My Big Fat Belly 2.0 - 12 Weeks

How far along:  12 Weeks, 5 Days

Symptoms:  Symptoms have gone away for the most part, for now at least.  I have had to take a Zofran once or twice this week, but it was honestly preventative more than anything.  I could feel that I was about to get nauseous so I just took one ahead of time and it kept me from getting sick.  I still have to pee somewhat frequently but that won’t change.  The belly is baffling me.  Some days it’s like “holy cow you’re only supposed to be 12 weeks pregnant and you’re huge” and other days it’s like I’m not even pregnant. 

Maternity Clothes:  Still not needing them just yet.  I can still wear my normal jeans as long as I am using the rubberband trick.  Rarely use the belly band, but it just depends on the day and how bloated I feel and also what pants I’m wearing.  I have brought out my old size 6 jeans and can wear those without the belly band or the rubberband trick so I tend to do that because it’s the most comfortable, but I still wear the 4’s on those days above where it appears that I’m not even pregnant.  It’s starting to get warm outside and I never had a single pair of  maternity shorts when I was pregnant with Carter.  So I imagine that I will have to go buy some maternity shorts soon-ish.  Carter was born in December so by the time I was big enough to need maternity clothes, it wasn’t too hot anymore.  If it was, I wore a dress.  I also was working then so I got away with wearing dresses a lot.  Now a days, I doubt I will wear a dress just being around my house.

Weight Gain:  About 4 pounds (plus or minus a pound, depending on what I eat and when I weigh).  I’ve been at the hospital with my dad (long story but he’s ok) on and off for the past week and have been forced to eat crappy hospital food and there’s nothing relatively healthy about hospital food.  Hence the gaining a pound in one week.  However I’m still not even bothered by this which is weird because with Carter I was literally STRESSING over my weight gain.  At this exact day, I’m 11 pounds less than I was with Carter at 12 weeks 6 days.  And still even about 6 pounds less than I was the day I got a positive pregnancy test with Carter.  So basically, I’m pretty stoked about weight right now.

Sleep:   Sleep is good most days.  On the days it’s not good, it’s not because of pregnancy, it’s because of sinus infections.  I have this sinus infection that I have had since November.  Seriously.  I have been given antibiotics by my general doc twice.  The first time they didn’t really work so months later I came back.  That’s when he gave me a stronger antibiotic and a steroid pack.  That was also when I found out I was pregnant with this baby and my OB said no to both meds.  So here I am with a sinus infection that chooses what day it wants to make me miserable.

Cravings/Aversions:   None that I’ve noticed.  My eating is relatively normal these days.  I do think I crave fruits a lot more than I normally did.  It’s not too unusual though.  I ate lots of fruit before, I’m just eating a lot more of it now.  Thankfully the carbs cravings have gone away.

Gender:  Still thinking pink, but obviously will be thrilled for either.

Exercise Routine:   My exercise routine took a backseat this week with me going to the hospital so much to be with my dad.  I went from 5-6 days a week to about 3 days a week, which still isn’t bad.  It’s giving me some nice resting time.  But I need to kick it back up before I go from 3 days to 0 days!

What I Miss:  Nothing right now!

What I’m Looking Forward To:   The next appointment is our 16 week appointment and that will be May 18th.  After that is the big ultrasound where we’ll find out the gender and that will be May 30th.  And yes, we’re planning another gender reveal party.  I loved Carter’s gender reveal party and I am really excited to involve Carter in this party!

Who Knows:  Everyone. Now that we’ve had our 12 week appointment and everything looked great, we felt much more comfortable telling the social media world.  We announced it on facebook on Friday, April 18th (the day of our appointment) and put it up on the blog the very next day.

Pictures:  Here I am at 12 weeks 3 days (Easter to be exact):

Yes, I need a tan.  Working on it.

My Big Fat Belly 2.0 - Weeks 8-11

How far along:  Weeks 8-11

Symptoms:  Nausea peaked at week 8.  Justin and Carter and I were supposed to go to Pensacola to visit Justin’s grandparents and the night before we were leaving, I had a date with our bathroom floor from about 1-3am.  Needless to say, a 4 hour car drive wasn’t in my future, so I stayed home while they went to Florida.  Week 8 was so bad in the nausea department that I finally caved and called my doc to get some zofran.  It helped  A LOT.  The nausea even started to decrease at the end of week 9 and I only needed the zofran every other day or so.  With Carter, my predominant symptom at this point was just sheer exhaustion.  I was sleepy ALL the time.  That’s not really the case with this pregnancy.  I think it may be  because I work out 5-6 days a week this time and with Carter I barely worked out.   By the end of week 11, the nausea was almost non-existent.  THANK GOD.  Other symptoms – boobs still hurt like crazy, peeing more than usual but not too frequently, the insane hunger has decreased a bit, and I’m starting to have those round ligament pains if I stand up too quickly or turn too sharply.

