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.