Month: March 2019

This week, we’ve really tried to focus on spending the most quality time with Winifred. Will and I found that, on weekdays, our evenings were a complete whirlwind. Almost to the point of not speaking to one another until after Winifred was asleep. We would get home, bounce/play/read, dinner, bath, story, bottle, song, bed, whew. We realized how much of Winnie’s life and development we were just kind of skimming through, so we made a deal. It’s kind of embarrassing how simple and logical it was but I didn’t realize the effects it had until we did it. We turned off the TV and put away our phones until Winnie was in bed. If you know me, you know I watch the same 5 shows on repeat (Friends, The Office, Parks and Rec, Gilmore Girls, and New Girl). They are always on in the background no matter what. I love listening to something familiar when I’m around the house or working. However, I didn’t realize what that was doing to my communication skills with Winifred and my husband. Turning the TV off gave Winnie a voice! I think with all the excess noise gone, she could finally get a word in! She’s been blabbing all week long! This weekend was especially sweet, spending intense quality time with the people I love the most.

I have much more energy this week and my belly has already popped (muscle memory right?!). Here is a little peak into our week and the life of LL2!

How far along? 13 weeks
Baby is the size of a:  Jalapeno, Matchbox car, clown fish
Total weight gain: -5 lbs. When I was pregnant with Winnie I lost about 20lbs in the first trimester, so I’m relieved I’ve only lost this much.
Maternity clothes? Oh. Yes. I put those suckers on at 10 weeks. Why aren’t maternity pants socially acceptable to wear at all times??
Stretch marks? No new ones!
Sleep:  The freaky dreams are REAL y’all. I have the most vivid and long dreams every night. They last all night and continue even if I wake up and go back to sleep. People I barely know or haven’t talked to in years are usually the star of my dreams and it freaks me out every time! Winifred still wakes up once a night for her night feeding/diaper change but that only takes 15-20 minutes around 2:00AM. We did the Farber Method (a nurturing version of cry it out) and I’m so thankful we did. Winnie was very ready to put herself to sleep and it took her less than 2 nights to master. Now, she takes 2+ hour naps and sleeps 12+ hours at night. This mama is #blessed.
Best moment this week: IT’S A GIRL AND WE PICKED A NAME! We’ve told some people but haven’t decided if/when we’ll announce her name.

Movement: I have felt teeny tiny flutters and it makes my heart so happy. The first trimester is the hardest because there is no real way to know how baby is doing in there. I love those first little twitches.
Food cravings: carbs carbs carbs carbs carbs. FRUIT; pineapple, apples, grapes. Popsicles.
Miss Anything? WINE. In the first few weeks I struggled with not being able to drink alcohol. Not that I drank much before, I just felt like I got robbed. I went from being pregnant to breastfeeding to pregnant again and only had 1 sweet month of freedom to drink whatever I wanted. Luckily, my bestie got me non-alcoholic wine for my birthday and that had sufficed.
Symptoms: This pregnancy is already so different from my first. With Winnie I was just nauseous 24/7 and couldn’t eat anything. With LL2 I began to have really intense upper abdominal pain during and after eating. After going to the doctor and getting an ultrasound, they discovered I had “sludge” in my gall bladder causing my pain. I’ve now been put on a super bland, super low fat, high fiber diet, which is just great when all you want is carbs. I’ve also been blessed with the first trimester migraines that hit at 3-4 PM everyday. Some days are worse than others and Winifred keeps me plenty distracted!
Belly Button in or out? In.
Wedding rings on or off? After Winifred my knuckles grew? Didn’t know that was a thing. The swelling went away but my original rings wouldn’t fit over my knuckles. So, I ordered a simple set from “Go-Rings” and they’re still going strong. I’ll probably get my original ones resized after LL2.
Mood? Emotional! Everything makes me tear up.
Looking forward to: Winifred crawling, feeling bigger kicks from LL2, hearing her heartbeat next week!

 

Uh oh.