Maternity Clothes:  I’m still baffled by this.  Not only am I not wearing any maternity clothes yet, but I also still very rarely wear the belly band.  I usually wear it with my nice pants that I wear to church, but that’s about it.  My jeans still fit decently, though they are starting to get snug, but usually I can just use a ponytail holder to loop around the button to fix that.  At this point with Carter, I was consistently wearing the belly band because none of my pants fit and starting in week 12 with him, I stuck to dresses and skirts.  I just always thought you showed so much sooner with a 2nd one.  I experienced that around week 9 in this pregnancy and was shocked when I started showing, but then I didn’t grow very much from there and I even think that some of that was just the bloating you experience in the first trimester and to some extent, it went away after a couple of weeks.   

Weight Gain:  So far a little over 3 pounds.  The nausea isn’t really helping with this.  If I begin to feel nauseous, I try to eat something with carbs and that helps a lot in the throwing up department…but not so much in the weight gain department :(  I was so obsessed with my weight gain with Carter but after having lost one baby back in December, I will say that I could hardly careless about how much weight I gain.  Trust me, that doesn’t mean I’m eating everything in sight.  I’m a healthy person and stick to healthy foods for the most part.  I just don’t beat myself up if I want mexican one night and a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream another night.  During week 11 with Carter I was only up two pounds but I’m still ok with that because my overall weight is still about 9 pounds less than it was with Carter at 11 weeks.

Sleep:  Sleep is relatively normal right now.  No major issues other than just peeing in the middle of the night.  Sometimes I use unisom, sometimes I don’t.  Just depends on how tired I am.  I will say that it’s starting to get harder to wake up early to workout.  I just have to force myself to do it.  But sometimes I will cave and just lay in bed and watch some TV.

Cravings/Aversions:  My hunger is higher than the non-pregnant version of myself, but I try to control cravings and not give in all that often.  Pre-pregnancy, I’d eat a small meal every 3 hours, but now I’m eating about every 2-2 1/2 hours.  If I’m eating that often, I try to make it lower calorie snacks.  This “being hungry extremely often” phase started fading around week 11 and I’m getting back to normal eating now.

Gender:  Still thinking pink, but will be ecstatic for either.  There’s pros for both genders honestly.  With pink, I can finally have a girl to teach to dance and wear hair bows.  And seriously, who doesn’t want one of each?  My husband-that’s who.  He wants a house full of boys to outnumber me.  With blue, I’ll never have to buy clothes!  He could have all Carter’s old clothes and his old toys.  Recycling would be key!  And lots of people see me as a mom of boys.  Maybe because I’m not extremely girly.  Either way, I will be happy just to have this sweet baby in my arms.

Exercise Routine:  Same as before.  Usually go to one Pure Barre class a week, one Mommy & Me Time Fitness class a week (I can bring Carter to these so it’s convenient) and I do a P90X workout at home about 3-4 days a week.  Yes, that means I workout about 5-6 days a week.  I didn’t really workout much with Carter at all.  All of this is much easier now that I stay at home!

What I Miss:  I wasn’t expecting this with a pregnancy with a 2nd child, but I miss picking up Carter whenever I want.  I know I’m only 11 weeks along now, but Carter weighs over 30 pounds.  I can’t just pick him up and swing him in the air to play with him anymore because I get those round ligament cramps.  And soon, I’m going to miss the crib, because Carter will have to go to a toddler bed in about a month or two.  I can’t keep bending over the crib rail to get him out with a belly!  Trying to hold out on getting the big boy bed until we know the gender of this baby.  What we will do is move Carter’s crib and his changing table to the baby’s room (most likely will be painted, particularly if it’s a girl) and we will buy Carter his own toddler bed.  We have seen one at Buy Buy Baby that we like and we will let Carter pick out his own bedding sheets, though Justin and I already know which one he will pick.  There’s one on display there that is of Elmo and Cookie Monster as firemen with a fire truck.  100% sure he’ll pick that one.

