2nd Trimester Recap for Baby #3 - Part 2!

Week 21

- Feeling fairly crampy this week and that lower back pain is starting to kick in!
- Ryan was finally able to feel baby girl kicking!
- Got a tiny 2 mile run with baby girl - the first run with the belly support belt! 
- I bought myself a nice maternity/nursing PJ set for the hospital this time and it finally came in this week! When you already have 2 kids (and 1 of each gender at that!) there is pretty much NO preparation necessary for baby #3... so these little things mean a lot because there aren't really very many of them. I was excited to have a little something physical to remind me of what is to come. 
- I have started to notice some minor swelling... seems a little earlier than my previous pregnancies, but if baby girls make me swell more then I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I've always been able to wear my wedding rings up until close to the end - but we'll see how long this baby girl let's me wear them!
- My mom also came into town for the weekend!
- Towards the middle of this week, I suddenly felt like I needed to pee ALL the time - and whenever my bladder would empty it was NOT comfortable (felt very crampy every time I would pee) and then I would immediately feel like I needed to pee again. This feeling is usually very similar to the way I feel towards the very end of pregnancy, but it just seemed too early to feel this way (and too uncomfortable) and I couldn't quite shake it. I bought an OTC UTI test at the drug store, and it came back positive for a UTI (even though my symptoms didn't alight quite with what most women probably associate with a typical UTI) this was enough for me to call in to my OB. I was hoping that they would have me come in so that they could actually test my urine, but instead they just called in some meds. (Just another instance where I have felt so... just like a number at my OBs office... more on this later...)
- Emotionally I am starting to feel fairly "down". Part of this is probably just hormonal, part of it is frustration (and fear!) when it comes to feeling that little bit of doubt that I'm making the right choice by sticking with my OB. (Again - more on this later - but the fact that switching over to a midwife instead of a traditional OB office mid-pregnancy is a scary thought!)

Week 22
- Memorial day!
- Our Christmas gift from my mom and Jay was tickets to a baseball game, so while my mom was in town she watched the kids so that Ryan and I could go have a date day!

- This was definitely the week where my butt and thighs pretty much doubled in size! I'm definitely used to this though and honestly I'm kind of surprised it took THIS long! That's usually where I gain weight first! No sweat though because I know I am capable of trimming those areas back down if I want to after baby.
- I also discovered that I have an anterior placenta this time. This whole pregnancy I have just felt like things were different movement-wise with baby... it has been much harder to feel her, (on the inside and out), her movements are much less frequent and not quite as noticable as they have been by this point in the past. I did a little digging (aka looked back at the DVD of our 13 week ultrasound) and discovered that I was right!! I'm trying not to be super sad about it, but it has been tough feeling like I'm missing out on so much (only because I know what it CAN feel like based on my past pregnancies)...

Baseball game day! Where it all began... :)

Surprisingly, I think this is the first Astros game ANY of
our babies have been to... how is this possible??

Real life pic.

Grateful to still be able to fit a few runs in here and there, despite not being able to
 keep up with it as much as I have during previous pregnancies (also - Houston summer - whew!)

Week 23
- Staycation! Earlier this spring, I was looking at our busy busy schedule and realized that hubby and I weren't going to be getting a lot of alone time together (or even just time where we weren't going 100 mph) so I begged him to let us have a little staycation and get away for the weekend. So we did just that! It was SO nice!!! (We also realized that the last time that we had more than 24 hours ALONE together was when we went on our cruise - IN 2015!!) So to say that this was overdue would be an understatement ;). 
- Had a looong morning at the car dealership which turned into 3 separate trips within 24 hours... The first one was the whole morning and I had both kids with me... our third time there I also had both kids with me but we ended up bailing bc I wasn't about to waste another entire morning (in a row) waiting around....
- Continuing to feel sad, depressed and lonely a lot of the time (I expanded a little bit on this here)

