Weekly Update- 8 weeks

Size of baby: A kidney bean- webbed fingers and toes are showing, breathing tubes extend from the throat to the developing lungs.

Total Weight Gain/Loss:  I was weighed at my doctors appointment however it was after lunch and I was fully clothed so it wasn't the most accurate. I'm about 4 pounds up from where I was with Hunter this go around but I started off weighing more thanks to the holidays. 

Maternity Clothes: None yet. 

Sex: Still getting a girl vibe. Hunter is convinced it's a girl.

Movement: none yet

What I miss: Having a better appetite

Sleep: Not sleeping well. Fall asleep great but wake up and can't get back to sleep.

Symptoms: Still tired thanks in part to not sleeping well and still nauseous mainly at night. Unisom helps with both issues. 

Cravings: Nothing in particular. Still like carbs.

Best Moment this week: Our first ultrasound and seeing ONE healthy baby with a heartbeat of 173. Such a relief and always so neat seeing that for the first time. Doctor said everything looked great.

What I am looking forward to: My next doctors appointment at 10 weeks and starting to figure out what we need to get. Telling everyone. 

Weekly Update- 7 Weeks

             Size of baby: A blueberry-Hands and feet and arms and legs are developing

Total Weight Gain/Loss:  I haven't weighed myself lately but I've maybe gained a pound or two.

Maternity Clothes: None yet. 

Sex: Don't know though I think girl and daddy thinks boy.

Movement: none yet

What I miss: energy and not feeling nauseous everyday.

Sleep: Some nights are better than others

Symptoms: Exhuasted and wanting to nap everyday. Nauseous mainly in the evenings. Haven't been able to workout lately due to both issues.

Cravings: Not much except maybe carbs

Best Moment this week: The blizzard of 2016 and getting 2 feet of snow! Being snowed in for 5 days with my little family.

What I am looking forward to: Our first doctors appointment/ultrasound this week.

Weekly update- 6 weeks

**I've been doing my weekly updates and saving them until I made the pregnancy public, figured now was a good time to press post! **

Size of baby: A lentil- the nose, mouth and ears are beginning to take shape.

Total Weight Gain/Loss:  this pregnancy I've started out higher than when I got pregnant with Hunter thanks to getting pregnant during the holidays when I was also stressing eating due to work. I don't think I've gained anything extra though due to pregnancy at this point but I'm not really weighing myself often. 

Maternity Clothes: None yet. 

Sex: Don't know though I think girl and daddy thinks boy.

Movement: none yet

What I miss: energy and having an appetite

Sleep: Not great, lots of tossing and turning

Symptoms: Tired (though not sleeping well). Nausea on and off and not much of an appetite. 

Cravings: Nothing

Best Moment this week: Making it through another wek. 

What I am looking forward to: Our first doctor appointment next week where we will hopefully see a nice strong heartbeat.

Getting pregnant with #2

The road to baby #2 was not nearly as quick and easy as it was with baby #1. With Hunter I was fortunate to get pregnant pretty much the first cycle we tried/didn't prevent. Despite it happening so quickly with him I really didn't expect the same for the second, however, I also didn't expect it to be as long of a process.

I decided to get off birth control right before Hunter turned 2. I really wanted about a 3ish year age gap and figured even if it took a few months that timing would work out well. I gave my body a few months to get all the hormones from the birth control out of my system but by January I figured any time would be great. Well thanks to my crazy, long, irregular cycle things didn't happen as quickly as I had hoped. In fact, at one point it had been about 4 months without a period or ovulation (which I knew from temping and tracking my cycles) and finally my doctor decided to induce my period. A couple weeks after my induced period, in early December of 2014 I got pregnant again! Sadly, about 2 weeks after I found out I was pregnant I had a miscarriage, the day before Hunter's 3rd birthday.

Fortunately my doctor didn't see any reason why I shouldn't try again and we decided after a few months if I wasn't pregnant again I would do some tests and maybe move onto medication (which I was hesitant to do). Well after a few months I was not pregnant again and my doctor decided to run some tests including an ultrasound to check for any cysts or blockage. Fortunately all my tests came back normal so we couldn't really determine why I wasn't ovulating normally or getting pregnant.

After a lot of thought and discussions with a very hesitant husband I decided I would try Clomid. Well in order for that to happen my husband also had to be tested (which he was less than thrilled about) but thankfully all of his tests came back normal. So after another never-ending cycle I took medicine to induce my period once again and start my first round of Clomid which was July 2015.

Thanks to the Clomid I did ovulate on a pretty normal schedule, anywhere from day 18-20 of my cycle. However, I still wasn't getting pregnant. On my fifth round which started in November of 2015 my ovulation was late once again. During this time I had my annual checkup with my OBGYN and told her I was late ovulating. She said sometimes the Clomid doesn't work and to give it a couple more weeks and we could induce my period again and try one last round (they only allow 6 rounds) and we could up the dosage for the last round. Well FINALLY on day 34 I ovulated and two weeks later saw the two little lines I had been praying and waiting to see! As it turns out from talking to my doctor, given how long it took me to ovulate the last cycle she doesn't think the Clomid actually worked and I finally just ovulated on my own, go figure!

Even though it was a long and often frustrating process I do believe everything happens when it's supposed to. And though the age gap is a bit bigger than I had hoped for I do like the fact that Hunter is now at an age where he's not only pretty independent but can help us out quite a bit. I don't know if I could handle 2 under 2 or even just having 2 in diapers at the same time.

