April 3, 2017 by Stephanie

Baby 2: Thirty Weeks

How far along: 30 weeks and 2 days (There is something about making it to 30 that is so comforting.)

Sex of Baby W: Little Lady

Weight gain: I have gained a total of 9 pounds. Tom and I agree that I am officially bigger straight out than I was with George at the END of his pregnancy. With George the weight was really all over from hip to hip, and my whole stomach held the weight. DC is just a basketball straight out. I can still feel my hip bones this time around. So different.

Size of Baby W: Platypus (minus the tail) or a large cabbage

Maternity clothes: All the time. I am really hoping that the weather starts warming up so I can wear dresses more regularly. The weather is all over the place lately. (But then again, I would have to shave more often…)

Baby items: I did buy some little baseball moccasins. I’m trying really hard not to go broke with all the cute stuff out there. Easter comparison: Target online the other day had only a half page for boys Easter outfits, and there were TWO WHOLE PAGES for girls. Boys want to look snazzy too, and not all in the same polo and mint green bow tie. But now that I have all these choices for DC, it is hard not to go hog wild on getting stuff for her. Anyway, I am going to try really hard to hold out on clothes until her room is completely ready. We don’t really need many other big baby items since we are using a lot of things from George’s baby time. I am still going back and forth on a double stroller option. Suggestions? I want it to fit with our Britax infant seat, which seems to be my dilemma.

Belly button in or out: I thought it was going to come completely out, but it is still mostly flush with the rest of my belly.

Sleep: Sleeping has been pretty awful. My legs cramp up a lot at night because I am afraid that I’ll move and I will end up on my back. I can’t really ever get comfortable either because I hate sleeping on my left side. My shoulder has been really tight because of it. I can’t remember the last night where I slept soundly. It’s like I am constantly in that half sleep mode. I also have to pee at least once during the night, if not a couple times. I guess this is my body’s way of preparing me for the newborn phase again.

Best moment the past few weeks: I just spent the weekend with my best two gal pals for a ladies only weekend. I will write about it here in the next few days hopefully. It was so good for my soul to see these two!

Worst moment the past few weeks: The week where the Whitener house came down with every variation of stomach issues. George is just now starting to poop normal again. It has been an exhausting and disgusting time in our house.

Miss anything: Sleeping. Deli sandwiches. Gyros full of feta.

Cravings: Taco Bell chicken quesadillas. Commercials are hard to watch because I pretty much want anything I see.

Movement: She moves the most at night, but she seems to be moving more throughout the day. She loves to sit right near my belly button, and she pushes so hard. I don’t remember this much pushing with George. The other day it looked like I had a cone-head coming out of my body.

Symptoms/how I am feeling: I have had a lot of discomfort when I am sleeping like I said. The morning sickness has reared its ugly head again. I had one really bad day, and then it has hit me a couple other times but not as horrendous. My gums are bleeding a lot when I brush my teeth. I am super clumsy right now. I was clumsy before, but it is really bad now with my lack of balance. On the plus side, I do not have acne like I did with George. I have had very few blemishes at all in fact. Maybe DC is providing me more with the “glow” than George did. I am starting to waddle a little more and more. I was told twice last week that I looked uncomfortable…both by individuals who have never had children before. I am actually feeling really great for the most part so it kind of bothered me when they said this. Chalk it up to hormones.

Looking forward to: This month in general. We have a lot of stuff going on this month with Easter, baseball games, end of the year celebrations, and our baby shower. It will be busy, but it should be enjoyable.

Here is George at 30 weeks.

March 12, 2017 by Stephanie

Baby 2: Twenty-Seven Weeks

How far along: 27 weeks and 1 day

Sex of Baby W: still girl I presume

Weight gain: I have gained a total of 5 pounds. Looking at the pictures from my last pregnancy, I definitely think I am bigger this time around. However, I feel much healthy this time.

Size of Baby W: fennec fox or a head of cauliflower

Maternity clothes: All the time. I also stand by that they should just make all pants elastic, maternity or not. This is great!

Baby items: I haven’t bought anything lately, but I have finished our registry. I ordered our baby shower invites this week. Let’s celebrate this little gal!

Stretch marks: I have a couple , but I don’t really care. I mean they aren’t great to have, but no one is going to see them, so I don’t need to worry about it.

Belly button in or out: Well it’s like half and half. It’s kind of sticking out but it’s still flush with the rest of my belly.

Sleep: I get up at least one a night to pee. I have had some issues with stiffness and muscles cramping making it hard to get comfortable.

Best moment the past few weeks: Watching our house get framed has been pretty awesome.

