Sorry gang, but I haven’t been sharing a lot about my pregnancy. Turns out with a new job, a dairy farm, caring for the finances of said farm, graphic design business, an almost two-year-old, a house to care for, a garden to tend to, and requiring some sleep I just haven’t had the time to blog about the pregnancy like I had planned. I am truly sorry! Plus it’s been a roller coaster of a pregnancy, but we are both healthy and doing well. We are due in September!
Before you ask NO we do not know what the baby’s gender is and we do not want to know. It’s intentional that we don’t know. Call us old-fashioned, that’s fine but I love the surprise and the anticipation that builds for 9 months and Clayton says we aren’t going to be able to change it so why rush finding out the gender. I love not knowing what the baby’s name or gender will be until it arrives! If we have a girl we have plenty of clothes, bows, shoes and accessories from our first child, our daughter Nora, and if we have a boy we are all set too thanks to my sister, brother-in-law and nephews.
But for those of you curious here is a picture of me this pregnancy along with a picture of me from the last pregnancy both at 31 weeks. You can make your gender guesses and share them but I won’t lean one way or the other until baby arrives! Unless I start having vivid dreams like I did about Nora two weeks before delivery, then I may lean slightly one way or the other.
I feel great during this pregnancy, well if you take away the tired feeling, the constant pressure, the 1 million kicks and jabs from baby, and the leg cramps, I do feel great!
So onto my list of 10 ways my second pregnancy differs from my first pregnancy.
- No two pregnancies are the same. I have felt (mostly) 180 degrees opposite of how I felt with Nora, our almost two-year-old. Very little morning sickness, very little back pain. While I say it’s a completely differenct pregnancy this does not mean that I think I am having a boy. I actually have no feelings on gender this go around. I also feel like I am carrying the baby and extra weight differently which has caused different symptons and different comfort levels.
- This baby is Active, yes Active with a capital A. Like crazy active! You know how they tell you to count kicks? I can usually count 10 movements or kicks within minutes if not seconds. Nora was an active baby but not like this one! We are going to have our hands full if this is any indicator that is for sure!
- This pregnancy is a go with the flow, don’t worry and don’t research anything pregnancy. Sometimes I forget I’m pregnant and then I get jabbed by the overactive baby in my belly or get a leg cramp or suddenly realize I have a belly that I am carrying. I guess maybe that’s because I don’t have the time to stop and think about it.
- Seven months can truly fly by in a flash. It feels like yesterday that I had that feeling that I was pregnant and took a pregnancy test. It was also the dead of winter and is now hot summer so I guess time has changed, I just haven’t noticed. But it also feels like yesterday that we had Nora so I guess maybe life just flies once you have child or as you get older.
- I may have forgotten to document the pregnancy. With Nora I tried to take belly pictures every few weeks and even had the cute chalkboard up. This pregnancy not so much. The picture above might be my only posed belly shot! Oops!
- As a mom and dairy farmer I will always be tired but add pregnancy and it’s a whole new ball game. Nora has been waking up earlier than before and I have been staying up way past my bedtime doing work and keeping the house somewhat put together (I am not succeeding in that area too well) and I am always just plain tired!
- I never know how many weeks or months pregnant I am. With the 1st pregnancy I think I knew to the day but with this pregnancy people ask me how far along I am and I respond with ” I am due in September.” I attempt to do some quick math to tell them but I am always off. Like the fact I had been telling people I was half way when in reality I had hit the third trimester. Another major oops.
- The baby will having a loving home to come home to but I have not prepared anything yet for this baby. I have not washed any of our newborn clothes. I have not gotten out the baby gear. I haven’t dug out the car seat. I do have a pack n’ play out but do not the newborn insert in our house. We do have a plan that the baby will sleep in our room for awhile until we decide to evict Nora from the crib but I am not ready for that. The two will be sharing a room for clothes, diapers and all that jazz in the meanwhile, until they begin sharing a room and we do not have room for more clothes, diapers or things in the nursery. So I need to work on cleaning out the house and prepping all the baby items.
- We have not picked a name for either gender yet. We have talked about it once during an 8 hour car ride for about an hour but we came to no decision and really haven’t had the time to discuss it or narrow it down yet. Hopefully we have a name by the time we leave the hospital. I think that’s the rule! 🙂
- We are beyond excited and overjoyed for this child. Maybe even more ecstatic then we were for baby #1 because we were also petrified of caring for a newborn. But we got this newborn and infant stage down pat (I say now, wait til baby comes). Now managing two children frightens me a bit, but mostly because I don’t have immediate family to call to back me up and we manage a farm so life gets busy and hard and we are doubling the workload for our little family.
Now DO NOT take any of this the wrong way we are ecstatic about adding to our family and we cannot wait to meet this bundle of joy but we just have a different view on this second pregnancy. We aren’t the nervous first time parents we were with Nora and we aren’t concerned about our preparedness level because we know this child will be loved and cared for by us and that we will make due like we have the past two years with Nora. We just hope and pray that Nora will accept this baby and is ready to become a BIG sister!
Mothers of two children or more… anything I missed?!?!
I love the saying “it is what it is” and that is that…if that baby comes and you have nothing washed or prepped, it is what it is and it will get done! Enjoy every minute together with just the 3 of you! I was induced with Millie so we knew when she was coming, we had a special dinner with Hunter as his last night before he became a big brother 😉 There is quite an age difference between the two but he adores her and your heart will melt when Nora looks at that baby for the first time!