Week 24

- Heidi started swim lessons this week, which required us to get out of the house every morning by 9:30ish
- Emotionally, I'm still feeling down this week. I also feel like being gone every morning is starting to take a toll as I feel like all of the chores and housework are piling up. Not to mention, it's stressful trying to rush to get everyone (and all of the necessary junk) out the door every single morning. Life in general are starting to feel really stressful, overwhelming, and there are also lots of feelings of loneliness starting to creep in.  I feel like I should be getting to the point (now that we've gone a few weeks without sickness) where I can start enjoying this pregnancy. And FEELING like I'm pregnant... but it hasn't quite happened yet. Pretty much all I have are just those brief moments where I catch a glimpse of my growing baby in the mirror and am able to snap a quick photo. We're so busy it feels that I don't have a lot of time to focus and let it sink in that I'm getting to do this all over again, and that makes me feel sad. 

There's a lot going on here....second rough day in a row... met Ryan for lunch
looking like this because I stopped caring... also Ryan's old boss didn't even recognize
me when I waved to him bc I'm lookin so rough haha!

Week 25
- Fathers day! Tried my hardest to celebrate hubby and give him a nice relaxing day thanking him for being such a good dad (not sure if I was successful or not...?)
- Glucose test this week (I passed woo woo!)
- Heidi starts 2nd week of swim lessons
- Feeling very "rage-y" this week. Basically I had all the things and all the people. 

- Several breakdowns happened this week, the first one on Monday morning at 8am  (Ryan decided to come home from work on Monday morning and was already in his truck on his way home by 8:30 a.m. I am SO grateful to have a husband who is able to recognize when I need extra help and support even when I can't ask for it.) After that rough Monday, things seem to have gotten a liiiiitle better although I still feel very lonely and emotional. (Work/wedding coordination stuff has started to pick up this week now that I have a wedding assigned to me in 60 days... so trying to balance those meetings and emails, etc. with also being a [pregnant] mom of 2 is stressful!)
- One thing that is super new with this pregnancy is acne!! I am SO broken out it is crazy - something that hasn't happened since college? high school? And certainly not like this! It's so weird. My whole forehead is super bumpy - but luckily it's not colored so it's pretty hard to notice. I don't ever wear any sort of foundation or other facial products on my skin, so this is not something I really have experience with. I'm not trying to cover it up or add any sort of makeup or products to it though because it's not really bothering me and I don't want to make it worse.
- Belly button is getting weirder and weirder - it just might pop this time!

Didn't end up making it to the splash pad due to said breakdown
and hubby coming home from work. 

Weird breakout! Seems to be sticking around for most of this pregnancy...

Taking two kids to an hour-long glucose tolerance test = whew!
They really do make it easy on me though :).

Week 26

- Engagement party for Eric and Jake!
- Assisted with a wedding (man that was tough physically!)
- Braxton hicks are picking up more and more. I started feeling them around 18 weeks, but it seems like I have them all the time now!
- Feeling okay/semi-functional during the day, but after I take an afternoon nap (or just by the time the evening rolls around) I feel bad and super emotional, drained, stressed and overwhelmed. 

Engagement party time! Congrats Eric and Jake!!

I am so sad that the second trimester is already ending. I feel like I haven't had enough time with this baby inside of be to already be 2/3 of the way done. Of course meeting this baby girl is going to be the best but I feel like this pregnancy is going by too fast for me to enjoy. Here's to hoping the third trimester it starts to sink in and slow down a little bit more. 

Struggling

Photo by Sarah McKenzie Photography

I've been struggling emotionally these last few weeks. It's been a combination of several things, all of which I believe are important to discuss in general and also share with you while I am sitting in these emotions.

These feelings are pretty familiar to me, as I usually reach this point at least once per pregnancy. I just feel down, depressed, unsupported and alone. I don't really know what factors into the actual timing of this - as I'm sure a lot of it really stems from the hormones that accompany pregnancy. And I don't mean clinical depression, but just feeling really down. (And I should also make it very clear that I never feel unsupported by my husband, who is always there for me in any and every way imaginable.) 

