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!

Sweet or unsweet?

Perrin can be such a sweetheart. I love when he climbs up on the couch beside me, puts his head on my arm, and says, "Best friends." It's a good thing he has his sweet moments to make up for dumping cocoa powder all over the living room or for peeing on the floor at the library (yep, that happened recently. But that's another story for another day).

I keep wondering what he'll be like as a big brother. Will he be sweet to his little sibling? I hope so. But lately he's been climbing up on my stomach and saying, "Sit on baby." Probably not the best precedent to be setting. And he's incredibly jealous of other kids who try to climb into my lap or steal my attention.I worry that this will be a tough transition for him. On the other hand, he also kisses my tummy and says, "Wake up baby!" as if he just can't wait for the baby to come out and play.

So it'll be interesting to see if the baby brings out his sweet or spicy personality. Speaking of the baby, I'm 17 weeks pregnant now and I think I might possibly be past the awful morning sickness. At least I think I'm past the worst of it... I still have occasional nausea. But that's nothing compared to throwing up half the day. So, yay! AND... big news... we'll find out if we're having a boy or girl in a week and a half!!! I can't wait! Perrin keeps changing his mind about whether he wants a brother or sister. I'm not even completely sure he knows what those words mean. I asked him again a few minutes ago if he wants a brother or a sister. He said, "Brother, sister? Want toys."

Making room for baby

I'm 15 weeks pregnant. Still throwing up. :( On the up side, I'm starting to feel the faintest little flutters of movement. It makes the fatigue and nausea a teensy bit more tolerable. Well, as tolerable as puking up stomach acid can be.

Anyway, now that we're getting closer to the halfway point, I've been kind of freaking out because we still have SO much to do to get ready. Mainly, we have to clean out 29-year's worth of accumulated electronics, nerf guns, ugly robots, legos, and things that I can't identify from "the man cave"--previously known as Trey's room. It's been quite an experience going through everything. To give you an idea, I've compiled some statistics:

Number of toys in our house left over from my childhood: 0
Number of toys in our house left over from Trey's childhood: 5,397
Number of those toys covered in dog hair: 5,397
Number of those toys I've managed to sell so far: 3

So as you can see, we still have a long way to go before the room will be ready for Perrin. Aside from getting rid of stuff, we also have to paint, recarpet, set up a new bed for Perrin, and move all his furniture and toys. And THEN we can do some work on the nursery to get it ready for the next baby.

So, sweet little baby #2, I really need you to stop making me throw up so I can get some stuff done. Okay? Okay.

Pregnancy update--12.5 weeks

I'm nearing the end of the first trimester. Yay! I'll be 13 weeks on Saturday, which is right around the time I stopped having morning sickness when I was pregnant with Perrin. I am PRAYING the same is true for this pregnancy. The puking started earlier with this one and has been a little more intense, so I'm ready for some relief.

I've been taking zofran some just to get me through the day, but I've tried all the natural remedies too. Crackers (threw 'em up), ginger ale (threw it up), ginger snaps (threw 'em up), etc etc. Who would have thought the quickest way to get rid of those stubborn extra 5 pounds I was holding on to from my first pregnancy was to get pregnant again??

I know I'm being whiny and ungrateful. I'm really, really happy to be pregnant and to add to our family. But I am soooo tired. And sick. And I just want to be able to eat without gagging.

Okay, whining over. Happy thoughts: Perrin likes to poke my belly and say, "Hi, baby!" Then he'll blow bubbles on my stomach and say, "Wake up!" What a good big brother he is. :) I've asked him several times if he wants a baby to come live with us. He nods his head and says, "Yes!" My mom asked if the baby could wear his Toy Story flip flops. He got a really concerned look on his face and said, "No! My shoes!" So I guess he's okay with a baby coming to live with us as long as it doesn't steal his shoes.

Happy Easter!

I love Easter. Now that Perrin is 2, I can teach him a little about the meaning of Easter and why we celebrate Christ's resurrection. I love the colored eggs and chocolate and Easter eggs hunts too... but it was fun to spend some time with Perrin all week learning the Easter story through toddler-friendly activities (FamilyLife's Resurrection Eggs are awesome, by the way.)

This morning, I decided to continue building on what we've learned this week by making "resurrection rolls" for breakfast. I got the idea from Pinterest. Basically, you take a marshmallow that represents Christ's body, and you dip it in butter and cinnamon and sugar to represent the oil and spices that were used to anoint the body. Then you put the marshmallow into crescent roll dough (symbolizing the tomb) and close it tight. When you cook it, the marshmallow is supposed to melt and disappear so that you're left with an empty "tomb" when you bite into the crescent roll. Nifty idea, huh?

Well, it would have been if it had worked. The marshmallows we used weren't technically fresh... they had condensed a bit and were a little tough and chewy. That's probably why the metaphorical body of Christ, instead of disappearing, puffed up to about ten times its normal size and then slowly began oozing out of the "tomb." Not exactly useful for explaining the story of Easter.

Oh well. It tasted good anyway. And Perrin had fun dipping the marshmallows with me and babbling: "Jesus. Tomb. Empty. Candy!" I suppose that's a pretty good toddler summary of Easter.

Here we go again...

I've been pondering a question in my mind for the last few days: If you win the jackpot, do you keep playing the lottery? No, Trey and I haven't taken up gambling. I'm way too cheap for that. I'm thinking about it in relation to having kids. Perrin is so perfect (temper tantrums and affinity for mud puddles aside) that I really do feel like we won the jackpot with him. I love him to death; he's healthy, happy, funny, smart, cute, brave... everything I could have ever dreamed for in a child.

Here we are, pregnant again! Now that I know how awesome parenting can be, I'm really excited to add to our family and have another sweet baby to cuddle and love. But... is it possible that we could really be blessed with TWO perfect children? I don't want Baby #2 to ever feel like he/she has to live up to some impossible standard set by our wonderful first child. But come on... Perrin is pretty stinking awesome.

It also just occurred to me that Baby #2 might read this blog someday and wonder if we really do love him/her as much as we love Perrin. Well, dear Baby #2, let me just say that we already love you with our whole hearts and can't wait to meet you. We know you and Perrin will have very different strengths and personalities, and we are so excited to learn all about you! Yes, your older brother is amazing. But you are too. Also, you're making me throw up an awful lot right now but I love you anyway. You're totally worth it. Doesn't that make you feel good?