What I’m Looking Forward To:  Our next appointment is April 18th and that’s our 12 week appointment so I’m really looking forward to hearing the heartbeat on the Doppler.  I told Justin we can announce on social media outlets once we’ve heard the heartbeat again at that appointment.  Some of my family members are getting impatient with us keeping it on the down low but I know they understand why that’s important to us.

Baby Size:  During week 11, baby was the size of a lime!

Who Knows:  Most of our close  friends and family and our church know by now.  I haven’t exactly been calling people up that I don’t see on a normal basis and telling them though, so there are a few people that we still need to inform.  Basically we’ve been rolling with the “if we see you in person, we’ll tell you, but if we don’t see you often enough, you probably don’t know yet”.

Other Comments:  I got my fetal Doppler back that I lent to a friend during her pregnancy because I wanted to see if I could hear the heartbeat.  I tried it at 10 weeks and 1 day but heard nothing other than my heartbeat and the placenta.  With Carter, I first heard his heart beat at 12 weeks on my own Doppler, but that was because that was when I ordered it on Amazon.  Supposedly you can hear it on a Doppler at 10 weeks, so I gave it a shot at 10 weeks 1 day.  I didn’t hear anything (and surprisingly I didn’t freak out about it).  I waited another couple of days before trying again.  At 10 weeks 4 days I heard that precious sound!!!  I was so grateful and prayed my thankfulness to God as soon as I heard it.  I’ve been able to hear it every day since then which has been a nice convenience for someone who has experienced loss. 

Pictures:  I began taking pictures at 9 weeks because that was when I noticed a small bump.  Here I am at 9 weeks.  And Justin was out of town a lot of these weeks so I just took bathroom selfies…sorry.  I am an avid hater of selfies, but at least these selfies serve a purpose!  I thought to myself “holy cow if I look like this at 9 weeks, what will I look like at 12?!?!?”  Well there wasn’t much change between 9 and 12 weeks but here you go for comparison:

And at 10 weeks:

 

And finally at 11 weeks:

So as you can see, not a huge difference in the three weeks.  I guess I see more of a difference in week 11, but still not a big difference at all. 

#60 - Carter’s 2nd Birthday Party

Number 60 on my 101 List was to throw and even more memorable birthday party for Carter this year than we did last year.  I loved Carter’s party last year, but let’s be honest.  He will never remember it (he won’t really remember this one either though) because 12 months old is just so young, but at 2 years old….it was FUN watching Carter play at his party this year.  We had a bouncy house that he was obsessed with and Justin crawled in there with him most of the time.  He had so much fun!!!

This year, well last year technically, Carter’s birthday fell on the actual day of his birthday party.  December 28th was the day he came into the world and it was the day we celebrated him turning 2!!!  Carter loves….I mean LOVES the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street.  So I made his birthday party theme all about Cookie Monster.  I even ordered me a Cookie Monster shirt to wear during the party!

How cute is his shirt?!?!  Got it off Etsy…so perfect for the occasion!

Edgar’s Bakery did his cake.  LOVED it!

 

Just a few of my favorite girls!

We had the party in the gym at our church.  We rented a bouncy house and it was a total hit!

Sesame Street goody bags for the kiddos!

Probably should have put the cookies where he couldn’t reach them!

How sweet are they?!?!  This is Hilly (short for Hilary).  She’s the daughter of a girl I used to work with.  Both are beautiful blonde hair blue eyed babies!

            

It was a great day and we are so grateful for friends and family that love Carter as much as they do and showered him with gifts.

First Ultrasound

**Actually written on March 21, 2014**

My first ultrasound was scheduled for March 21, 2014.  I was a NERVOUS WRECK.  My pulse was racing pretty much all the way to the doctor’s office until I was done with the ultrasound.  We were the only ones in the waiting room when we got there so I was hopeful we wouldn’t have to wait long and we didn’t!  A sweet young girl came back and got us and told us she’d be doing our ultrasound.  I went back in the room and she asked me how far along I was and I told her I was supposedly 7 weeks and 5 days.  She told me she would attempt the ultrasound from the top of my stomach and see what we could see/hear and she would do it vaginally if she had to. 

When I was laying on the table I informed her of our last pregnancy that ended.  I told her to please not keep me waiting and to tell me as soon as she saw anything.  She agreed.  She put the wand on my belly and it felt like 3 seconds and she said “I see a heart beat!”.  I said “really?!?!?!” and she said yes.  I immediately started crying.  She had to stop the ultrasound to hand me some tissues. 