With my first pregnancy, about halfway through or so, I felt VERY alone. Because I actually was. I wasn't working. I literally spent all of my days by myself, rarely interacting with other people, and I certainly didn't know any other moms or even anyone who was pregnant. Going from working world to stay-at-home world is a tough transition, I know! And I didn't even have a baby in my arms yet to use as an excuse to meet other moms. It was very lonely and even though I was LOVING pregnancy, I started to get very depressed. This is what pushed me to take up yoga, which was how I connected with our doula for Heidi's birth (which is still one of my favorite stories of how God has worked in my life) and ultimately start feeling more myself again.

What I didn't realize is that isolation during pregnancy can be just as hard (harder?) AFTER you already have kids. Everyone is busy. Everyone's lives are crazy, including your own. And you can't just pick up a 12:30 p.m. prenatal yoga class whenever you feel like connecting with other pregnant mamas, or go treat yourself to a mani/pedi or prenatal massage at 11:00 a.m. on a Tuesday. It's tough y'all. With the exception of 1-2 close friends and my husband, this pregnancy has felt much more lonely and a lot like my first pregnancy in that way, with the added factor that there's no time to focus on myself because my whole being revolves around all of these other tiny people.

I feel like I'm in this strange transitional phase of life right now - but what makes it weird is that I'm not quite sure what I'm transitioning from or to. Things just feel kind of up in the air and disconnected. "Things". Maybe that just means "me". (And please don't assume that I'm just nervous about adding another family member to our household because honestly, I'm REALLY not concerned with that transition at all - but that conversation is for another day.)

The other thing that's been different this pregnancy is how much sickness there has been throughout this house and with me. (Most recently a non-traditional UTI/bladder infection which resulted in MORE antibiotics being prescribed to me over a phone conversation - my THIRD round of antibiotics this pregnancy and fourth time to be on medication.) The sickness (between the kids and me) in itself has been very isolating, but has also opened my eyes to how our healthcare system (and the majority of practices) work. Even though I LOVE my doctor when I'm actually in the same room as her, it's nearly impossible to connect with her otherwise. The way our society's healthcare system is set up makes it so tough to get through to our actual healthcare providers. There are so many layers of  "protection" surrounding doctors and it's the literal JOB of office staff, nurses, etc. to apply certain filters and handle situations so that the doctor doesn't "have to". (It is even this way with our kids' pediatrician!) The medical world has created a sieve to sift you through their system. So because of this, I have also (for the first time in my life) begun to feel the slightest twinge of doubt that I'm in the right place when it comes to my OBGYN. To even question that decision is very new and foreign and scary to me. (I have always had such positive experiences with the prenatal care through my OB as well as delivering my babies naturally in the hospital setting.) And while I don't feel like I'm unhappy enough or even in a place where I am just going to up and leave my OB to opt for a more personal and accessible healthcare model and experience (read: Birth Center/Midwife) I do still feel very stressed out at the thought of just looking into making such a huge change halfway through a pregnancy. I've listened to/read SO many birth stories where women did this and never looked back (and never once regretted their decision) and it scares me knowing that I could be able to relate personally with those stories/women. I still feel semi-committed to giving birth in a hospital, but there are truly a LOT of different routes to take if we DO actually decide to leave our "traditional" OB-only practice. The amount of time and research it would take to find the right fit sounds SO overwhelming and stressful to me and I already feel like I have no time to do so. To sum it up, it's not that I feel UNsupported by my OB, just not...totally supported by the system I guess? This pregnancy has just been much different in that way because I feel like I have needed MORE (medical) support than I have during past pregnancies. (I expand on all of our "sickness" and these feelings towards the traditional OB practice here if you're interested. It's not an exciting read but maybe it will help someone else out there who feels like they are the only one who shares these feelings.)