The REAL Labor Day

We are so excited to be welcoming a new little addition this September! 

Estimated Due Date- Labor Day!

More to come.... 

Twenty Sixteen

Long time no type huh? I have to admit I never really planned to stop blogging last year, I just sort of lost the desire and as more time went on the desire continued to decrease. In addition to the loss of motivation I must admit that 2015 wasn't my best year and I spent most of it in a bit of funk. While nothing particularly bad happened there were many frustrations and disappointments.

The miscarriage at the end of 2014 really took a lot out of me emotionally, then followed by a year of trying to get pregnant again, testing, medications etc. It was draining. Then added on top of that, getting two new accounts at work which increased my work load exponentially and about five months of constant stress (which probably didn't help the whole baby making).

There were definitely some bright spots last like the birth of my niece/god-daughter Violet, taking a wonderful beach trip in August and pretty much any time I got to spend with my husband and son, those two keep me sane.

So what have we been up to over the past year:

We've done some work on our house, made a few minor, but much needed updates and have plans to do even more this year. We've switched out light fixtures, replaced our dryer, replaced our fence, redid our stairs/walkway outside and painted the outside of the house. Even though this isn't my dream house we don't have plans to move anytime soon so we may as well make it as nice as we can in the time we are here. We are hoping to have our master bathroom renovated in the next month or so, as soon as we can get our butts in gear and pick out all the material.

As I mentioned work has been insane and I also decided this year to become a Beachbody coach, primarily for the discount and to keep myself accountable with my eating and working out and I must say it has helped. I worked out more last year than in years past and got in better shape. I was also able to help many friends and made some extra money so win-win.

Hunter has continued to be awesome, he's in the PREP/Pre-K3 program at school and is doing so well. Everyday he surprises me with something new that he's learned. He's a complete sweetheart and charms everyone he meets (much like his daddy).

Kristian and I are better than ever, we've been married over 5 years and everything is still pretty great. Yes we have our disagreements but we've learned pretty well how to manage those. He's been busy this year with hunting and fishing and his new hobbies of metal detecting, trapping (beavers in the river) and making knives. He's a man of many talents and doesn't like to be bored.

So that's that, I'm hoping to be a bit more consistent again with posting but no guarantees. I plan to post when I have the desire or have something specific to write about which could be a few times a week or a couple times a month.

In the meantime if you want to follow me on Instagram, where I post more regularly, you can find me at sep0522.

LIfe Updates

First of all I want to thank everyone that commented and reached out after my last post. It was very comforting hearing all of your kind words and best wishes. The past couple months have definitely had their ups and downs and admittedly I've been quite a funk of just not really having much motivation to do anything. The time of year, right after the holidays, along with the depressing winter weather and seemingly constant sickness that we've dealt with hasn't helped my mood much either.

But slowly and surely I seem to be coming out of it. The longer days and steadily increasing temperatures are definitely helping. And despite dealing with the loss I had in December and my yearly case of winter blues I did have quite a few fun and happy moments over the last couple of months. 

In January we took Hunter to his first Monster Truck Jam. Hunter has been OBSESSED with Monster trucks for close to a year and even watches videos on YouTube so when we saw one was coming to DC we knew we HAD to take him. And he had a great time, though admittedly I think Kristian had even more fun. He did get a bit scared at one point when he took of his headphones and realized how loud those trucks actually are. 

Kristian and I also had a very nice date night courtesy of my company's belated Holiday dinner/party at The Capital Grille which is a very nice restaurant with amazing food. We had such a wonderful night full of good food and lots of laughs with my coworkers. 

In February we celebrated Valentines Day with a nice, quiet evening at home. We dropped Hunter off at my mom's house for his first solo overnight visit and they both had a blast. Not having him home made the house very quiet and bit a strange but it was also nice to be able to sleep in the next morning. 

We've had quite a few snowstorms this winter which has thrilled Hunter. He just loves the snow and could stay out playing for hours. I actually didn't mind the few snow days I had home with him either. 

Easily the highlight of the past two months was the birth of my new niece!! Miss Violet Christine was born on March 5th, five days past her due date and the day after her daddy's birthday, during a snowstorm! We all had a feeling once we saw the weather forecast that's when she would decide to arrive and we were right. Luckily they made it to the hospital safely and she arrived about 5 hours later. My brother and sister-in-law didn't know the sex but we were all thrilled to find out they had a little girl who is named after my grandmother (Violet) and her mommy's middle name (Christine). The best part is they live right up the street from me so I've been able to get baby snuggles often.

Hunter was so excited to meet his baby cousin the day after she was born. He did so well and was very gentle with her. It was a bit surreal being back in the hospital where he was born now three years later. In fact they were in the room right across the hall from mine. 

In other big milestone news, Hunter had his first dentist appointment on St. Patrick's Day (the practice we took him too doesn't take patients under 3) and he did AWESOME! I was so proud of how brave he was. He didn't cry or get scared, in fact he seemed to really enjoy the whole process. It helped having one of our friends as his dental hygentist, oh and the treasure chest at the end of the appointment may have helped a bit as well!

We don't have any major plans or events coming up in the next couple of months and to be honest I'm really happy about that. Right now I really just want to focus on quality family time and spending as much time with Hunter as I can, he's growing up so fast and I really want to enjoy this time with him since I'm still hoping to one day add a little brother or sister to mix.