Pregnancy comparison

I'm halfway through this pregnancy. Yay! I've been thinking lately about how different this pregnancy has been from my first one. They say that no two pregnancies are alike, just as no two babies are alike, but I have to be honest--I kinda thought it would pretty much be the same experience the second time around. But it's not.

First off, the morning sickness has been waaaaay worse this time around. I thought I had it bad enough with Perrin, but at least with him it only lasted the first 13 weeks. Once I hit the 2nd trimester, I felt great--I had tons of energy, clear skin, a healthy appetite (maybe a little TOO healthy), and got lots of complements on how cute I looked with my pregnant belly. At this point, I'm still not feeling great (but I can at least choke down my breakfast and keep it down... progress!) So I guess the old wives tale that morning sickness is worse when you're carrying a girl is true for me. It's also an old wives tale that boys will give you beauty and girls will take it away. I won't go into my skin and hair issues, but I'm telling you... there's something to these old wives tales.

Another difference: With my first pregnancy, I felt Perrin moving pretty consistently throughout the day and night. That was a pattern that he started in the womb and continued as a newborn--wake, sleep, wake, sleep. As far as I can tell from Brielle, she's asleep all day and awake all night. Joy.

I've been reading back through some of my blogs from my first pregnancy, and I was a little surprised at how often I was blogging--at least once a week, or sometimes twice a week. It's not that this pregnancy has been less interesting to me or that I don't have any new thoughts to share, but since I have a toddler running around this house this time around, I'm just too busy! Example: A couple days ago, Perrin wandered into the spare room (soon to be his new bedroom) and found all of our puzzles and games that we were in the process of moving to a new location. I was busy answering some e-mails and didn't monitor him for about five minutes. Big mistake... in those five minutes, he managed to dump out two puzzles (one was 1000 pieces), an entire trivial pursuit game (all the cards and game pieces), a game of doodle dice (bunch of cards and dice), Lego Creationary (which has about a million tiny lego pieces) and some other assorted cards and instruction manuals. What took him five minutes to dump across the floor took me AGES to pick back up and sort into proper boxes. Who has time to blog about pregnancy with a two-year-old in the house?? (Reminds me of a quote I saw on Pinterest the other day: "Having a two-year-old is like having a blender with no lid.")

Bottom line: It's true--pregnancy is different the second time around. Here's hoping the labor and delivery are different, too... cuz 56 hours of labor is not something I want to relive.

It's a girl!

I guess I need to tell Perrin to watch out... a little sister is on the way! Yep, it's a girl! She looked healthy and active on the ultrasound, which is a huge relief because I haven't been feeling as much movement from her as I did from Perrin. Maybe she'll be a little more calm and snuggly than he is. I love my little boy and his bucket loads of energy, but sometimes I just want to cuddle!

Now that we know it's a girl, I guess it's safe to announce that we're naming her Brielle. Isn't that pretty? (And if you don't like it, I don't want to hear it!) Also, I might be a tiny bit further along in the pregnancy than we originally thought. My new estimated due date is Halloween. (Brielle, please don't be born on Halloween. Okeedokee?)

We're so excited to have a little girl, but I sort of feel like I'm becoming a parent for the first time all over again. I think if we'd found out it was a boy, I would have thought, "Okay, I know exactly what I'm doing. I've got this." But having a daughter is going to be brand new territory.  

Oh, well. I'm too happy to worry about that now. We're having a girl! We really are so blessed!