Told both sets of parents: May 8
First ultrasound appointment at 10 weeks: May 17
Due Date: December 12
I've decided there is never a 'perfect' time to add a child to your family. There will always be a reason of something you'd like to wait for to fall into place or to have a certain aspect of life solidified before making that big decision. It takes faith no matter what stage of life you're in or not in and that is definitely the case with our #3. We've been open to the idea of adding a baby to our family for a while now and knew we'd like it to happen within a range of time where I still have my solid heath insurance from my job. But I never enjoyed the thought of actually working with THREE children at home. I hated it actually. But how do I add a third child and have my insurance if I don't have my job? It just can't happen.
We knew our ending of the window of time we should try to make this certain, but the beginning window of when we should try was never really clear. You just never know how long it will take, or if a miscarriage will happen, etc. Then what almost seemed like a last minute decision, our conversation one day turned into, "Well why not just start now? It's never going to be "great" timing so let's just leave it up to the Lord." And before we even had time to second guess our decision and timing, and absolutely beyond what we deserve, we were blessed with a pregnancy right off the bat.
I took an early pregnancy test during Conference Weekend hoping I could know the news while I got to be inspired by the prophets, but I got a negative and I was okay with that. Like I said, we were giving ourself a good window of time to work with and I didn't feel any rush. The weekend was wonderful and Monday came and I still hadn't started my period so I last minute just decided to take another test as I was getting ready for work that morning. This time it was POSITIVE and it definitely didn't feel like anything real was happening. I saw the fact on that stick that I was going to have a baby, but it didn't settle in my heart at that time. I woke Zach up to tell him we ARE pregnant, and he congratulated me and went right on back to sleep :)
What I know I did feel that morning as I finished getting ready, was immense gratitude and unworthiness. I will never understand why amazing people (and many whom I love dearly) struggle and make so much sacrifice to become pregnant or add to their families, while it felt like I got to become pregnant almost just by wishing it. I recognize the immense blessing it is for us and I thank Heavenly Father for it often.
The next 2 weeks while my brain got to plan out the timing of this news into the reality of our next year, got me feeling very stressed and scared. My mind was often consumed with all the reasons why this was going to be so hard and wondering how in the world I was going to make it through the next year. My entire Kindergarten team (on both campuses) was leaving. This leaves me as the only returning Kindergarten person and the "mentor" teacher next year for all of them. I will be expected to train two brand new Kindergarten teachers throughout the school year as well as our new Kindergarten Aides. I am happy to do this but I also know the time it will take after my normal hours at work and the extra lists it will add to my already loaded brain. The next school year will also bring a new job for Zach. He hopes to have his hours done and hired onto SkyWest around October which will mean starting an official airline schedule sometime around when the baby is due. This will mean a 6 week training where he will be gone then starting his schedule of 4 days at a time of him being away full time. The thought of not having him home when I get home from work and having 3 kids and a house to take care of by myself is overwhelming. Then at that same time, our nanny let us know that she was moving and couldn't continue with us next year, leaving me stressing who I was going to find to take care of now THREE kids when really I just want it to be me! Then to just add on the all the other thoughts like, where is it going to sleep in our already packed to the rim townhouse? How are we actually going to afford the hospital expenses? What if we have twins again??
By the beginning of week 6 the sickness started to settle in. It started out just as feeling constantly nauseated, then evolved into actually throwing up every now and then, to throwing up almost daily, to daily. I tried 2 different prescriptions which didn't work and had side effects like dizziness and fatigue that were too much to work through as I still had to teach school. I got to then switch to Zofran which started to make a difference and helped me get through the last month of school! I'd say April and May were two of the hardest months I've survived through. I relied so much on my amazing aide to take over the class for me when I'd have to run to the bathroom or couldn't think straight with my students. She was a life saver.
Now that school is over and summer is here, it has been much better from the standpoint of I get to not worry about faking it all day in front of a class of students. When I feel bad, I have the luxury of laying around all day instead of being up and busy. I'm so lucky to have the job I do! But even with taking three pills a day, I still get sick several times a week and feel a constant nausea that I look forward to going away hopefully soon as I continue to get out of the first trimester. I have hope I'll get over it soon! In fact, during my week 14 I've only thrown up a few times and have felt a major difference for the better. Knock on wood!
I've felt like a failure in all aspects of my life. As a wife, a mom, and homemaker, a relief society counselor, a friend. I've had to back out of responsibilities, slack on duties, and be a less than fun person to be around for my children and husband. I hate being someone that doesn't feel like myself. Let's just say I cry a lot mostly from the feelings of "I'm just sick of being sick!" and feeling like a burden. It's been hard to let myself enjoy the fact that I'm growing a cute little new baby yet but I'm looking forward to really feeling that joy soon.
Now on to the more positive times that have happened! We told our parents on Mother's Day. I bought them a cute apron with a card in the pocket that said "We're cooking up a new recipe we like to call Baby #3! It will be ready to enjoy in December." Zach's parents were happy to hear of grandchild number 14 coming to the family! My parents (siblings who were there) were shocked. I loved getting to surprise them like that because they didn't know we were trying yet :) Their excitement is always fun to be around! Emily was out of town and skyped that night where I told her and she was speechless and so happy for us. (I was too under the weather to even think of taking pictures of these announcements like I normally would have.)
