for the growing family...

santa brought mama a new car for Christmas! gotta make room for an extra carseat!! i'm just a LITTLE bit excited...

next year...

hard to believe next year on Christmas Eve, there will be two babies decorating cookies for santa:)

14 weeks.

these pics were on Christmas day, 13w6d.

in the last two weeks, i've suddenly popped out a baby belly!!  with brady, i think i couldn't button my regular jeans by around 10 weeks. but am a little later this time around. until about 12 weeks, my pants were fine until late in the evening. this week especially though, i can't button them in the mornings either:)  it's exciting to see physical progress with my pregnancy, it's the best part i think. i'm starting to finally look pregnant to people who wouldn't know otherwise. it's about time to announce on facebook...just waiting to find out our gender results and then i'll do a grand reveal of "hi i'm pregnant" and "it's a..." all at once.  want to do something different this time around, and since we're finding out the gender earlier than with brady, that makes it fun & different.

i'm finally starting to feel better most days. the mornings are definitely my worst time of day for nausea but once i eat breakfast, it usually resolves for the rest of the day. unless i just wait too long to eat, then it will creep back in. i am still terribly nauseated by the sight/smell/thought of coffee, but not having as much nausea for "no reason."  i also feel like i have more energy now for normal stuff & not feeling like i want to nap every other second. starting to get into the best part of pregnancy, the 2nd trimester!

more updates coming soon with hopefully, a GENDER reveal.

i've been feeling girl for about four weeks or so now, so that's my guess. we'll see soon!

it's a first.

at 14 weeks today, i had to bust out the belly band today because i finally couldn't button my jeans! exciting to see the tiniest of baby bumps developing...

Christmas Eve service.

Christmas Eve services at church. we loved the candlelight service as usual & it was fun to sit together for our last Christmas as a family of three. trying to soak up every second of this season with bubby at the perfect age to enjoy it all.  oh! and every SINGLE time we ask brady, "does mommy have a baby brother or a baby sister in her tummy?" he says, "baby sister!" :)

date night.

last night we had a little date night to old town for mike's work holiday party. we had the best time hanging out with his partners & also announcing my pregnancy more publicly! i sipped happily on coke the whole evening and laughed a lot with the other wives, and was so glad to feel well enough to go to one of their social events finally (we missed one in early november because i couldn't drag myself off the couch in the throes of early nausea).  yay for nearing the end of my first trimester!

12 weeks or 13?

we had bloodwork & an ultrasound today.  because i'll be 35 at delivery, we qualify for extra genetic testing and the AWESOME news is that we'll find out the gender sooner (in a couple weeks hopefully).  anyway, since my 6 week ultrasound showed baby with a different gestational age than my period dates suggested, we adjusted my due date from 6/24/15 to 7/3/15.  however, at today's ultrasound the tech said baby is measuring a full week ahead, making the due date 6/26/15 and obviously closer to my period dates.  so i'm not sure if i'm 12 weeks tomorrow, or 13 weeks, but i'm going with 13 in my mind! i'll find out from my regular OB in a couple weeks if we'll keep that adjusted date.  fingers crossed.  however...WHEN will this nausea subside if i'm really further along?!

i think baby apostle is already really cute:)

'tis the season.

i absolutely love this time of year, the lights and the fireplace, and naps on the couch taking it all in. even maggie was up for a nap today!

entertaining & surviving.

my nausea strangely gets worse as the day goes on, and the only relief i have is eating every 90 minutes to 2 hours.  by the end of the day, i'm usually barely keeping my food down (so far, though, no puking- thank goodness!) and coming up with ways to entertain bubs isn't easy.  mike works or has school a lot of evenings, so we do a lot of couch snuggles, reading, and ipad "purple" time.  i'm not ashamed to say i've plugged him in often just so i can lay on the couch and read or watch tv or something else to distract myself from the relentless nausea waves. the nausea stopped with brady around 12 weeks, and i'm almost there now, so hoping it starts to subside soon...thankfully i have figured out that eating does help, so i just keep snacks close by and it's manageable for the most part. at this point, whatever we need to do to survive our evenings together is a-okay with me!

