First, let me just say that I totally thought I was 24 weeks pregnant today. It wasn’t until I got through writing this whole post and started adding photos in that I realized that I am, in fact, only 23 weeks pregnant. SONOFABITCH. And hahahahaha. What a “third pregnancy” thing to do. Although reading back through my posts recapping my pregnancy with Vivienne, I apparently did the same thing at one point with her, too. Oops. But seriously, what a kick in the ass that is. Ugh. ANYWAY…

After the challenges of the first trimester, I welcomed the second trimester with open arms. For the first part of it, I wouldn’t have even known I was pregnant anymore if it hadn’t been for the fact that my belly popped out so quickly.

Oddly, I didn’t feel distinct movement from the baby until probably around 17 weeks, which was later than I felt both Nora AND Vivienne. My doctor said that perhaps I had an anterior placenta, but I was pretty sure that the ultrasound tech at my NT scan had told me my placenta was at the back. My OB was surprised by this—said it wasn’t in the report, and that they usually don’t check for placenta positioning until the anatomy scan—but I was feeling 95% sure she had said that to me, so I didn’t think that was it (and, for the record, it wasn’t it. It was confirmed at 19 weeks that yes, the placenta is in the back). We also know that the baby is not small or anything, so I don’t know. Calmer baby this time around? Now that I AM feeling it on a regular basis, it certainly doesn’t seem like it. :) Anyway, that made me a little nervous during that stretch, but sure enough, I soon started feeling the regular kicks and pops and I now (at 23 weeks) feel them several times a day. I even feel them while driving or standing sometimes, which I feel never happened with the other two—if I was on the move, I didn’t feel THEM move. So strange that it’s different.

{15 Weeks}

Also different this time around: The baby is measuring a bit ahead of schedule—in both ultrasounds (12 weeks and 19 weeks) AND my first fundal height measurement as well. This is weird for me because my girls were always right on target in the ultrasounds. And I’m curious to see what happens with my fundal height measurement as we go along, because historically, I always start measuring small around 30 weeks and the gap keeps growing from there (for instance, with Vivienne, I was measuring 4 centimeters behind by the time she was born). I had to have extra growth ultrasounds with both girls but it was always determined that I just “hide them well.” This time, I feel like I’m not hiding ANYTHING. For some reason, I just feel enormous. But, looking back at my posts with my two previous pregnancies, I see that I was complaining of the same thing around this same time. Soooo apparently that’s normal. Ugh.

{18 Weeks}

Speaking of feeling enormous, I’ve gained more weight this time, too. Thus far, I think I’m up 14-15 pounds total, which is definitely more than at the same time with both of my previous pregnancies. I can’t really go by the weight gain with Vivienne’s pregnancy, though, since I had the appendicitis and subsequent weight loss due to not being able to eat for 8 days. But in the end, I “caught up” and gained the exact same amount in total as I did with Nora’s pregnancy—26 pounds. Accounting for about a pound a week and the fact that I have 17ish weeks to go, I am on track to gain more weight with this one. I’m blaming my 33-year-old metabolism. And thinking maaaybe these are all signs this baby is a boy. :)

{19 Weeks}

What’s frustrating about the weight gain, though, is that this is also the only pregnancy where I’ve stuck to any exercise beyond walking. I’m still going to CrossFit three days a week, and hope to do so through the end—I’m just modifying different movements and taking more breaks/aiming for less intensity than usual. Anyway, it’s weird. I’m trying not to let it get to my head too much.

Eating wise, I go back and forth from having days/weeks when I am absolutely starving on a constant basis to having days/weeks when I feel full ALL OF THE TIME. I’m currently having one of the latter, it’s weird. Any time I do eat, it feels like my stomach is stretching beyond capacity and I feel so uncomfortable afterward. What gives?

The anatomy scan at 19 weeks was fun. It happened to be scheduled for the week between Christmas and New Year’s, so we had the girls home with me on the break. We decided to take them with us to the ultrasound for a peek at their baby brother or sister. Nora was fascinated for maybe five minutes and then was over it. Vivienne was not fascinated at all, except with attempting to turn the lights back on in the room. Oy. Thankfully, Michael was able to rein her in and we had a patient and understanding ultrasound tech.

