36 Weeks: OH DEAR GOD

The title kind of sums up life right now. I'm 36 weeks pregnant with bub #2 and I am officially over it. I know, I know, I should enjoy every minute of these last days where I only have one little one to look after. BUT, this pregnancy has been so much harder than the last one that I can't help but wish it along towards the finish line.

I have enlisted an army of childcare help with Lyla in the form of her four local grandparents. I knew moving ten minutes away from our parents would prove to be a good decision at some point and right now, it is an absolute lifesaver! Although I'm about to lose two as my folks are jetting off on a three-week South American adventure all the way up until 3 days before my due date. Great timing! (not) Honestly it was entirely our fault, they had already booked the trip when we got pregnant...the timing is just really ironic.

I've come down with a chest cold. So, on top of being 9 months pregnant, chasing a toddler, and taking care of two dogs, a house and a husband, my body is now fighting this nasty bug that has me coughing up gray boogers and all but bed-ridden. It's not my finest moment. This pregnancy is far from glamorous and I am just now realizing how easy I had it the first time around.

First pregnancy I worked out till I was 8 months pregnant and even after that would still take regular long walks with the dogs. This pregnancy I haven't so much as seen my toes or broken a sweat voluntarily since I was about 5 months pregnant. Between first trimester nausea and then a teething and/or sick baby I rarely got to the gym and even froze my membership till August. First pregnancy I hardly ever gave in to cravings and would satisfy my sweet tooth with fresh organic fruit or small morsels of dark chocolate and almonds. This pregnancy I have gotten and devoured a Chick-fil-A cookies and cream milkshake before 11am more times than I am proud of. Milkshakes are a freakin' revelation! I have never had a huge sweet tooth but something about a cookies and cream milkshake always sounds good these days. Number one pregnancy craving for sure. First pregnancy I took it easy when I needed to and took excellent care of my body. This pregnancy I am lifting a 22lb toddler every day, contorting in odd ways to get her dropped shoe or her thrown binkie, breathing like a mastadon every time I get up from a seated position.

This has been just so much harder in every way. Again, I hate to complain because we are completing our family with a little bouncing boy and couldn't be more excited. BUT I am DONE having kids after this. I'm saying it now. We are having our little four-pack family and then (assuming all parties are healthy and all goes according to plan) we are putting this chapter to bed. I will probably have to re-read some of these posts when I get a bout of baby fever in a few years but I'm confident that I will scare myself out of wanting a third.

XOXO

L

22 Weeks

This pregnancy seems to be going at rapid speed as i deal with more pressing issues. My adorable and precocious toddler Lyla has learned to walk and is now climbing, running, falling and zipping all over the place. Over the last few days she has also started teething and its a nightmare. I am pretty sure she is getting her 1-year molars and is absolutely miserable.

On the plus side, Matt and I did get away for our first weekend without the baby (and without any family obligations) since she was born. Actually...it's been even longer than that. I think the last time we got away just the two of us with no family members, no weddings, no holidays was when we went to Italy about two-ish years ago.

We went to Asheville, NC which is like a little hippy town in the mountains that is only about 4-hours away from Charleston. We ate, Matt drank, and we were merry. It was good to get away. We should do it more often but with the impending birth of our second child the opportunity seems to be slipping away from us. We don't expect another chance like that for the next two years.

Back to pregnancy news...I am getting bigger by the minute, my sciatica is also getting worse and baby boy is an active kicker. I haven't been able to get to the gym as much as I want to, nor as much as I did during my first pregnancy. I feel incredible out of shape, short of breath and exhausted. I just feel like I never gave my body enough of a break in between and that's probably the reality of it. I could only start bringing Lyla to the gym with me when she turned six months old and then I got pregnant again when she was about eight months old. I know I will get back into it when the boy is born but it just seems so far away.

Which brings me to my nerves. I am absolutely shake-in-my-boot terrified about having another baby with Lyla being so wild right now. I remember all the challenges we faced during Lyla's first year and I can't imagine how desperately helpless we are going to feel when there are two that demand my mind, body and attention. I am not excited to be breastfeeding again, which I'm sure makes me a bad mom but dear god it was so nice when Lyla started to take a bottle!

I want to do my best for both of these kids and I don't know how to do that. I am so in love with my daughter that I worry that her brother will just seem like an awful inconvenience for his first few months. These feelings will go away when I see him and get to know him, I hope. I didn't immediately fall in love with Lyla as a newborn either. I don't think I'm the biggest fan of the newborn phase. They're pretty useless. But now, even as Lyla enters into toddler-hood guns-blazing I am obsessed with her. Hopefully that happens with my second-born (everyone says it does).


I'll leave you with this bump photo:

18 Weeks / 19 Weeks

Here I am...again. 18 weeks pregnant and just starting to document my pregnancy.