december thaw.

this week has been absolutely beautiful weather, so this afternoon before naptime we took the golf cart up to the tavern and got fries for mama to snack on along with a purple gatorade (brady's fave) and enjoyed the perfect blue sky and some golf practice together. i love these days together so much!

beautiful weather.

we enjoyed a long walk to the playground today with lindsay & her girls for some play and lunch. the weather has been in the 60s and is really refreshing for me to get out of the house (and distracted from the nausea) for a bit. i think for brady too, he was happy as a clam at the park!

8 weeks.

we had an ultrasound today to check on baby & the subchorionic hemorrhage i had at 6 weeks. the good news is, it's all gone! hooray! baby looks good, and i think - already very cute :)

i'm feeling terrible at all hours of the day, nausea nausea nausea. and exhausted. doesn't help chasing after a 2 year old all day, haha. much different than with baby #1 when i can lay on the couch all day if i want! i'm thankful for feeling poorly though, to be honest. i never felt bad with my second pregnancy and then miscarried; this time around i am actually grateful for the signs of a growing pregnancy inside.  i'm grateful to feel sick because it reminds me every day that baby is still in there. and it was so nice to be able to see the little heartbeat and have that extra confirmation. rate was in the 170s, which is great. i'm not feeling like boy OR girl yet, waiting for that "feeling" like i had with brady. i would honestly be thrilled with either!!

i didn't even know this was possible so early, but we got a 3D view today! that's the little gummy bear baby with the umbilical cord attaching on the right. 

Christmas card session.

desi shot our family Christmas card photos last week, actually on the day we found out we were pregnant again. so awesome to look at this photo and know that we knew another little baby was growing inside me - makes me so happy to know they're part of the family photo already!

why am i always surprised by a positive?

on sunday october 12, i took a pregnancy test since i was scheduled to start my period the next day & i just didn't want to wait 24 more hours, hoping we had made a baby this month!  negative.  sigh.

the next day, on schedule, i started my period.  i thought.

by the end of the week, and a not-normal period, i wondered to myself if i could possibly be pregnant and just spotting (a "fake period" like i'd had with my brady pregnancy)...so i took another test this morning.  and got a big fat "pregnant" pop up in the display!!  my hands were shaking as i crawled back in bed and tried to act normal next to mike, who was still sleeping.  a few sleepless minutes later, i got up and went downstairs for some coffee and to write out a special card i'd bought to give mike the next time i was pregnant.

as soon as he woke up i had brady hand him the card & we celebrated and laughed and wondered out loud again how i was pregnant when i thought i'd gotten my period! 

later in the morning, we put brady in a t-shirt that says "brother bear" on the front of it and he paraded around in his sand box while aunt jane (and david, who were in town) stared and him and DIDN'T GET IT!! :)  finally i told her, "jane, look at his shirt! read it!" and she said, "oh how cute." but nothing else.  "no really...JANE READ HIS SHIRT. what does that mean?" and she finally yelled, "you're pregnant?! i thought you got your period?!" - yes, i do tell everyone everything. she was in town and of course we talked pregnancy, and i assured her i wasn't this month. joke's on me!

it was a very exciting morning and we are hopefully & cautiously looking forward to this sweet little life that's just begun inside me.  so grateful.

the waiting game...again.

last month we sort of unofficially started trying to get pregnant again.  more like, we weren't careful a couple times to just "see" what happened.  since my miscarriage, i haven't felt that baby fever again but we just wanted to start slowly moving forward since we want our kiddos relatively close (B will be 3 at this point before we have another).  so i tentatively stepped back into the arena but very unofficially - no major "trying," just kind of not being careful.