She told me to give her a few minutes to take the measurements and everything she needed to do and then we’d try to hear the heartbeat.  She told us we were actually right at 8 weeks, so a couple of days further along than we thought.  She told me the due date would be October 31st.  Halloween.  How incredibly perfect the timing!  Clearly Justin and I aim for holiday babies :)

We finally got to hear the heart beat and I could barely hold it together.  I was so happy and immediately thanked God for answered prayers.  The heart rate was 155 beats per minute and she said that was great for 8 weeks.  She gave us several pictures and pointed us to my OB doctor.  I gave my urine sample and got the “congrats you’re pregnant-here’s what to do” interview from his nurse.  Then we went back into his office.  I didn’t realize he’d want to do a full yearly exam, so I sent Justin back to the waiting room because let’s face it….that’s just awkward!

Dr. H came in and he was so happy for us that not only was the baby in the uterus this time (the last pregnancy was ectopic and it was in the fallopian tube), but that we’d heard a good strong heartbeat.  He was impressed by the rate and said that 155 was really good.  He said “I never say never, but most of the time you’re in the clear after we hear a heartbeat”.  I know all about the “never say never” part because I know plenty of people that have lost babies after hearing a heart beat.  It’s why we are choosing to not say anything publicly about this pregnancy until after the next appointment at 12 weeks. 

This next part may be TMI, so sorry!  Probably the funniest part about the exam was when he was examining the lady lumps.  Remember in my 5-7 week post where I said that they were hurting so much worse than they were with my pregnancy with Carter?  Well I neglected to mention that they’ve grown a cup size already.  Seriously.  My doc did the exam and asked me “have you had breast augmentation?” I laughed and said “nope, they’re just huge and hard as rocks with this pregnancy!”  He laughed.  We decided it was perfectly fine to wait 4 weeks until my next appointment which would make me 12 weeks.  So we’re scheduled to see him again on April 18th at 8:45am.  If all goes well at that appointment, THEN we’ll announce the pregnancy on social media and the blog. 

After my meeting with Dr. H, I headed to the lab to give a crap ton of blood and then we were finally done.  I was so happy it was a good day.  We went back to my in-laws house to pick up Carter and then immediately took him over to my mom’s house (she didn’t know yet) and put him in his shirt we bought for him.  Here’s the thing about Carter’s shirt….

He had 2 big brother shirts.  The first one we got with the ectopic pregnancy.  It was Christmas time and I put him in the shirt and took him to visit my sister and her family in Tuscaloosa and was going to surprise them with him wearing the shirt.  They were surprised for sure and then we decided to take pictures of Carter in front of the tree.  I was going to use this picture to put in a frame and give it to the grandparents as a gift for Christmas.  Would have been a perfect Christmas surprise.  Unfortunately, that pregnancy didn’t make it that far, but I still showed our family and very close friends the picture.  That picture is below:

 

So when we got pregnant with this baby in February, I knew that I really didn’t want to use the same shirt.  Mainly because if we did, I didn’t know if the family and friends that saw the original picture would have thought that we were just trying to get some use out of the shirt or if we were trying to announce again.  Chances are, most people would have been afraid to say something because it was a sensitive subject so this is why I wanted to get a new shirt.  I ordered one from Etsy that even had the date on it so that there was no confusion.  That shirt is below:

**Note:  You’ll notice it says November instead of October.  Well, that’s because based on my last period, the due date was supposed to be November 2nd.  But after the ultrasound, it appeared we were further along than we thought and the date changed to October.  I don’t care.  I am NOT buying another shirt!**

Turns out I was right because when we did finally tell Justin’s parents, I didn’t have the new shirt yet, so we put Carter in the old shirt and took him over to their house.  Neither of them said anything for a good 30 minutes.  Finally, Gordon had enough and broke his silence and asked if the shirt was new.  Justin said “my God it took y’all forever to notice that!!”.  Debbie and Gordon both admitted that they noticed it almost immediately, but was afraid to say anything.  Just like I thought.  We finally told Gordon that it was an old shirt, but a new message.  They caught on to it and were very excited. 

So anyways, back to what I was saying before that tangent….we took Carter to my mom’s house and she took a while to figure it out but she finally did and gave me a hug and immediately started telling Justin that she was relying on him for it to be a girl!  My mom wants a girl so bad she can’t stand it.  The last girl she had was my niece Lydia and that was 6 years ago.  So she is VERY ready for a girl.