All of these factors are contributing to this feeling that all sides of me are currently unsupported - medically, hormonally, personally. But the ONE thing that I have learned through feeling this way in the past is that it's for a reason. There is a reason that during pregnancy God pushes me to the point of feeling unsupported by anyone else and unable to support myself. It's because He has to re-teach me how to rely on Him alone. This is important for all Christians, but through pregnancy and birth and the creation of a new person I KNOW how crucial it is to know how to and be in a place where we rely on Him to be the number 1 source of support. For me, there's no other way to bring a baby into this world. No other way than through 100% reliance on Him and Him alone. He is preparing me for the actual act of giving birth and bringing a new life into this world.

So I know that these feelings aren't for nothing. They never have been before and I know they aren't now. It's still hard to sit in the sadness and negative emotions but knowing that He is with me through it (and knowing what is waiting at the finish line) helps me to recognize that at least it's worth it.

This is what I look forward to and what I know I am being prepared for.
Photo by Sarah McKenzie Photography

2nd Trimester Recap for Baby #3 - Part 1!

Week 13

- While in my car picking up groceries, I think I might have felt baby kicking for the first time...hard to tell though... if I feel more kicks in the near future then I'll feel a little more convinced. 
- Worked my first wedding of this pregnancy
- Celebrated Wells' 1st birthday!
- Became an aunt!! Flew to OKC with this baby to surprise my sister and meet my new little nephew! This was baby's second flight and both times were to Oklahoma!
- Overall feeling pretty good physically and emotionally - bump is poppin fast!

Meeting my sweet nephew! (Also made the worlds most obnoxious/blinging t-shirt for the occasion!!)

Week 14

- Flew home from OKC
- Started feeling a little sick towards the end of this week... hoping it's just a minor head cold that will pass quickly!!

Week 15

- This was an (unfortunately) eventful week! I was super sick all week (plus the kids caught it too - nooooo!)  I thought I could tough it out but things were getting bad (super bad cold or the flu or something...) so I went to urgent care. I found out there that my blood pressure was super scary high (in addition to this upper respiratory viral infection), so suddenly these BP issues have now taken priority (as they should) over my other sickness issues. (In case you are wondering, when I first arrived at urgent care my BP was 138/113 and I even made the nurse re-take it because that seemed insane. They had me lay back with my feet elevated and then retook it a little while later. Luckily it HAD gone down some, although it was still very high. The PA said he was debating on whether or not to send me to the ER, but since this was my first time having high BP ever and my third pregnancy he decided to let me go home as long as I promised to call my OB first thing in the morning. Also, keep in mind I'm super sick and stressed, which is probably contributing to this.) Luckily, I have an OB appt already scheduled for next week, so I was instructed to just continue to monitor it throughout this week and over the weekend. If it gets back up to what it was, we gotta head straight to the ER. It was normal the following day and still hasn't gotten as high as it was earlier this week so we are praying it stays down! I did have to go buy an at-home BP cuff though. I feel like an old person!
- The day after I went to urgent care feeling miserable, Ryan stayed home from work and Heidi went to MDO. Super grateful for this day of rest with my hubby!
- Later that next day, after we picked Heidi up from MDO we realized that she was not acting herself. She started to seem worse and worse and eventually would just start crying and saying her ear hurt her so bad. So I took her in to the pediatric urgent care clinic (that's 2 days in a row of being at urgent care in case you're counting). She did in fact have an ear infection and was prescribed antibiotics for that. (Two days later, Wells was also diagnosed with a double ear infection - and then also puked up his entire dinner bc of his meds. That's THREE trips to urgent care in one week people. We have not had an easy go of it lately!)
- Later this week, the upper respiratory infection continued to get worse. It got the the point where I could hardly keep my right eye open it hurt SO bad and tears were constantly draining out of it. I called my OB and they were able to call in a z-pack for me before the long Easter weekend! However, on the bright side it does seem that the blood pressure issues have subsided. 
- The last day of this week was hubby's birthday. Even though I wasn't feeling that great, it felt better to get out of the house and focus on something other than feeling super crappy so we went to a Rice Baseball game to celebrate his bday. This was baby's very first baseball game!
- I also noticed this week that my boobs have started to get sore. I can literally FEEL them growing haha! Grateful that my body knows what it needs to do to prepare for baby :).
- Emotionally, things have just been getting tougher and tougher. We have had SO much sickness and it's really starting to wear on me. (Not to mention the quarantine/isolation that comes along with that...) I feel like I haven't had a chance to focus on this pregnancy because between me and the kids we are either getting sick, super sick or recovering from being sick. I'm really looking forward to the day when I can just BE pregnant. I'm also super over taking meds while pregnant - something I've never wanted to do (even if deemed "safe for pregnancy" it still something that I am very uncomfortable with doing) and I would really like to be done with that!