well, when my period came the end of august it was irregular and not its usual presentation.  i spotted for a day and then basically nothing for two days, and during those days i took two pregnancy tests.  both were negative, and i ended up fully starting my period three days after the day of spotting - but what happened during those few days was HOPE.  i realized i was really hoping i was pregnant.  and being kind of disappointed when everything progressed as normal with my period and it became obvious i wasn't.

it was just what i needed and was waiting for, the feeling to come back.  the urge and desire to have another child.  i'm ready now.  we are ready.  i'm picturing our family with two babies, brady as a big brother, the newborn season with the smells and the snuggles and even the sleepless nights.

i wasn't sure if i was ready yet, and that little glimmer of hope was what assured me i definitely am.

and so now, we are OFFICIALLY trying to get pregnant again.

fingers crossed.

oh, and similar to when we started trying with brady - since he was planned and pregnancy #2 wasn't exactly - i am now back to that struggle of trying and grasping to control something i have no control over.  i forgot what that feels like and how much of a controller i can be.  and logically i know i can't be that way, that it isn't how i'm designed to be and isn't how i WANT to be.  but it's there in the back of my mind.  "if i get pregnant this month, then what about being due around kate's wedding?" and "if i get pregnant this month, will they be the youngest in their class?" and "i deserve to get pregnant quickly, i know my body can (obviously, march baby!)." etc etc etc

kate sent me this the other day and i immediately printed it and pinned it to my bulletin board above my desk - i need the reminder.  i need to let go and just let life happen.  God knows what i need, what i will learn in this season, when the right time to grow our family is, and even how this next pregnancy if i'm so blessed - will go.  i am trusting.  and controlling.  and coming back to trust.

a little help from the boy.

thank goodness for this little bug to brighten my spirits this weekend.  don't know what i would do without him.  he was in a great mood the whole time, and being distracted by such a sweet little soul was just what i needed to make it through the hardest emotional parts.

our saddest weekend.

while at dinner in denver thursday night, april 24, i had another bout of bright red bleeding.  i've kind of grown accustomed to this with this pregnancy, but i was still really worried.  we finished dinner and went to bed that night, and i was up a couple times in the night just unable to sleep.  friday morning i called my ob office & made an appointment for ultrasound and to see the on-call doc in the afternoon.

at 3pm, mike and brady and i headed into the office and during the ultrasound, heard the worst news we could imagine.  "i'm sorry, i don't see the heartbeat." i don't think i'll ever forget hearing the sweet ultrasound tech say that, as i looked at a really still baby on the ultrasound monitor.  just two weeks before, we'd been able to see the heartbeat strong in the middle of the baby and today it was obvious right away to us there wasn't anything there anymore.  it felt like a fog as we waited to see the doctor then, and as she discussed our options with us.  i felt right away that i'd always known i wasn't going to carry this baby.  i hadn't felt the same connection to my pregnancy as i had right away with brady, i didn't have any nausea, and i had more spontaneous bleeding than i had with our first pregnancy.  so i wasn't terribly surprised...but we were so, so sad to find out my intuition was true.

we decided with the doctor that the best course of action was to take medication to induce the miscarriage, and hopefully avoid a d&c.  we headed to the pharmacy right away, and while we waited we went to our fave windsor mexican restaurant & i had a lovely margarita on the patio in between crying spells, texting & phone calls with our loved ones.  mike and i were both so, so sad.  i think the hardest part for me was that i've known about this sweet baby that we wanted so bad, for over six weeks.  we'd already integrated him/her into so many of our future plans & thoughts, and so to suddenly have to change course for what we thought our summer/fall/winter would look like for 2014 was really hard.  i know miscarriages are so common, and SO many of my friends & family have had miscarriages, but you just never think it will be you.  and i know they happen for a reason, and after a few days i was accepting of that and ready to look forward...but the first few days were just really really hard to wrap my mind around.