We are still in the process of telling our friends and family.  It’s a slow process, but we’re making our rounds.  I’m not really in a rush since I don’t intend to put anything out there on social media.  With Carter, I was so nervous that someone would see it on social media before I had a chance to tell them and I’m not worried about that this time.

A Quick Update to the 101 List

Lord have mercy….I can’t even remember the last time I looked at this list!!!  Epic failure on my part.  Well, I have 4 things to mark off that have been done for a while, I just haven’t been updating the blog.  You may see me post several blogs in the coming days.  I’m starting to get some energy back with this pregnancy and am finally finding time to make it happen!  Not only do I have to update this 101 List, but I still have to blog about Carter’s 2nd birthday party (can’t believe I forgot to do that) as well as Easter!

So here’s what I’m marking off this time from the 101 List:

Number 61 was to not have another kid during the time frame of this list.  This is pretty interesting.  The list expires on October 22, 2014 and I’m due on October 31, 2014.  So I think it’s safe to say I can mark this off.  Technically I could still deliver before then, but myself and my doctor thinks that is unlikely given that I went 40 weeks and 1 day before finally inducing Carter.

Number 79 was to go to an Alabama Football game.  I haven’t done this in forever but my friend Ashley and I did go to the Alabama vs. UT Chattanooga game.  Here’s a couple of pictures:

We met up with my niece and brother-in-law at my firm’s tailgate and hung out with them for a little while before going inside the stadium.  We had a great time.  Ashley was pretty pregnant at this point and I was completely impressed she walked as much as she did that day!

Number 82 was to go visit my friend Lillian in Nashville and meet her daughter Maggie.  When I put this on the list, Lillian hadn’t even had her second child, Miles.  So when Justin and I went to Nashville to visit some of our Sunday School class members that had just recently moved there, we also came to visit Lillian and it just so happened to be Maggie’s birthday party weekend.  So I got to see Lillian AND meet both Maggie and Miles! 

  

Sweet Miles slept during the entire party!  On the right is Maggie blowing out her candles at her cowboy themed birthday party!  Love them!!!!

Number 87 on my list was to read 30 of 66 books in the Bible.  I actually accomplished this a long time ago.  I’m now in the book of Romans, so I’m extremely close to being done with the entire Bible.  Well over halfway.  I can’t begin to explain how much I’m learning!

Number 89 was to work out at the gym for 5 days in one week.  Clearly I didn’t update this list since beginning my Advocare lifestyle change because I worked out more like 6 days a week starting in late summer/early fall 2013.  Been doing it that often ever since, even now that I’m pregnant.  I don’t go to a gym, but I still count it.  I do a P90X workout about 3-4 days a week and a Pure Barre workout one day a week and a Mommy & Me workout 1 day a week.  So I think I got this one covered.

I’ve got some more to mark off as well.  I’ll be marking off number 60 next, which was Carter’s 2nd birthday party and soon I’ll mark off number 39 which is to celebrate 5 years of marriage with Justin.  Our 5 year anniversary is in July :)

My Big Fat Belly 2.0 - Weeks 5-7

**Actually written on March 14, 2014**

Instead of doing each of these beginning weeks separately like I did with Carter’s posts, I decided to just put them all together because not much changes over these weeks.  I’ve copied the same categories as I had in my pregnancy posts with Carter into these as well, for my own comparison purposes.

I should start this first pregnancy post by telling a little bit of unknown information.   The whole purpose of these types of posts is for me to have something in 20 years to look back at and to remember what I felt when going through pregnancies with my children.  With this pregnancy in particular, it would be impossible to discuss how I feel without first sharing something that Justin and I went through in the journey to this baby. 

Sadly, Justin and I lost a baby before we became pregnant with this one.  We got pregnant in December 2013 and discovered that I lost it that same month.  After several blood tests to look at what my beta was doing, it was determined that I had an ectopic pregnancy.  These are extremely rare….about 1% of pregnancies are ectopic.  What it means is that the embryo never implanted in my uterus, but instead implanted somewhere else-likely in one of my fallopian tubes.  This is also a very dangerous type of miscarriage and most doctors want it to get taken care of immediately.  A D&C wasn’t an option for me because my beta was never big enough to determine via ultrasound where the embryo was located.  So instead, I had a methotrexate shot.  It’s the same medicine that they give chemo patients and it supposedly dissolves the embryo quickly.  I had one of these shots and then we did blood tests about twice a week until my beta went back to normal and I was no longer pregnant.  This process took about 4 weeks to complete.  I was devastated obviously, but I leaned on my trust in God and his plan for our family.  He knows way better than we do what our future holds and what is best for us. 