Week 16

- Easter Sunday! Slowly feeling better... although I don't really feel like the Z-pack has really done very much
- Boobs are still super sore!

- Found out our baby's gender!!
- Went to NYC to visit my soulmate and meet her baby girl!! I had a GREAT time and even though I missed my hubby (and babies) SO much - it was one of my favorite NYC trips and I loved getting to spend so much time with my old roomie and her awesome baby.

Easter Sunday!

I was pregnant at Easter last year... I would have never guessed that
I would be pregnant at Easter again this year hah!

Our traditional post-gender ultrasound fro-yo date! This time we have TWO
babies eating ice cream with us on the outside!!

Central park!

I love that all three of my babies have been to NYC with me on the inside :).

Week 17
- Flew home from NYC
- Of course started to feel sick as soon as I got home... (#travelling) and by the end of the week, EVERYONE was sick - even Ryan this time!! I eventually got BACK to the place where I felt like I was dying so back to urgent care I went. I was prescribed some antibiotics so hopefully those will help...I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!! That was pretty much our whole week (again).

Week 18
- Slowly on the mend... it seems that everyone is getting better so we are hoping it STAYS that way this time!!
- Fredericksburg for my sister-in-law's bachelorette party!
- Feeling a little better emotionally this week. I was able to spend some alone time in a coffee shop while the other girls at the bach party went wine tasting, then spend some solid down time pool-side after they got back! First time I feel like I was able to relax since getting back from NY!

All 3 babies.

18 week bump!

Week 19
- Nothing crazy this week... except oh yeah Heidi got sick! At least we were able to get in with our regular pediatrician this time and avoid urgent care! 
- Was also able to get in a run this week - it's been tough to keep up with running with all of this sickness happening!

It's crazy the difference in belly size between morning and night!

Week 20
- Mothers day! I had THE most perfect mothers day. It was SO relaxing and the perfect balance of "me" time and also spending some quality time with my hubby and babies! So relaxing. 
- This week we also had our "big" anatomy ultrasound. It was so fun seeing our baby girl but our experience after the ultrasound and waiting for my OB was less than ideal. It was very frustrating and this was the first time I have ever felt a twinge of "doubt" as to whether or not I am in the right place.
- Heidi's last day of MDO! 
- Heidi turned 3 at the end of this week and we had such a great time celebrating her (even though we always run ourselves ragged preparing for these kinds of things. I still love doing it though!)
- Physically and emotionally feeling pretty good. I've been SO so busy this week getting ready for Heidi's party, (cleaning the house, baking, cooking, etc.) and also with another whole day taken up with our OB appointment, I feel like I haven't really had time to think! I can't even believe that we are already half way!

Mothers Day 2017!

At my OB appt and super annoyed... waiting for an hour and a half AFTER
a 45 minute long ultrasound! Argh!!

Happy birthday to our first baby girl!

Second trimester updates part 2 continued here!