17 weeks

taken at 17 weeks

So, getting big and fast over here!

In lots of ways I think this has been my easiest pregnancy yet. I definitely had more nausea and morning sickness in the first trimester, and even now I'm still pretty nauseous most mornings, but besides that I feel great! It's definitely the least stressful. When I was pregnant with Marshall there was just a lot of uncertainty. Jerad and I were planning our wedding, moving up our wedding, finding out we couldn't have a home birth, switching back to a homebirth at 30 weeks... and I didn't really know what to expect because it was my first pregnancy so there was the stress of the unknown "what will this do to our relationship?" "will we be good parents?" "can I actually have a homebirth?" "what will the baby be like?" etc etc.

With Miller I had a hard time physically. I was EXHAUSTED from back to back pregnancies, and dealing with everything on my own since Jerad was frequently out of town/state. All while chasing a one year old and still being new to the whole mom thing. We were also buying a house, moving, and there were the questions of "will I love another baby as much?" "will it be as special the second time around?" "logistically how do I deal with two kids?" "am I depriving Marshall by having another so soon?" "can I even manage two kids?" "how do I get us all out the door at 6:30 so I'll be on time for work?"

This time it just feels like the norm:) So far I've never *not* been pregnant by the youngest's 1 year birthday. Somehow being pregnant while taking care of two small kids has felt easier than it did when I just had the one. I'm tired, but not exhausted, and my body feels pretty good! Since Jerad is around to help out I can usually go to sleep by 9 and if one/both of the kids wakes up during the night he deals with it and lets me sleep.

I'm so excited for this baby to come. I feel like I have the whole toddler/baby mom thing down and I know that I can split my attention between multiple kids while still loving and enjoying them all. Marshall is getting more independent every day and is starting to really be a help to me. I've just resigned myself that I'll probably always be 10 minutes late to work so toting one more kid out the door in the morning doesn't seem that daunting.

Miller was a hard baby. He didn't sleep well for 8 months, then he had eczema and food allergies and REALLY didn't sleep well. None of the tricks that had soothed Marshall as a baby worked on Miller. Nothing really did, we just powered through somehow (please Lord let #3 like pacifiers, swaddling, and baths). He was a total mommy's boy for his first 6 months so I was the only one that could comfort him so even when Jerad WAS home there wasn't much he could do. But we made it and even managed to enjoy his infanthood. If I could survive that, I'm sure I can handle whatever curveballs this one throws as well.

At this point I'm 18 weeks along. Almost halfway done! For the past few weeks I've been feeling the baby move and it's still nice and subtle. I honestly don't like the feeling of the baby moving/kicking when it gets older. Its unnerving. I'm sleeping well at night and I'm not at the point where I'm completely huge and uncomfortable yet. Physically I can still pick up both the kids and chase them around the park or get on my hands and knees to clean the floor. We find out the gender in less than 2 weeks (Feb 28th) so I'm really looking forward to that. I'm hoping and will be so happy if it's another boy (and we have everything!) but if it's a girl.... good thing Jerad's so busy at work because I'm going to have some $hopping to do.