The doctor told us to wait a cycle before trying again, which we did.  We were also warned that the shot that I had could cause scarring in my tubes which could affect getting pregnant again.  I was so worried, but again, just let God take control of everything.  We tried again in February and were able to get pregnant that month.  I was shocked.  Basically, baby 2 and 3 were both conceived the first try.  Carter took about 3 months, so you can understand our shock when both of these pregnancies happened so quickly.  Anyway, the ordeal is over and done with and we are now pregnant again with a successful pregnancy (so far) and are almost out of the first trimester.  We are sad about what we lost and what could have been, but we are also very happy to have a healthy pregnancy in the works.  I just wanted to give at least the basics of what happened because that experience completely affected my feelings towards this pregnancy.  Ok now back to happier things…

How far along:  Weeks 5-7

Symptoms:  Frequent trips to the potty (Yes, I said potty.  I have a 2 year old).  During week 5 and the beginning of week 6, I got really tired at night but seemed to be fine during the day, however mid-way through week 6, I started being tired around the clock.  I’ve been doing my best to stay awake until 10 at night, but I tend to be completely asleep by 9pm.  Sore boobs happened around week 5 1/2 and they still hurt now-and in fact, I don’t remember them hurting this much with Carter.  It’s just downright painful right now (even at 12 weeks).  Other minor symptoms that I have noticed include my face breaking out around 6 1/2 weeks, increased sense of smell and some bloating.  Also the vivid CRAZY dreams began around 7 1/2 weeks.

Maternity Clothes:  Not yet.  I actually lent these out to my friend that’s having a baby boy in April.  I know you show much sooner with a subsequent pregnancy, but I’m still hoping to only need the belly band during the first trimester as opposed to actual maternity clothes.  Right now I’m still wearing my normal pants.  The good thing about my recent weight loss with Advocare is that I have plenty of pants that are size 6 and 8 that didn’t fit me anymore but I kept them, so that should help me in the department of not needing maternity clothes for a while.

Weight Gain:  About a pound and a half by the end of week 7.  My beginning weight with this pregnancy was a whopping 10 pounds less than what it was with Carter.  Thanks Advocare!  I weigh  myself everyday so honestly, it’s hard for me to tell how much I’ve gained.  If I eat really bad one day, I can gain up to 2 pounds, but if I eat really good another day, I could lose up to 2 pounds.  So my weight is honestly all over the place, but overall, I would say I’ve gained about a little over a pound thus far.

Sleep:  Not too bad.  Some nights I need unisom to help me stay asleep for longer periods of time (usually don’t have a problem falling asleep-only staying asleep), but for the most part I’m good without it.  This is different than with Carter.  The first several weeks with him I was popping unisom nightly because I could never fall asleep!

Cravings/Aversions:  Starting around week 6, I began to be hungry ALL. THE. TIME.  I was never like that with Carter.  When I did Advocare, I changed my eating habits to eating 5 small meals a day.  So I was eating every 3 hours or so.  That started being impossible by week 6.  It was more like I needed to eat every 2-2 1/2 hours or I was going to die of starvation.  I’m trying to eat good healthy stuff and for the most part I am, but I find that I am REALLY craving carbs and I’m not used to eating a bunch of carbs.  Even though I hate giving in to cravings, I find that if I eat a larger amount of carbs than usual, I’ll stay fuller longer.  For example, I just now drank my morning protein shake that usually holds me off a good 3 hours before I’m hungry again.  I drank it 15 minutes ago and my stomach is growling.  OMG!!

Gender:  Thinking pink this time around, but after what happened to us in our last pregnancy, I will be jumping through the roof for a healthy baby, no matter the gender.  Daddy desperately wants another boy.  Carter appears to think it’s a girl.  One day he told me that the bedroom across the way from his room was also “Car car’s room”, but I had to tell him that the room would one day be baby brother or baby sister’s room.  He said it was “baby seesta’s room” and has been saying that ever since.  I’ve also had to tell him to not bounce on mommy’s tummy because we have to be gentle since baby brother or sister’s in there.  He points to it and says “baby seesta in there”.  He also will just randomly say “baby seesta” when we talk about various things.  So clearly he thinks it’s a girl.

