Pregnancy Ticker

7 Weeks 

Sunday, March 29, 2015 - Posted by Danielle at 6:11 PM
7 weeks and starting to feel more pregnant.  We've announced it to most of our family and friends now so, while I'm feeling like it's more real, I'm anxiously awaiting our doctor's appointment next week! 

This has been a really hard week.  I won't go into all the detail I did on my last blog, but some of you know that I have a hormone-related neurological disorder.  Without getting into it all, I'll just leave it at, it's been a really hard week.  We've been praying hard that God will kick start my hormones to counteract everything that is going on.  This is yet another reason I was so glad to have been able to look back at the journaling from my last pregnancy blog to see that it happened then too and it's going to get better!  Your prayers would be so much appreciated though because it's truly been a hard week physically and emotionally.  Pregnancy symptom-wise, biggest symptoms right now are that I am extremely tired and nausea is kicking in.  I feel like all I want to do is sleep and if I didn't have anything else to do, I think I could sleep for a week straight.  The nausea has definitely started up too.  With Adie, I really didn't have any triggers, I was just plain sick.  The good thing with that though was that I could throw up and immediately be just fine for awhile.  This time around, I'm just queasy all the time and nauseous if my stomach starts to get the tiniest bit empty.  Smell is getting to me this time around too which is different.  Mom was over one night this past week and popped popcorn.  When does popcorn not smell good!?!?!?!?  It was definitely not good.

Adie seems to be content with the idea of becoming a big sister.  She's not inquisitive, not real curious, just accepting and content.  I guess at this point it's strange to talk about a baby in my tummy when nothing seems different yet than before to her.  She is sure that she wants a baby brother though.  That one is not changing.  I have no idea why, she just says that's what she wants :)

First doctor's appointment is this coming week...while I know that the first appointment is pretty lame, I'm still excited to get this going!!


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Adie...starting to get it... 

Tuesday, March 10, 2015 - Posted by Danielle at 9:32 PM
We've had a couple funny baby moments with Adie so far.  She knows now that baby is in mommy's tummy and she knows that she's going to be a big sister.  Occasionally I'll bring it up that she's going to be a big sister and that will either be it or we'll talk about it for a minute.  Well the other day she told me baby was in my tummy and then said "well why did you put it in there??"  So cute!  I've asked her a few times now if she wants a brother or sister and she's consistent...she wants a little boy!  We'll see :)

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The Big Announcement 

Posted by Danielle at 9:28 PM
First off was telling Adie.  It was the morning of her party so when Mark got home from work, Adie and I were up in her room getting ready.  Mark came up and we sat down with her and started to explain that she was going to be a big sister.  We tried to use analogies with "big sisters" that she knows, we told her that baby was in my tummy, we tried to explain....and she didn't get it at all!!  :)  She kind of acknowledged us just to get us to quit talking and said "ok, I want to go downstairs now..."  I can't blame her; at 3 it is a strange concept to understand.  She'll get it eventually!!!

I'd been thinking for quite some time about what would be a cool way to announce that baby two was on the way.  A few days before finding out I was pregnant, Mark and I had gone on a date to get a few last minute birthday presents for Adie.  While browsing the aisles of Target we saw a book about a new baby coming.  We laughed and said what a cool way of announcing it would be to give her the book as a present.

When we found out the morning of her party, we knew that was it.  Mark ran out and bought the book from Target, brought it home and told me to take a look, and it was telling a little boy about the baby coming and he was asking if baby would be able to play Superman with him.  While the point of the book was to get the message across as the announcement, we still wanted it as a keepsake.  So, in the midst of getting ready for the party, I jumped on an opportunity to run to the grocery store and ended up running to Barnes & Nobles to buy a book.  My mom called to see if I was ok since it took me so long to just run to the store.  I just told her that it was crazy in town.  Well that on top of the fact that Mark took an awful long time that morning going to get the original book when he was supposed to be running to Biggby for coffee and tea for all of us should have been putting up a few red flags for her, but she didn't ask questions!

Adie opened all of her gifts and we had saved the book for last.  Mark videoed while I had Adie sit on my lap.  We opened the book, turned it around, and the moment was priceless!!!  So, so glad we got that on video!  It was so special having our closest friends and family there to share in the big moment.  We skyped with grandma and Uncle Gary & Marguerite that evening and they were excited as well.

We are so blessed to have such amazing supports around us who are so happy for the milestones in our lives. 

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Time for Round Two!! 

Posted by Danielle at 9:19 PM
We are having another baby!! We have been patiently waiting on God's timing with this and now we're here! While I'd love it if friends and family check in on the blog, I am more intending this to be a way of being able to journal everything. I have really enjoyed being able to look back at the blog through my pregnancy with Adie and be able to "re-live it" and remember things that I wouldn't have had they not been journaled. So...here we go! It's time for baby two!