I looked down and saw a completely full cup of coffee on my desk. It was 11:00am and I was usually on my second. My stomach sank as the first thing that popped into my head was a little voice, “Ummm, that’s what happened when you were pregnant with Winnie….”. I shook it off and blamed the coffee aversion on the killer allergy attack I was enduring.  Later that night, we ordered Chinese food from the best place in town. I’d been thinking about it all day and couldn’t wait to dive in.  I took one bite and almost spit it out — it tasted unbelievably salty. “Girl, stop”, that little voice said (is anyone else’s inner voice a little condescending?) “This is another sign.” I refused to entertain the thought. Winnie was 5 months old, this could not really be happening. When, in all reality, it very well could have been happening. I expressed my musings to Will and he gave me a look, a look that said “I think you’re pregnant.” No. No, no, no. I came up with a million other reasons for the things happening to my body. Maybe it’s because I just stopped breastfeeding and my hormones are leveling out. Maybe I’m getting my period back and my body forgot what that was like. Maybe it’s the allergies.

Or,

maybe I was growing ANOTHER tiny human. We decided to wait a week to take a test, partly waiting for my body to get it together and partly out of sheer terror.

On February 1, 2019 at 4:00am Winnie woke up to eat and Will went to grab her. It was as good a time as any to take the test. Will came in with the baby and waited the longest 3 minutes ever with me. I took the digital test because I didn’t want any of the “faint line, maybe baby” bull crap going on. Every thirty seconds, I leaned over to see a blinking clock, taunting me. “I can’t look anymore!!” I shouted with impatient frustration. Will leaned over, closed his eyes, and clutched Winnie. For a second, I thought he saw a “-No” and was relieved. Then, I saw the tear roll down his cheek. I lunged for the test and saw a big, clear “+Yes” starring me right in the face. My hand slammed into my mouth in disbelief. Will and I just looked at each other for a good 2 minutes. I crumbled to the floor.

This was such a different feeling than when we found out we were pregnant with Winnie. This was several feelings. We were confused, shocked, scared, overwhelmed, and a little distraught. I burst into tears as a wave of guilt rushed over me. I just found out another life is inside of me, shouldn’t I be excited? After all we went through to get pregnant with Winnie, shouldn’t I be grateful to not have to go through that again? People I know are fighting with everything they have to get pregnant, shouldn’t I be happy? I should have been, but I wasn’t. I was terrified, selfishly terrified. I had JUST done this, I was just getting my body back, we were just getting into our groove as a family, how could we possibly do this? TWO INFANTS??

The negative thoughts spiraled as I lay in a ball of tears on the floor. How were we going to afford this? We couldn’t possibly pay for two kids in daycare. What will my body be like after two babies in two years? I had just started seriously working out again. How could I handle this? For some reason, the idea of two infants and a full time job seemed impossible.Will this negatively affect Winifred? She has barely had time with us to herself! I told myself to take a breath, women do this EVERYDAY. I’m not the first person in the world in this scenario. Everything seems overwhelming at 4 in the morning with lack of sleep.

(Note to self: stop taking the freaking pregnancy tests so freaking early!)

As my mind came to a pause, I realized that Will hadn’t said anything in about 15 minutes. I looked up to see him clutching Winifred, tears rolling down his face. “Why are YOU crying?” I asked. “Babe,” He breathed, “we’re never going to sleep ever again”. I couldn’t help it, a giggle busted from my belly. He was absolutely right. For the foreseeable future, it looked like the “Sleep-Deprived-Zombie-Parent” was going to be our signature look.

Will joined in the hysteria and the laughing continued as we stared at our perfect baby in his arms. This was ridiculous. How was this real life? Even in all the confusion two of those babies didn’t seem so bad. We were surviving with one, why not just add one more to the circus?? We already had allllllll the baby things still out (shout out to our procrastination in packing things up). The nursery was already gender neutral, so even if it was a boy we were covered! We decided not to freak out just yet. We crawled into bed with Winifred and soaked in the morning snuggles before Will went to work.

The rest of the day was a mix of tears, laughter, and “OMG” texts as we came to accept what our future looked like. I felt guilty for not being as excited as I was for Winifred. I couldn’t take that moment back, it was real and raw and true. In the weeks following, the excitement grew. We became so thrilled for Winifred to be a big sister. Picturing the complete mess of love our life was about to become was so much fun!

Now, we could not picture our life without the little toy soldier in my belly. We found out the gender and can’t wait to bring another Baby GIRL Lou into the world.

Was this our plan? Absolutely not. But, you know what they say. “Make a plan and God laughs”. Well, Big Guy, I’m hoping you got a real kick out of this one!