*** I am now 19 weeks because of Thanksgiving I never actually wrote this post so here I go again.

This pregnancy has not been a picnic. The first three months were spent being nauseous, tired and generally bedridden. Since about 14 weeks I have been functional, but now I am already experiencing back pain, sciatica and some serious round ligament pain. Not fun.

The great thing is I am almost half way through already and baby boy is growing right on track. We go in for our anatomy scan mid-December and I can't wait to see our little man!

18 Weeks

Nesting: Baking Edition

So I've got about a month left of pregnancy. I'm bored, I'm anxious, and I am in fear of the unknown.

All of these factors lead to some serious nesting. Nesting is a syndrome that most women experience in different ways and at different times. My nesting has come in different forms, but I first noticed it in the second trimester when I all of a sudden became a clean freak. If you know me well, you know that I am FAR from a clean freak...some would even describe me as messy or dirty. All of a sudden I was doing daily loads of laundry, keeping the bathrooms clean and making the bed daily. Unfortunately, as I eased into the physical exhaustion of the third trimester my nesting has switched gears from cleaning to cooking. For example, as I sit here writing this post, my bathrooms counters and toilets are in desperate need of a cleaning and disinfecting...and what am I about to do? Bake oatmeal cookies.

Pregnancy has turned me into Betty-fuckin-Crocker and I HATED baking before. I am a private chef and would always try and convince my clients to choose an ice cream or cheese plate for dessert because of my serious disdain for the pastry arts. Now, 8 months pregnant, I am whipping up banana breads, cookies and cake recipes for pleasure. This has been the biggest and most noticeable change in my personality since entering the third trimester. My husband loves it by the way. He has always had a sweet tooth and grew up with a mom who just kept tupperware full of homemade fudge and baked goods on the kitchen counter at all times.

So I'm off, to bake cookies...not clean my bathroom like I should. And I can't feel at all bad about it, because as everyone keeps telling me these stress-free days of daytime t.v. watching and leisure baking are numbered. Soon a little squishy tyrant will be calling the shots and running the house and I will be lucky to shower and eat in the same day, let alone bake anything or Clorox a bathroom counter.

XOXO

Lisa

Third Trimester Update: fears, hopes and dreams

I am starting to slack off on doing these bump pictures. Mostly because I'm usually wearing pajamas, with no bra, and a face full of "I woke up like this". Last night however I managed to put on a cute outfit and actually do my hair and makeup because my in-laws were taking my hubby and I out to dinner to celebrate my birthday. You know it's been a while since you've gotten dolled up when your husband can't stop commenting on how pretty you are. He seriously raved about it, which made me realize that he hasn't seen me dressed up and looking sexy in quite some time. Something I hope to remember and do a better job at...even when baby comes (but we'll see lol).

So all four of us went to dinner at this great little Italian place on Sullivan's Island called the Obstinate Daughter. The meal was great and despite some awkwardness, the conversation flowed well and we all had a great time. It didn't hurt that Matt and both his parents probably drank a bottle of wine to the face (while I soberly sipped on my water) Aah in-laws.

So I am entering the phase of pregnancy that everyone dreads....the last month. I've got about five weeks left, give or take some days, and I have hit a weird phase. I am at once, both excited with anticipation and terrified. I feel like there is so much longer to be pregnant, and I also feel like this baby is coming fast! It is so bizarre to be on this knife edge of emotions and be going back and forth multiple times a day.

I am down-to-my-bones terrified of having a baby. I know deep down that I will be a great mom, I've always wanted to be a mom and I already love this little girl so much it makes me cry. What I am terrified of is the unknown, mostly the labor, delivery and aftermath that will ravage my body, mind and emotions. My mom had postpartum depression after she had me and she told me that it can be hereditary. In all honesty there is a history of depression in my family and I am terrified that it will rear its ugly head in me at the moment when I should be experiencing the greatest joy.

Besides the emotional fallout of having a baby, I am definitely scared of the physical act of birthing a human out of my vagina. Like, how exactly is it going to fit? I am well aware of my body and I just cannot wrap my head around the fact that the same lady bits that get a bit sore after some rough sex are going to stretch enough accomodate an entire person....that just seems like some crazy science fiction shit. Then, of course, being big and pregnant every woman wants to tell me their story or their friends story, or their cousins story about how they tore their entire perineum, or the baby had such a big head it broke their tail bone, or any number of other gruesome things that I do not want to be hearing. I still remember being traumatized from watching the birthing video in 8th-grade biology...I DO NOT need to hear about some other woman's emergency c-section...it will NOT make me more prepared, or less anxious. The crazy thing is that almost everyone I've talked to said that the labor wasn't that bad!! That the recovery once you're home, and off the drugs, and taking care of the newborn is the worst. That you bleed for weeks and you're sore, and going pee is like a 30 minute exercise in hospital-grade hygiene. 