The baby was moving around a lot and it is always just so cool to see all of the bones, the face, its “mannerisms.” The baby kept its one hand up by its mouth the majority of the time. We had to work to get him/her to move around a little bit so that the tech could get a good look at the lips/nose area to check for cleft palette. In the end, the tech got everything she needed and the report I received from my OB at my next appointment said that everything looked normal. Again, always a relief.

Back to movement for a second, Michael and Nora have both been able to feel the baby kick now. I’m feeling really good pops/kicks throughout the day, but particularly when I’m lying down. Over the weekend, I got up to go to the bathroom around 6:00 a.m. and was then kept awake by the baby repeatedly jabbing my right side.

{20 Weeks}

Sleep: It varies. Some nights I sleep so hard that I wake up uncomfortable because I didn’t change positions the entire night. Some nights I wake up several times to turn over (it’s a production at this stage—I have to bring my body pillow with me to the other side!). If I happen to roll over onto my back to sleep (normally a comfortable position for me), I will soon wake up in discomfort, which I guess is probably a good thing since I’m not supposed to be sleeping on my back anymore anyway. I can’t even really lie on the couch on my back (with my upper body propped up) for any length of time anymore, either. It’s all uncomfortable. Yay pregnancy.

My maternity wardrobe is abysmal right now. It’s like I’m trying to squeak by with as little as possible since I got rid of everything (plus, everything I had was for spring/summer anyway so wouldn’t be useful now). We are going to Florida in a few weeks and I have no freaking idea what I’m going to wear the entire time we’re there. Hopefully it’ll be warm enough for stretchy skirts and sporty elastic shorts paired with t-shirts that barely stretch over my belly. LOL.

{23 Weeks}

Nora and Vivienne know I have a baby in my belly. Nora mentions it occasionally but I think May still seems like a long way off for her so it’s still difficult for her to really wrap her head around at this point. Vivienne will point to my belly and say baby, and the other day she told us it is a “girl” when we asked her. But then tonight she told me it’s a boy. Anyway, I don’t think she has a good handle yet on the difference between boys and girls so she is not to be trusted. :) Nora is firmly in the camp of “it’s another girl”—I don’t know if that is instinct or if she just thinks that it is a girl because she doesn’t know any different than to have a sister. She told me recently, “Mommy, if we have a boy, it’s going to get crazy around here.” HAHAHA. I keep trying to warm her up to the idea of a brother, just in case. I tell her how helpful they are to have around, especially when you have a spider in your bedroom and you can call them in to kill it for you (something I always made my brothers do for me, hehe). For the record, I do think it’s a boy—but I also thought that Vivienne was a boy, so I’m unreliable. The surprise will be fun!

We have started to talk about names but we have not come to any real conclusions yet. Just tossing them around and mulling them over.

Really, though, I’m feeling good. It’s weird to think that at this point with Vivienne, I had just gone through a really horrible and scary experience and was still working on recovering. I never felt like I fully “recovered” from that surgery, like the rest of my pregnancy was just blah after that. So it’s nice not to be feeling that right now, obviously. When people ask me how I’m doing I say I’m in the honeymoon phase of pregnancy and this is just about as good as it’s going to get! Bracing myself for the downward spiral that comes with third trimester, haha.

It’s going by quickly but going by slowly, all at the same time. Seems even longer now that I know I’m 23 weeks instead of 24! It’s weird to think third trimester is just a few weeks away, but full-term and my due date seem so far off. There’s a lot more growing this baby has to do, and a lot more discomfort to be had on my part. I’ll just keep keepin’ on…

Boom. Just like that, I’m halfway through this pregnancy already. And I’ve barely written a thing about it so far.

It’s strange, because I definitely think about being pregnant on a daily basis—it’s always there, but it’s like it’s just part of life at the moment. Part of my body, just something that is constantly there, but sort of in the background while we deal with the hustle and bustle of kids (the ones on the outside), work, home, getting everyone where they need to be and when they need to be there.

So, my apologies go out to B3 (baby #3, get it? a little nickname!) in the future, that I haven’t focused as much on documenting his/her pregnancy as I did for the older sisters. With Nora, I diligently wrote every week from 16-39 weeks. With Vivienne, I skipped a few weeks here and there, but still managed to do a decent job, again from 16-39 weeks. Given that we’re now at 20 weeks and this is my first real pregnancy post for B3, I’m thinking my record will not be that stellar. I think it’s more a reflection of my general blogging habits now, though—I don’t often make the time to write about ANYTHING anymore. So, B3—don’t take it personally. :)

Before I try to get all on track by posting about my pregnancy right now, let’s back up a bit and talk about first trimester.