I can't believe the time is here.  We have talked about this for so long and have, on more than one occasion, come close to thinking it was time to start trying, only to hold off for a bit longer. We kept having this feeling that when Mark was done with school would be a good time. Well, God led us to start a bit earlier than that, however, he has totally been holding our hands every step of the way. God knows me; he knows I'm a planner. He knows that this great leap of faith Mark had been ready to take just wasn't ok for me. God gave me answers...glimpses of peace about the future, and while not 100% complete, enough for me to know that he's walking this path with us and it's just right. We know that God is providing for us through everything and always has so we have nothing to fear.

If I'm completely honest, it's taken me a long time to be ready for this time around. Not just because of the logistics of it at all, but mostly because of Adie. I know many families are ready for baby two at least by the time baby one is turning two. We weren't there yet. Because of that, I have had three AMAZING years with my little baby girl. Just her and I. I'm home every single day with her and we do EVERYTHING together. We are each others sidekicks, we're friends, we're best buddies and we have a great time together. I have had a horrible time being able to grasp the idea of being able to #1, have something turn our little comfortable, routine world upside down and #2, being able to love another child as much as I love my girl. As I've talked with moms about it I'm assured that it just happens. It's something you can't describe and that your love and attention doesn't have to be shared or split, it just grows and you are able to love each of them equally, but differently. While I heard this all around, being an only child made this all hard for me to get. I had been worried about how Adie would feel about it. I don't ever want her to feel like mommy and daddy abandoned her for this other kid. While I know that's crazy, I'm also aware of how much time and attention a baby requires! I finally had to come to a point of faith.

I knew this last time that yes, it was time to start trying. I knew that God had us on this path and I needed to jump. I knew that none of these fears that I had were going to just go away or that I'd magically be 100% confident with it all. Much of it I believe just has to come by the experience. In my heart, I knew that yes, I want another baby. Yes, I want to be pregnant again. Yes, I want Adie to have a sibling to be close with. Getting off of my meds this time as we prepared for trying was horribly, horribly hard. Because I'm on stronger medications this time, the actual disorder was hard but the withdrawal was terrible for about a week as well. It tapered off but then worry kicked in. I tested what was probably way to many times for my emotions to be able to handle but I was so concerned that if we didn't get pregnant in the first month, that meant another round of episodes next month and I was not ready for it. I tested, and I tested, and I tested and they were negative, and negative and negative.

It was the morning of Adie's third birthday party. I got up with Mark early when he was getting ready for work. I tested, it was negative, and I went back to bed. Later when I got up, for whatever reason, I decided that I should look at the test again. While sitting in the trash it had turned positive!! I was in total and complete shock. I grabbed my phone to call Mark, and we were both stunned. I was physically shaking from the shock of it.  He had actually had the thought to check the test when he got up that morning but hadn't for whatever reason. Well, apparently, throughout this whole testing phase I was just really lacking patience. With Adie, I must have tested late enough that the hormone was strong enough that in no time at all the double line showed up. I figured then that if I was pregnant, why wait the full 3 minutes for the test!?!? Dumb. Looking back at it, totally stupid. Craziest part was that I ended up digging through the trash that morning because I was so curious if the test I had taken two days before was actually positive as well. Go figure, it was. Here I could have known two days before but didn't wait long enough before reading it!

God has impeccable timing though. Hindsight is always 20/20 but there have been so many times through our lives that we look back and totally see God's hand in everything. When you are able to look back and get a glimpse of what God already knew and you didn't, and why things work out the way they do, it's awesome. The test I had taken two days before that was actually positive, that night (thinking it was negative), Mark and I sat in bed and had a very honest conversation that wouldn't have probably been had had we found out I was pregnant that day. In that conversation I was able to not necessarily be honest with him about how I was feeling because I had already done that but it was really communicating and talking things out in a way that allowed me to process everything I had been feeling and my reservations. It was "healing" in a way for me to be able to get everything out and know that he got me.

Once we found out the test was actually positive, Mark finished up things at work and came home early. I took a few alone minutes at home while Adie was playing just to process it. I was able to come to the realization that while this IS going to change the dynamic Adie and I have, it will be a wonderful thing that will add to and enrich and bring even more joy to our time together. I know that this will be good for her and I believe that she'll be far more ok than I have it made up to be in my head. I know that I can rest and relax knowing that God's got this. I know and I trust that God will help me to prepare for it and will help me to be the best mommy of two kiddos I can be.

What was it I ended with in Adie's first blog post?? Oh yeah..."Praise the Lord....we're having a baby!!!!"

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