Worst moment the past few weeks: Crosby got out of our fence last week. I spent more than an hour driving up and down our street with George trying to call for him. Then as I sobbed in the yard with Grace trying to find a hole in the fence (which there wasn’t), the little bugger just strolled down the driveway with the biggest doggy grin on his face. We have a temp fence in part of our yard with the construction. He had gone to the corner farthest from the house and peeled it back far enough to squeeze through, but it sprung back in place so I would never notice it in the dark. It was awful.

Miss anything: Sleeping through the night.

Cravings: Donuts. And not just any donuts, like Krispy Kreme kind. When I am not pregnant, I HATE Krispy Kreme. Also pretty much any food I see or hear talked about, I want it.

Movement: She moves the most at night. I keep trying to get George to feel her, but he won’t stay still long enough. DCW likes to sit right where her brother did, lopsided on the right side near my belly button. It makes my tummy look silly, but it’s fun to know where she is sitting.

Symptoms/how I am feeling: I have had a lot of discomfort when I am sleeping like I said. There has been a little nausea this past week. The exhaustion has returned as well; I have fallen asleep on the couch at some point every day this past week. I am still getting my steps in most days though! I am trying to stay as active as I possibly can. Some things are getting harder and harder to do, like jumping jacks. My bladder can’t take all the jumping. It feels like it is going to explode when I try to run or jump. Who am I kidding, I need to pee all the time anyway.

Looking forward to: We have a doctor’s appointment this week, and it always brings me some piece of mind to hear the heartbeat and touch base with the doctor.

And yes we are still wearing Christmas jammies.

Here is George at 27 weeks. Again, I think the bump is bigger this time around.

February 19, 2017 by Stephanie

Baby 2: Twenty-Four Weeks

24w

How far along: 24 weeks and 1 day

Sex of Baby W: A little lady! Her initials are DCW, but we aren’t publicly sharing the name just yet.

Weight gain: I have gained a total of 3 pounds.

Size of Baby W: ear of corn or a puffin.

Maternity clothes: All the time. My last pair of regular pants this week decided to be too uncomfortable to make it work.

Baby items: I bought a pack of headbands. We have also gotten several hand-me downs from friends.

Stretch marks: I have a couple stretch marks on each of my hips. Bummer.

Belly button in or out: It’s still in.

Sleep: Either I have to wake up to pee, or George starts stirring around 3 or 4 am. I generally don’t get back into a good sleep after that. We are adjusting George’s nap (he was still at 4 hour naps), and that seems to be helping with him snoozing a little later over night. I slept really well at my conference though!

Best moment the past few weeks: The conference I went to was really good, and it was really nice to have some time to myself before we become a family of four. We also started construction on our addition to our house.

Worst moment the past few weeks: I haven’t really had anything bad the past couple weeks.

Miss anything: Not really anything right now.

Cravings: I have been wanting chocolate baked goods. Bring on all the donuts, cake, and brownies.

Movement: She moves the most after dinner, but I am starting to feel her a lot more during the day. Tom has felt her several times, but George never stays on my belly long enough to feel her.

Symptoms/how I am feeling: I have been feeling pretty good. I did have a little morning sickness on the flight back from my conference.I have a lot of round ligament pain on my right side. I have had some cramping too. Thanks growing uterus.

Looking forward to: Seeing our addition get further along. I need to blog about how it all came together. We should be under roof here in the next couple weeks!

George knows that Sister is in my belly. We give her kisses and hugs every day.

Here is George at 24 weeks.

January 29, 2017 by Stephanie

Baby 2: Twenty-One Weeks

How far along: 21 weeks and 1 day

Sex of Baby W: We know, but we aren’t sharing publicly yet.

Weight gain: I came back up to my initial weight and just a little more. I am at a 1 pound gain now.

Size of Baby W: a carrot or a least weasel

Maternity clothes: I am fully embracing the maternity clothes, and people now realize that I am pregnant. The bump is full on now.

Baby items: We have gotten a few items for the room and a few newborn clothes. I am on the search for a good double stroller.

Stretch marks: Still stretch mark free.

Belly button in or out: It is flattening out, but it is still in.

Sleep: Prior to this week, the past couple weeks were rough. I was waking up to go pee around 3, and then I wasn’t able to go back to sleep. I also could not get comfortable thanks to two huge dogs. This week I changed up my tactics and basically baricadded myself with pillows to keep the dogs away, and also keep myself from laying on my back. It really helped to get some full nights of sleep.

Best moment the past few weeks: Finding out the sex of the baby and narrowing down a name. It’s so great to be able to use a name instead of “it.” It was also great to have Tom at the appointment where we found out. Baby is growing perfectly and right on schedule. Nothing bad to report!