friday night i took my first dose of cytotec and mike and i got into bed to watch tv together and just hang out.  i woke up four or five times during the night as my bleeding increased, but nothing major was happening yet.  saturday morning mike took care of brady before leaving for work at 9:30, and i was able to get a little extra rest.  my dear friend jen & her babies came over to hang out with us and entertain brady around 11, and stayed until nap time.  it was really nice to be able to just sit in the backyard and talk with her while the kiddos ran themselves ragged. brady was so exhausted when i laid him down for a nap that he fell asleep almost immediately!  i napped while he napped and felt a little better by the time we got up.  still nothing much was happening, i didn't have much in the way of cramps and my bleeding was steady but not heavy yet.  not what the doctor had predicted for the actual miscarrying part.

around 4pm, our sweet nanny megs came over and hung out with us until mike texted that he was on his way home from work, so i wouldn't have to be alone with brady for long.  she took him on a long walk and to the playground for about an hour while i laid on the couch.  my cramping was definitely becoming more noticeable by that point so i was glad to not have to be chasing brady around.  she helped me feed him dinner & cleaned up and when mike texted that he was on his way home at 6:15, she headed home.  right as mike walked in the door, i was headed to the bathroom for the start of the heavy part.  my miscarriage was definitely in full force at that point and i was so grateful he was home to take full care of brady.  i basically couldn't stay out of the bathroom for more than 3 or 4 minutes at a time.  the worst part lasted until about 8:30pm and honestly, although the pain was really bad for most of that time (i just couldn't get comfortable, and it hurt all over my low back & low belly - similar to contractions when i was in labor with B), the actual process of bleeding and pain and clots was really therapeutic.  it was good to physically go through the pain and the process, and have some closure when the worst of it was over and i climbed into bed with mike to finally rest a little.  i continued to bleed pretty heavily through the night, but saturday night i finally got good sleep after two nights of hardly any.

i woke up sunday morning and took a long hot shower & got a big mug of coffee, and i felt like a new person again.  mike was off to work early that day, and brady and i went to the huntingtons late morning for a few hours and stayed through lunchtime.  around noon sunday i passed a rather large clot again, with some heavier cramping, but then since then the bleeding has tapered and i feel like i'm done with the worst of it now.

as i sit here typing monday morning, april 28, i feel pretty good again.  i feel like i can smile again, and i don't have any cramping, and we are just ready to move forward again.  i trust God completely with this part of our journey, and i felt Him close to me through it all.  i don't understand why it happened, but we accept that it is what it is and it happened for a reason.

we have been so blessed by the outpouring of support from our friends & family this weekend.  seriously, we felt loved in a million ways.  from the kindest, most supportive texts and phone calls, to the prayers offered on our behalf. we felt loved, we felt supported, we felt carried by those closest to us.  although the experience isn't something we hope to go through again, we have known support that we didn't before & are so blessed by it.  and so grateful.  here's to moving forward, grieving our loss but trusting in a bright future for our family as well.

we can do hard things, as my friend glennon would say.  we have done hard things.

big brother.

such a good, happy big brother.  he'll be such a helper this winter.  or a handful, maybe?

we took these pictures of him thursday to send to my family as the new baby announcement.

he looks so much older & it's hard to believe that my BABY is big enough to be a brother soon.  he still seems so small to me some days, but i know he will feel huge to me once i'm holding a newborn again!

grateful.

after a couple more weeks of intermittent spotting, we were so grateful to see little peanut in there today with a good strong heartbeat!!  unfortunately too early to hear it yet on the ultrasound, but we could see it flickering away.  brady was thrilled with the photo of his new baby sister or brother, as you can see!