The next week we got to finally have our ultrasound. With the boys, we knew what was going on at 7 weeks so waiting until 10 weeks was brutal. I was so nervous something would be wrong. I also weirdly hoped it would be twins. We let Jack and Eli be in the room and they got to watch the tv and see their perfectly healthy baby sibling. ONE growing human with no concerns in sight. I was so relieved and felt extremely blessed.
Now that we knew we had one in my belly and that it was healthy, we felt good to tell the rest of the family but we wanted to do it in person. So we waited until I was 12 weeks and told Zach's siblings and nieces and nephews at our family vacation together. I made Zach a shirt to wear on his birthday that said "Happy birthday to me. I'm a daddy of three!" All the siblings basically weren't surprised at all and all said they 'knew' since they'd been around me during the past month and saw my belly and that I'd been acting different. So that was kind of a let down!
The boys have surprisingly been very aware of me and our baby in my belly. Some things I want to remember them saying related to the pregnancy:
Now that school is over and summer is here, it has been much better from the standpoint of I get to not worry about faking it all day in front of a class of students. When I feel bad, I have the luxury of laying around all day instead of being up and busy. I'm so lucky to have the job I do! But even with taking three pills a day, I still get sick several times a week and feel a constant nausea that I look forward to going away hopefully soon as I continue to get out of the first trimester. I have hope I'll get over it soon! In fact, during my week 14 I've only thrown up a few times and have felt a major difference for the better. Knock on wood!
I've felt like a failure in all aspects of my life. As a wife, a mom, and homemaker, a relief society counselor, a friend. I've had to back out of responsibilities, slack on duties, and be a less than fun person to be around for my children and husband. I hate being someone that doesn't feel like myself. Let's just say I cry a lot mostly from the feelings of "I'm just sick of being sick!" and feeling like a burden. It's been hard to let myself enjoy the fact that I'm growing a cute little new baby yet but I'm looking forward to really feeling that joy soon.
Now on to the more positive times that have happened! We told our parents on Mother's Day. I bought them a cute apron with a card in the pocket that said "We're cooking up a new recipe we like to call Baby #3! It will be ready to enjoy in December." Zach's parents were happy to hear of grandchild number 14 coming to the family! My parents (siblings who were there) were shocked. I loved getting to surprise them like that because they didn't know we were trying yet :) Their excitement is always fun to be around! Emily was out of town and skyped that night where I told her and she was speechless and so happy for us. (I was too under the weather to even think of taking pictures of these announcements like I normally would have.)
The next week we got to finally have our ultrasound. With the boys, we knew what was going on at 7 weeks so waiting until 10 weeks was brutal. I was so nervous something would be wrong. I also weirdly hoped it would be twins. We let Jack and Eli be in the room and they got to watch the tv and see their perfectly healthy baby sibling. ONE growing human with no concerns in sight. I was so relieved and felt extremely blessed.
Now that we knew we had one in my belly and that it was healthy, we felt good to tell the rest of the family but we wanted to do it in person. So we waited until I was 12 weeks and told Zach's siblings and nieces and nephews at our family vacation together. I made Zach a shirt to wear on his birthday that said "Happy birthday to me. I'm a daddy of three!" All the siblings basically weren't surprised at all and all said they 'knew' since they'd been around me during the past month and saw my belly and that I'd been acting different. So that was kind of a let down!
The boys have surprisingly been very aware of me and our baby in my belly. Some things I want to remember them saying related to the pregnancy:
- When Eli was learning to touch my belly when I'd ask where the baby is, he'd touch my belly and say "baby here!". Then confusingly he'd look up at my chest, touch it, and say "AND here!" After reteaching him...he'd always say "baby...boob! baby...boob!" and point to the corresponding parts haha!
- They'd constantly say "I too sick" if they didn't want to eat or do something because I'd always be telling them that. Whenever I'd be up and doing something, they'd ask me "You not sick? You all better?" They'd tell me to go to the doctor almost daily and go to the store to get me medicine. They have been little sweethearts and so patient with my inability to take care of them properly. I love them so much.
- Jamie asked Jack to feel the baby kick (no I can't feel it kick yet) and he touched my belly then full on kicked my shin! He didn't understand what he should have been trying to do...
- When asked the gender, they always say they want a baby "goy-yul". And just tonight Jack laid down pretending to be a baby and said "Look! I baby sister!" They talk about being a "big brother" and being big boys a lot.
- Eli pointed to my belly at bedtime tonight and said "baby growing!" noticing my belly looking big.
First bump picture I took was at 13 weeks. Comparing it to my 13 week picture with the twins, I am much larger in this pregnancy. I started showing so early. Even without announcing the news to most of my coworkers, many asked behind my back if I was expecting because it was just that obvious so early on. So strange how that works with a second pregnancy I guess! I look forward to hopefully seeing a big difference in the size I get toward the middle and end of this pregnancy compared to my twin one.
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