Worst moment the past few weeks: The second day of potty training was the absolute worst. I felt like the worst mom and a huge failure. Plus cleaning up a million messes of pee is not an ideal way to spend a Saturday.

Miss anything: This week I have missed sushi and a feta covered gyro.

Cravings: I have been craving Mexican and beef. Bring me all the steak fajitas. Most vegetables are still hard for me to eat, but I try to even if it is begrudgingly.

Movement: Little baby is moving more and more now. Tom actually got to feel a kick this week. I can’t wait until George gets to experience that.

Symptoms/how I am feeling: The heartburn has gone away these past couple weeks, only to be replaced by severe bloating and cramps. I feel like my belly is a balloon that is about to pop. My legs also are cramping up a lot more and feel like heavy weights. I know I need to walk and stretch more to help with this though. Other than that, I am feeling really good. I wish the weather was a little better to do some walking outside because I have the energy now to do it!

Looking forward to: Nothing to do with baby, but I am traveling for a conference here in a couple weeks. While I have never been away from George for more than 24 hours, it is going to be great to have some me time and work on my professional self for a little bit. I’m also looking forward to sharing the name of this little nugget here soon!

You can read about George at 21 weeks here.

November 4, 2016 by Stephanie

How We Found Out

When we decided to start trying for the baby number two, I had a lot of anxiety. Since we never tested positive as pregnant with George until I was in my second trimester, I worried that we would have a similar process. However, this time we wouldn’t have a happenstance meeting with a sonogram to find out about this baby. (You can read more about how we found out about George here.)

We had been trying since August so when on October 1st I started bleeding, I just thought my period had come a week early. Being off birth control means that my period had no rhyme or reason to when it started.

That same day, I was running a 10K with my sister-in-law. I thought, perfect, what a day to start the worst week of the month when I have planned to run 6 miles. I had trained fairly consistently for this run, so I was really mad at my body when starting on mile four I was really lightheaded and had to walk most of the last two miles. I have gotten sick and endured cramps on runs before, but I had never been so lightheaded that I thought I might pass out.

Obviously I pushed through it, and finished the race not really thinking anything of the lightheadedness and just blamed it on it being “that time of the month.”

Then I didn’t bleed for the next two days.

On that Monday, I woke up thinking maybe I should just take a pregnancy test. I can’t really explain it but I just thought maybe this is why my body was weird all weekend.

So I peed on a stick and got ready for my shower.

And there it was. A faint blue line telling me it was positive.

I was in shock because I had prepared myself to never ever see the blue line after our experience with George.

I re-read the instructions to double check that a “faint” line was still positive.

Then I took another test from a different brand just to make sure.

Same result.

I am pregnant.

(I took another one a few days later before I met with my doctor, just to make sure too. There were definitely no faint lines that time!)

I hid the tests so Tom wouldn’t stumble on them since he was off that day. I knew I had to wait until after work to tell him.

It was all I could do to be productive that day. I was a nervous wreck with this secret in my belly.

Luckily, Tom had George that day, so I could run to the store to pick up a card for Tom.

In my head I always envisioned doing something elaborate to tell him, but I was just ready to tell him and there wasn’t time to plan something out. So he just got a “Congrats” card with two people high-fiving, which fit us perfectly anyway.

Tom cried when I told him, and then he proceeded to beg to tell everyone we know.

Since I had no idea how far along I was, I panicked and freaked out about telling anyone before we had anything confirmed.

We found out about George when we were 9 weeks pregnant and told the world when we were 11 weeks. So this was a huge difference for us.

I immediately started thinking about the worst case scenario, and wanted to keep this a secret until our second trimester.

Then I remembered an article that I read a while back that talked about why we as women have this idea that we have to keep this wonderful thing a secret and basically isolate ourselves until we are 12/13 weeks pregnant. There shouldn’t be this stigma that we can’t tell people this news that we are pregnant on the off-chance that something were to go wrong. Here is the article that does a much better job articulating my thoughts. I don’t want to have to pretend this isn’t happening.

Plus trying to have my husband keep a secret for any amount of time is a struggle and an insane request.

image via

But I still wanted to wait a little bit before we shared, so we compromised that we would share as soon as we saw the baby on a sonogram to confirm that everything was moving as it should. (And he could tell our Parents as Teacher facilitator who was coming over that same night.)

Because of some complications (blood clot and severe bleeding), we had an emergency visit where we were able to see the baby and it’s little heart beating at 6 weeks. I then saw it again with a specialist the next week. Everything was confirmed to be looking good and normal even with my history of issues. And here we are a week later, 8 weeks pregnant.

While this story is definitely not as dramatic as George’s story, nor did it take as long to get pregnant, we are over the moon excited about this transition in our family.

Up Next: How we told our family!