And then....there are the baby books. Matt and I decided it was a good idea to read up as much as we can about the first few months of having a baby because we really don't have a clue what to expect. So we bought three very well respected and recommended books and i can summarize all three in a few short words: It's all down hill from here. Yes there is the outpouring of happy hormones and you are all in love with your baby, but physically, you've just lived through the equivalent of breaking all your bones at once while being set on fire...and now, a tiny human is chewing your nipples off. I might be blowing the recovery time way out of proportion, and I do hear those love hormones really do send you into euphoria as soon as you hold your new little miracle...but while I'm over here on the still pregnant side of things, it just sounds awful.

I don't want to sound like I am bitching too hard. I know that being able to get pregnant in and of itself is a miracle and I honestly have had an easy pregnancy and enjoyed the feeling of growing my child...but I wouldn't be me and it wouldn't be honest to say that I am looking forward to every moment of the next six weeks. I've got about a month left of being pregnant and it is starting to suck. There's no way around it. Last night I ended up with such horrific back pain that I needed Matt to lean on in order to walk to the bedroom! I literally felt like I had broken my tail bone or something had gone seriously wrong. The baby is growing so much that the pressure on my ribs feels like I might pop one out of place and the pressure on my lungs is making it hard to breathe and causing my heart to race.

Alright....switching gears. No one needs to read any more bitching from an 8 month pregnant lady who didn't sleep last night. What I want to end this post on is a positive note, so now I will tell you all about everything I am excited for.

First and foremost, I can't wait to meet my daughter. It sounds really corny but I am so unbelievably in love with Matt that I think it is the coolest miracle in the universe that we have come together to make this brand new person that is our two souls combined. She is going to be a part of both of us and the greatest way to celebrate our love. I couldn't be more excited for Matt to be her dad, and for me to be her mom. I can't wait to see what she looks like, what her personality is like, who she is. I can't wait to raise her to love life, and to always look on the sunny side of things. I can't wait to watch her grow and change every day and to see her first moments. not even the big moments. Like, do you remember the first time you tried ice cream? or the first time you saw the ocean? I get to see those first moments in her life, the ones that she wont remember or think of as milestones. I get to watch this glorious little person discover the world!! I get to watch her be curious and excited about everything! I get to read to her at night and start family traditions that she will cherish for a lifetime. Matt and I get to show her what a marriage should be, and she will learn through our example that a happy home is full of music and laughter and silliness and cuddles. We will sing silly songs and teach her how to tie her shoes.

I can't wait for all of it. I am so in awe of it all. It really is the most amazing thing I will ever do with my life, and the most important. If I can live a long life, and have my only accomplishment be that I was a good wife and mother, I will die a happy old woman warm in my bed............like Rose from Titanic (lol).

XOXO

Lisa

Baby Registry

I can't believe it is that time already! Time to register for our baby shower(s). We never had much of a registry for our wedding so this was a completely new experience for us. We got tons of advice about what we needed and what we didn't, but it all just seemed extremely overwhelming. It doesn't help that every baby is different and a product one mom swears by is just wasted money for another.

We took a lot of advice from my sister who just had a baby and did a lot of research online on blogs and message boards and finally felt ready to make our registry this past weekend.So this is how we navigated the process and began the road to parenthood, one kid-tested, mother-approved product at a time.

1. Step One - Research
We did a lot of research before we even thought about entering a baby store. This was especially helpful with big items like strollers and car seats. With baby stuff there seems to be a few main brands that make everything and a lot of people tend to stay within a brand to make their life easier. In our case, we first decided we wanted a travel system jogger stroller. For those not in the know with the baby stuff lingo this meant we wanted a three-wheeled stroller with big wheels that is meant for jogging and walking on rough terrain. This was best for us because we live in Charleston and spend a lot of time on old cobblestone streets and at the beach. A travel system is a stroller/car seat combo that work together so you can take your baby from the car to the stroller without ever having to take them out of the car seat. A lot of companies make these travel systems and they are perfect for the suburban parent who is constantly in and out of their car. We decided on the Graco Relay Performance Jogger and the Snugride 30 Click Connect Car Seat.

2. Step Two - Go Register
Forgo starting your registry online because the big stuff you've got to try before you commit. So go to Baby's R Us, Buy Buy Baby or whatever baby retailer you have near you and try out the strollers, carry the car seat and try to imagine all this stuff fitting in your house. We made a lot of last minute changes after we got to the store based on size/weight and durability.