Exercise Routine:  My exercise routine is so much better than it was with Carter at this stage.  With Carter, it was April, right after my busy season during which I worked out ZERO.  Since I have no busy season as a stay at home mom, I’ve been able to keep up my workout routine.  I workout about 5-6 days a week.  I go to a Pure Barre class one day a week and the rest of the days is P90X workouts.  Don’t worry, I modify my workouts as needed for this stage which honestly isn’t much.  As I get out of the first trimester I won’t be doing abs laying on my back so I’ll have to switch that stuff up and come up with new stuff.  I’m not running only because it’s just not convenient for me.  With P90, I can do it at home while Carter sleeps but if I wanted to run, I’d have to have someone watch Carter.

What I Miss:  Not much.  I’m good right now :)  I could do without the worry.  I pray about peace often and I do think God delivers.  I’m not worried 24/7 anymore, especially since our last appointment where I did bloodwork (see Other Comments section below).  But naturally, like any other mom that’s had a previous miscarriage, I still worry a lot.  I honestly don’t know that will get better when I hear a heartbeat though.  I think this miscarriage may have left a permanent scar on me and I will always have a level of worry until I’m holding this baby in my arms.  But maybe I’m wrong and maybe once I hear a heartbeat I will have no more worry and an abundance of peace.  The whole “get past the first trimester and you’re in the clear” thing means nothing to me because I now have TWO friends that have both lost babies in the third trimester and had to deliver stillborns.  I struggle with my worry about these kinds of things.  I even feel like a bad Christian because I should be trusting God and have no worries.  One day I read something that made me feel better about my worrying.  I can still trust God and his plan and have a healthy amount of fear for the safety of my unborn child.  What happens will be his plan and I trust that his plan is better than mine, but it doesn’t take away my motherly instinct of worry.  I’m working on it though.  It’s a daily struggle, but my prayers for peace of mind do seem to help.

What I’m Looking Forward To:  Our ultrasound is scheduled for Friday, March 21st at 10am (as of now that would make me 7 weeks, 5 days-though that will change once we measure baby) so I’m certainly looking forward to hearing a heartbeat.  Fingers crossed and prayers lifted!

Milestone:  We now have eyes, ears, knees and toes!!!

Who Knows:  My 5-7 week posts from Carter have big huge paragraphs in this section.  Not so much this time.  The ectopic pregnancy scared me into trying not to even think about this pregnancy.  If I told people about it, I would allow myself to plan.  To get excited.  So I opted to keep it a secret and only tell an extremely small handful of people until we heard a heartbeat.  Even when/if we hear a heartbeat, we still won’t tell social media until we hear it again at the next appointment on the doppler at around 12 weeks.  Sorry blogland, but that means that assuming everything is fine, you’re reading this 5-7 week belly update and really I’m already close to 13 weeks pregnant now.

Other Comments:  I found out I was pregnant several days before leaving to go to Israel.  I didn’t call my doctor immediately because it wouldn’t change anything.  I planned to call him when I came back.  I called to make an appointment when I was in the Newark airport on my way home and they wanted to see me that day.  Immediately.  I had to break it to them that it would have to wait until the next day, Friday March 7th, because I was traveling all day on the 6th.  I went without Justin because he had to work and since we hadn’t told his parents at that point, I didn’t want to lie to them just for him to be there.  So I did have company, but my company was a blonde 2 year old.  He was a hit :)  They didn’t do an ultrasound because we wouldn’t have seen much so instead we drew my beta and progesterone.  They said they would call me when the results came in. 

With the ectopic pregnancy, my beta was never over about 128.  Beta numbers should be significantly higher during a pregnancy.  Also, my progesterone was very low during that pregnancy as well (apparently the progesterone number can usually determine if the pregnancy will be successful or not-if it’s too low, you are likely to miscarry).  So naturally I was freaking out about the results.  My doctor called me Friday afternoon and informed me that my beta was 11,900 and that my progesterone was 21 and that they were both very great numbers and indicated a healthy pregnancy.  MUSIC TO MY EARS. 

Picture:  No pictures for these weeks.  I am not showing yet obviously.  Even for a 2nd child it’s still too early.  I will start taking pictures when I feel like I can notice a difference.  With Carter that was around week 11, but I know it will be sooner with a subsequent baby.

Israel - Day 7

On day 7, we stayed within Jerusalem and started seeing a lot of things that took place during the Holy Week (Jesus’ last week of his life).

This is what is left of the Pool of Betheseda.  This pool is where many people that needed healing went into in hopes of the waters healing them.  Jesus told many of the people he healed to get into its waters.