THE PHYSICAL

First trimester sucked. A general feeling of awfulness settled in around 5-6 weeks and stuck around until around 12 weeks, when I started to feel it lifting away. I think I was more nauseous this pregnancy than either of my others, though I remember Vivienne’s being pretty bad, too. But there was a lot of dry heaving going on this time. Never actually threw up, which has consistently been the case with all three pregnancies, but the gagging was fierce. My gag reflex is STILL a little oversensitive at times.

I remember one morning, right around 6 weeks, I was getting ready to head out for an early meeting with a client. I hadn’t eaten anything yet (big mistake) because breakfast was being served at the meeting. As I squatted down to hug Nora goodbye, I suddenly started gagging repeatedly over her shoulder. Actually had to run to the toilet for that one! Thankfully, my stomach was empty—which was causing the problem in the first place—so there was nothing to throw up. I inhaled a few pretzels and was able to go on with my day as usual. So weird.

Another source of nausea was strong smells in the morning. This is still an issue for me now, actually, but it seems to have at least improved. For instance, Nora will bring cheese, pepperoni, and crackers as part of her lunch sometimes. At some point, I found I could no longer stomach the smell of pepperoni when packing her lunch in the mornings. As soon as the bag was opened, one whiff and I was gagging uncontrollably. Same deal with putting dinners into the crockpot in the mornings—black beans, salsa, etc.—I just could not take it.

And to this day, I STILL gag most times when flossing my back teeth. Ugh. So yeah, all of that was not/has not been fun.

Other than that, there was fatigue. That’s still hanging around, actually, but has eased up substantially.

THE ULTRASOUNDS

I had two ultrasounds in the first trimester. One was done right around 6 weeks for dating and to check on a little bit of spotting. My cycles were a bit longer than “normal” when I got pregnant so it was good to have that early ultrasound—it moved my doctor-calculated due date (which they originally based on LMP) back by over a week. If we’re being precise, I actually think they moved it back a few days too far, but WHATEVER. It’s all just an estimate anyway, and I’d rather have it be a few days later than it’s “supposed” to be so no one is trying to induce me earlier than necessary,  if it comes to that. WHICH HOPEFULLY IT WON’T.

I will say, however, that the first ultrasound actually freaked me out more than it helped my mindset at that point because the baby was still basically unrecognizable to me as even a “bean” of an embryo, and although we were able to locate a heartbeat visually, it was too small/weak to get a reading on it. When I had early ultrasounds with the girls, both were done at 7 weeks and it is AMAZING how much those few days can make a difference. When I left the first ultrasound with B3, I was kicking myself for not insisting on waiting a few extra days so that it was all just a little more reassuring.

Alas, I managed to survive the anxiety of the first trimester and it was a huge relief to see B3 again at 12 weeks, for our NT scan ultrasound. Arms and legs and brain and beating heart. And measuring like a week ahead, by the way. Sweet, sweet relief.

KEEPING A SECRET

One thing we did entirely different this pregnancy was to keep it a secret from pretty much everyone until the second trimester. With Nora, the timing worked out (as far as seeing everyone in person) that we told our immediate families at 5 weeks, so really just a few days after getting a positive test. With Vivienne, I was coming off of an early miscarriage so I was a little more gun shy. Plus, we found out right after Thanksgiving, which meant we had just seen both sides of the family and wouldn’t again until Christmas. Naturally, Christmas seemed like a good time to tell everyone, so we held off for that. I was 8 weeks.

This time around, it felt so much more complicated. It wasn’t that we didn’t want to tell anyone—I really, REALLY did—but we had to take Nora into consideration. When I was pregnant with Vivienne, Nora was 2 and fairly oblivious to what was going on so it didn’t matter. This time, she’s 5 and we knew she would understand. And, fearing miscarriage, I did not want to have to try to explain a loss if that were to happen. It felt strange to think about telling our families on the D.L. and trying to keep it from Nora—we wanted her to be a part of it.