8 weeks and 1 day!

telling aunt ruthie.

we came back from our ultrasound appointment with brady in this t-shirt.  we opened the back door and he ran down the hall to his aunt ruthie, who exclaimed "his shirt! his shirt!" :)  we were so excited to get to tell her in person and i think she was surprised.

we took this picture of them to text to my family that day to make the big announcement.  so excited to begin sharing the news.  keeping it facebook-quiet for a few more weeks though.

we have another ultrasound at the end of april (i should be about 11 weeks by then) and if all is going well, may share more of the news after that.  i'm still having some spotting and intermittent cramping, so of course i'm a little worried - but trying to remember that i did the same thing my entire first trimester with brady.  thankful that i have still had NO nausea this pregnancy.  how did i get so lucky?!  so grateful for all God has given us with this new life we're growing.

announcing it.

the night before i found out i was pregnant, jen & i had been out on a dinner date together.  i jokingly said to her, "this might be my last glass of wine" as i told her there was a CHANCE i was pregnant.  as in, a minor chance.  i was really joking around with her, but the next day she texted me about it so i told her...

we texted with noa & julie that morning also.  they were still in the hospital after having their baby mila.

and i texted kate as well, since she knew - again that there was a chance - and this was her response.

the other people we told that first day were of course, rob & suzanne, since we were headed their way for two weeks together and it would be blatantly obvious when i declined a glass of wine.

my family doesn't know yet, and i've ALMOST told them about 500 times already.  but ruthie is coming out to visit in a few days and i really want to tell her in person.  i have an ultrasound the first morning she's here and if all looks good, i'll put brady in his big brother shirt to announce it to her and then we will text or call the rest of my fam.  i just think if i get to tell ONE person face-to-face, that's more fun!!  it's hard to live far from my family during times like this because i would love nothing more than to have brady just walk into a family get-together in his big brother shirt.  oh well!  getting to share the news with ruthie here will be fun.  the rest of the world we will announce it to after i pass the first trimester mark.

worries.

while in australia, i had an episode of spotting that kind of scared me.  it seemed like a lot.  i expect bleeding throughout the first trimester since i did almost daily with brady, but still nothing prepares you to see blood in early pregnancy.  i'm already very attached to this baby, so i'm hoping all still goes well for us.

the first day we got home from australia, i made an appointment at my OB office and had an ultrasound that showed a 6 week pregnancy, but too early to see a heartbeat yet.  we go back on april 10th for an 8 week ultrasound and i'm hoping everything looks good still.

i have really sore boobs, but otherwise mostly feel fine.  oh, i'm so tired.  i have been taking naps every day when brady lays down.  as far as nausea, i've only had one or two waves hit me and otherwise really haven't had any.  by this point with brady, i was sick all day long (never vomited but felt awful ALL DAY unless i was actively eating).  i also still love my coffee in the mornings, and way early on with him i couldn't even stand the sight (much less the smell) of it.  of course this has me worried too that everything is okay.  i haven't had much bleeding, just some spotting maybe every few days.  OH and the constipation from hell is back.  so i guess that's a good sign.  i should be 7 weeks exactly today.

anyway, i will just be happy if we see a heartbeat on april 10th.  praying for good news, and in the meantime really trying not to worry...

a surprise to start the journey.

well, that was a surprise.

we had "planned" on starting to try for a new baby while in australia, but i guess God had other plans for our family.  a few hours before we left on our flight, on march 13th, i decided to take a test as i was supposed to start my period the day before and hadn't.  we had had one little oops that month, but i didn't think much of it, as it took us several months of trying with brady.  i honestly wasn't expecting that i was pregnant, just thought my days were off by a couple.  in fact, i had just been talking to mike that morning about getting to the airport a little early in time to get a glass of wine before the flight.  to celebrate the start of our big vacation!  well, we celebrated that night but it wasn't with a glass of wine (for me anyway).

i took the test, saw the outcome and with shaking hands wandered downstairs to tell mike.  i gave him a brother t-shirt i had planned to put brady in once we found out.  good thing i bought it early in anticipation, although brady was already at aunt jane's house so i had to just hand mike the shirt.  he was a little confused at first, but then so happy!

we're pregnant again!!!

oh, and we have been calling the new baby "roo" since he/she went along with us to australia after all :)