The next several pictures were taken inside the Fortress of Antonia.  This is the location for where Jesus’ trial in front of Pilate took place.  The picture below is of us on the main level talking with our guide.  This level was added on way past Jesus’ time.  But then we went downstairs to the bottom floor where the floor was the ACTUAL floor that Jesus stood on when he was sentenced by Pilate.

We were reading the scriptures about this last trial.

Standing where he stood.  There are no words!!

 

Gorgeous artwork depicting Jesus’ walk on the Via Dolorosa.

This is the Via Dolorosa.  It’s the pathway through the city that Jesus walked from Pilate’s palace to Calvary where he died on the cross.

There are various “stations” of the Via Dolorosa.  Something different happened at each station.  This one for example was where Simon the Cyrene helped Jesus carry his cross.

Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  GORGEOUS church.  This is the church that was built on top of the land that marks where Jesus was crucified, buried and where he was resurrected.

The place that marks the spot where Jesus was crucified is covered in brass lamps and very ornate light fixtures.  It’s almost hard to imagine this being the spot where he died because it’s too “pretty” in my opinion.

This is the alter that you kneel down into to pray or just to reach your hand into that little hole to touch what’s left of the rocky grounds that Christ was crucified on.  Getting to this alter was like standing in line at a ride in Six Flags.  There were TONS of people waiting for the exact same thing.

An overall look at the alter from a distance.

 

This is the Church of the Resurrection.  It’s like a church within a church, I know.  But it is the spot where Jesus’ body was carried and laid to rest.  You had to wait in another one of those “Six Flags” type lines to get inside.  This place was extremely small.  When you walked into the main door, you entered a small room that could fit maybe 10 people.  You waited there some more while 4 people at a time went through a very small opening into the tomb where Christ was buried and later resurrected.

This is that tomb.  Where the round thing holding the several candles is….that’s where Jesus body was laid.  Only 4 people could fit into this place at a time but we all went inside and were able to kneel down on the floor and put our hands on the tombstone where his body lay and prayed.  It was such a surreal experience.  The experience only lasted about 30 seconds because that’s how long it took for the priest standing outside in the main room (the one only 10 people could fit into) and he would bang his hand on the wall saying “move along”.  That kinda killed the moment, not gonna lie.

This is THE stone that Jesus was chained to when he was flogged by the Romans. 

After quite an emotional morning, it was time for lunch.  Let me tell you something about the food in Israel.  They’re actually not bad.  I was shocked.  See, I’m a VERY picky eater.  I was worried about the food a lot.  But breakfast and dinner were buffets at the hotel and included any and everything you could imagine.  Lunches were on the go as we were out exploring.  Usually wherever we went knew we were coming and had two options ready for us, one of which was usually chicken related.  On Day 7, we went to a place and went to get in line and take a look at what they had….

 

Pizza, french fries and coke.  Americanized much???

Later that afternoon a few of us went back into the Holy City just to walk around and try to see some things we didn’t see the first time we went as a whole group. 

RTR my friends!

Holy Rock Cafe….BAHAHAHAHA….this one had us laughing for a while!

Then we went back to the Western (Wailing) Wall.

 

 

Saying a couple of prayers at the wall that I had forgotten about the first time we went there.

This is just outside the temple.  They are called “ritual baths”.  It’s where people would come before entering the temple to be bathed so that they would be “clean” when entering the temple.

These are where the shops would have been where Jesus came and got so angry and turned the tables upside down.  He was mad because people were taking advantage of travelers that had come from far away.  They couldn’t bring their sacrificial animals from such a long distance, so they were forced to buy them once they got into Jerusalem.  The vendors took advantage of this and jacked up the prices in order to profit off of it. 

And finally, we made our way to the Teaching Steps.  This is a big staircase, but only the bottom six steps are truly authentic from Jesus’ day.  On Tuesday and Wednesday during the last week of Jesus’ life, he did a lot of preaching at the temple.  This is where that preaching was done.  The disciples along with anyone else that would listen would sit on these steps and listen to Jesus teach.

Me and my in-laws on the steps.

This truly was such an emotional day!  Next up is Day 8, our final day in Israel (the trip was 10 days total, but two days were spent traveling, so only 8 days of sightseeing).   On Day 8 we visited Ein Karem which is where John the Baptist was born and raised and also where Mary went to visit her cousin Elizabeth upon learning that she was pregnant with Jesus.  Good stuff on that day!