant.  But I didn't start my period on Tuesday, and even on a shorter 25 day cycle, I got suspicious.  I took a regular test Tuesday night after I got home from choir, and initially the control line popped up in bright pink, but nothing on the test line.  If not for my friend's story about throwing away her positive pregnancy test because she hadn't given it long enough to result, and her husband finding it in the trash, I would have thrown that test away, too!  But I left it on the counter and came back to it a few minutes later, and sure enough, there was a suuuuuuuuuper duper faint line on the test strip.  I texted a picture of the test to a friend to see what she thought, and she basically text exploded with joy that I was pregnant and said that ANY line means it's positive, no matter how faint.  So, I did another test yesterday morning (just as faint a line) and I went in to my PCP clinic to get a confirmation of pregnancy test done.  Even the clinic had to test it twice because the lines were so faint, but they said I'm definitely pregnant and it's just really early.  Lesson learned - EPT's are total crap and a waste of good money!

Doesn't this look negative to you?

Test from Tuesday night, and another test from Wednesday morning, a few hours later.  

It's funny how different my reaction to this pregnancy is from last time.  It took me a few weeks to get over the "Holy Effing Sh*t" aspect of being pregnant last time.  But this time I am just plain excited.  Joyous, even!  Soooo looking forward to being a family of 4.

I feel like now that I'm a mother, most things just aren't a big deal anymore.  I feel like I can handle anything that gets thrown my way.  When I found out I was pregnant with Callie, it had seemed like a good idea, in theory, to start a family.  But when that became a fast reality, it was a little tough to get over the "how the hell am I going to be responsible for another human being?!? I'm barely an adult myself!" reaction I had at first.  But I've been there, done that, survived to tell the tale.  I know #2 will be different, maybe harder, but I know I can handle it.  I know WE, as a family, can handle it.

I surprised Bryann with the news last  night by putting Callie in a "Big Sister" shirt.  He didn't notice at first and was wondering why I kept staring at him strangely.  I had to ask him if he liked her outfit.  He turned to me and said "Are you really pregnant??!" and ran over and gave me a big hug.

I'm not sure when we'll tell our friends and family.  We have Wine & Dine this weekend... I'm not sure I'll be able to get away with not drinking and not raising suspicions.  I'd like to be at least 6 weeks along before we share the news.  If I miscarry I will probably tell a few of my friends, but maybe everyone in my social circle doesn't need to know.  We'll see how long we can play it cool.  My face basically explodes with joy every time I think about it...