3. Step three - Know You Wont Do It All At Once
There is so much stuff in those baby stores that you can get overwhelmed really quickly. My first tip is to eat right before you go, because it will take you at least an hour or two to get just the basics done. You can always add to your registry online later.

So those are my tips for first-timers like me who had no idea how much stuff a tiny person will need.

XOXO

Lisa

Shoot and a Miss

I'm not pregnant yet.

At least, I don't think I am. I jumped the gun out of excitement and took one of those early response tests that let you tell before you miss your period and it came back negative. I thought it could be possible since we had been aware of my ovulation and I have been feeling off lately, but alas...I think it is only regular PMS which is a bummer on a lot of levels. My period last month after getting off birth control was the worst one I've had since I can remember so I'm sure being on BC was softening the blow of cramps etc. I know a lot of girls get onto BC to make their periods more bearable but I never realized that it made that much of a difference for me.

Matt knows I was really hoping to be a one and done kind of conceiver. One try. One cycle. One baby. But perhaps it will take a bit more effort than I originally thought. It's funny because I spent most of my life thinking that if a guy comes inside me and I had forgotten my pill that day that BAM! I was going to end up knocked up. Only when you get to an age that you want to get pregnant do you actually find out how difficult it is. I read an article today that said that it takes a while for your ovulation to come back after stopping birth control and that even when it does at come back that you have a 20% chance of conceiving each month (I'm sure someone did that math so I wont argue against it but it seems kind of absurdly low).

Matt has assured me that we are still in the grey area, that I jumped the gun on taking a pregnancy test and even though it is highly possible that I am not pregnant there is still a chance that I am. To me, I just feel achy and crampy and bitchy pretty much how I usually feel before my period so my guess is that it didn't happen this month.

It feels like people all around me are getting pregnant and having babies. This is also thanks in large part to Facebook which projects everyone's happy and quickly growing families onto my computer screen every day. The crazy thing is that you never hear about the sort of stuff I'm writing about...the process, the tries, the weird process of stopping birth control and hoping to defy odds and hit the bullseye each month. Online all you see are growing bellies and new babies and happy carefree new moms who just had to have sex once unprotected and they're pregnant.

I know I am being a little dramatic about the whole thing here...I have after all admitted that I am feeling extremely hormonal so my apologies. I know that I will get pregnant and that this was only our first time trying and that we weren't even expecting to get pregnant this month

I just didn't know I would care this much...

XOXO

Lisa

...Shooting with No Safety

This was the first month that we have entered the "trying" stage of getting pregnant. I am off my birth control and have been for a month and we had our first attempt.



So we've been having sex every other day and using my phone app to track my ovulation (which I'm sure is 100% accurate lol). Anyway, I don't expect anything to happen in the first month, after all sometimes it takes several months to even be able to get pregnant after stopping BC. I don't feel pregnant...although my body has always been kinda a mystery ever since my first period came so I am not exactly an expert on my own reproductive system.

Matt is just about as anxious as I am to get knocked up. He is a very impatient guy and he keeps talking about "when we have kids..". I am pretty impatient too so if we get pregnant this month I will feel so happy to be getting into the nitty gritty of it. In the meantime Matt is really enjoying my enthusiasm to bone, not like I'm not always enthusiastic but the other day we were in a little fight and even mad at him I insisted we do it. It was kinda hot. There might be something to the whole Russian roulette method of having sex...I almost can't believe this is what sex was like for women for thousands and millions of years before birth control...maybe we just messed things up with the invention of birth control.

just a thought...

XOXO

Lisa

Before Baby Body

As with all before, during, and afters I thought I should post a few "before" pictures. Now, I know there are those blogs where there is this rediculously skinny girl in $100 Lululemon leggings talking about how she eats all she wants and can't get her weight above 115.

I am not one of those girls. I was super slim my whole life, but since age 23 or so, it has become more and more of an effort to stay that way. Going to culinary school didn't help, I gained about 15 pounds over in Italy and then moving to Charleston where drinking is a daily occurrence and everything is fried also did not help my cause. At my heaviest I was about 127 pounds. It may not sound like much but I am a 5'3" girl with a generous backside so trust me, it looked like a lot more.

I started working out for the wedding. My husband and I did the INSANITY videos together and believe me, those work. They may kill you, but by God you will drop weight in a hurry. Since the wedding however, I stopped exercise all together, until last month. Last month I finally had enough of being out of shape and joined Gold's Gym with a goal of getting in super shape before getting pregnant.

So here I am. All 120lbs of me. This is my "before" body. Whether I'll get in better shape before getting knocked up, I dunno. But I am enjoying the gym a lot and do a good amount of yoga, spinning and general cardio and weight lifting. All activities I plan to continue whilst pregnant.

So this is the begining of the journey. I can't wait to see my progress!

XOXO

Lisa