So, after some debate, we decided to wait. UNTIL THANKSGIVING. Again, we wanted to do it in person and we wanted to tell both sides of the family within a few days of each other, so Thanksgiving was going to be the first time that would be possible. I was actually already 14 weeks! And, if you have any experience with third pregnancies, you know that they are hard.to.hide. I was constantly wearing looser fitting shirts to hide the growing bump. It was torture not to even be able to tell my own mother! The plan was to tell Michael’s family on Saturday, November 21 (weekend before Thanksgiving), since that was when we were celebrating with them. Then we’d tell my family on the actual holiday.

We saw various members of our family and friends before Thanksgiving, though, so as it turned out, I had to do a lot of fake drinking. If I wasn’t “enjoying” a beer here and there, we knew it would raise questions right away. Our method was for me to take a beer and carry it around, pretending to sip. Michael would drink down half his own beer and then we’d inconspicuously switch bottles. Then we’d eventually switch again when his (well, mine) was empty. We were really clunky at it at first (and I had a hard time controlling my laughter during our switches!) but we got pretty darn good at it by the end. No one blew us in, and no one confessed afterward that they had noticed anything awry. *high five*

Nora seemed to pick up on the fact that something was going on, though. Michael and I were pretty careful about not talking about it around her, but there were a few times when she straight-up said something about a baby being in my belly. It was freaky. One time in particular stopped me in my tracks and nearly rendered me speechless.

One night after dinner, when I was around 12 weeks pregnant, Nora wanted to give me a bear hug in the kitchen. We were both standing, so she was basically hugging my waist and I was hunched over, hugging her from above. After we pulled away, she smiled at me and goes:

N: “Mommy, I just saw into your tummy. There’s a baby in there.”
I started uncontrollably laughing because I was so shocked. “You’re crazy,” I told her. I wasn’t going to lie to her and say no, but also did not want to deviate from the plan and confirm at that point (especially since Michael wasn’t even home). I was just trying to brush it off for now and make it into a silly thing.
N: (giggles a little, but insistent) “No really, I saw a baby in there.”

I started playing along a little and asking questions since she was starting to freak me out.

Me: “When? When did you see a baby in there?”
N: “It’s in there right now.”
Me: “How can you see inside my belly?”
N: (immediately) “Because I have super powers.”

You know that emoji with the big, wide eyes? Yeah. That was me. Kids’ intuition is scary, you guys. After that, I was so convinced that she *knew* somehow that I wondered if she would even be surprised when we did the big reveal.

FINALLY, THE REVEAL

Once we had the second ultrasound, I was bursting at the seams to tell everyone. Especially Nora and Vivienne. We had originally planned to wait until the day before we told Michael’s family, but I cracked the weekend before that. On that Sunday morning, November 15, we were sitting there in the living room and Michael and I managed to have a quick conversation about it even though the girls were right there. He was fine with telling them so we quickly got them set up with snacks (only way to get Vivienne to sit still in front of a camera, don’t you know), and got the camera set up on the tripod to film their reactions.

(If you can’t see the embedded video, click here)

Nora’s reaction was fairly predictable (still adorable), but oh man, Vivienne was hilarious. Obviously she still doesn’t really know what the heck any of this means but the fact that she managed to use the word “cool”—especially considering she’s speech delayed—AND use it appropriately/in context/at just the right timing was awesome. Priceless. I’m so glad we have it on video.

We weren’t quite sure how we were going to tell our families until the last minute. In the week after we told the girls, Nora took to drawing several family pictures of us that included a little stick-figure baby in Mommy’s tummy. I started to think about how that could be fun—have her draw the picture and then present it to the family to see who noticed the little addition. We went out to dinner the night before our Thanksgiving with Michael’s family, so while we waited for our food, we had her draw the picture.

Love it! And it turned out to be a fun, different way to tell the families, too. Michael’s family was surprised but not floored, and happy. My family was not at all surprised. LOL. They’d been ragging on us about whether or not we were having a third for months, so it was a lot of “I KNEW IT!!” and “WE WERE JUST TALKING ABOUT THIS!” and so on. We had called my dad and told him via FaceTime on Thanksgiving morning. I showed him the picture and it took him a minute but he got it. He actually got a little teary which I thought was really cute.

After all of the family members had been notified, we told friends by texting them this photo and/or posting it on social media:

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY. Fun day. It was sooo nice to finally have the cat out of the bag.

I think that wraps up a summary of the first trimester with Baby #3! Hopefully I can get a more current post up sooner rather than later. :)