So We Are Having Baby #2

I feel bad that I haven't posted anything about our new little baby on here, since I'm 35 weeks along. But here's the down low on the new baby.

I always thought that having the second baby wouldn't be as scary....I mean you have done it before. WRONG. Just as nerve wracking. Even though this baby was planned all of a sudden you are thinking, wait! Do we really want another one right now?! Well too late. I was only freaking out for like the 1st week or two. I took a pregnancy test really early because I just couldn't stand waiting and there was the faintest second line. I knew it meant I was for sure pregnant, and was totally freaked out the rest of the day. I was already anxious about having baby #2, for the normal reasons, and then for the fact that I had no idea when Aili would be having her next surgery and adding another child to that mix just stressed the heck out of me. I don't want to be having a baby, while my other baby is having surgery. But since her last echo and lung scan looked good she is good at least until baby #2 arrives.

This pregnancy I was way more sick. Starting about week 5 and into the 2nd trimester I was just sick 24/7. With Aili I was really only sick at nights and it wasn't too bad. I kept wondering if I was really more sick this time, or just more of a wuss. Who knows. All I wanted to do was lay on the couch. Poor Aili. The house was a disaster. Just feeding myself and Aili was like the hardest thing on the planet. Good thing that is over.

We announced the baby with a tricky little picture that a lot of people didn't catch onto. It was pretty funny.

That seriously feels like forever ago.

It is pretty weird at truly how much you forget between pregnancies. I mean it was only 2 years ago, but you really do forget how awful it is, and how cool it is to feel them squirming around inside of you.

Because of Aili's heart defect we went to a perinatologist for the ultrasound instead of just doing one with my regular OBGYNs office. I wasn't really worried about it until the day before, and then I got super anxious. I mean I knew the chances of this baby having a heart defect were higher because Aili has one, but you want to think that the chances are still slim.

The tech took a bunch of pictures, and from what she was seeing everything was looking really good. The baby wasn't in the best position to get pictures of the heart because she was facing backward, and wouldn't move. We found out that that baby was another girl! I couldn't tell instantly when she said, "do you want to guess?". Looked like girl parts to me! I was excited for Aili to have a sister, I thought that would be really fun. But I don't have a sister and girls scare me, especially teenage girls so....I'm a little nervous. Let's hope they are little angel girls that love each other and their mommy ;).

The doctor then came in and looked at everything closely again. As soon as she said she could see a pulmonary artery Chris was happy as can be, that is all he wanted to see. The doctor didn't see anything that concerned her but still wanted us to get a second look when I was a little further along since I was only 17 weeks. We had another ultrasound about a month later and they again didn't see anything to be concerned about either. We felt great about it all. Even though they told us that they can really only see about 75% of heart defects, but we figure that they saw all of the main stuff so, hopefully it would be a pretty minor defect if they didn't catch it. I was also really surprised when they said all of our other children have a 10% chance of having a heart defect. That just seemed really high to me. Even though Aili had genetic testing and it wasn't what they would call a "genetic defect". All defects are in some way genetic they just don't understand or see how that works at this time. So that was interesting.

Preparing for this baby has definitely been different. There is a lot of mixed emotions. Part of me feels like I'm betraying Aili. But at the same time I would feel really mean if I could give her a sibling and didn't. I know every parent goes through the feelings of, "How could I ever love another child as much as my first!" And I know that everyone does, but it is so hard to imagine it before the 2nd child is born. We just have such a special relationship with Aili, and have been through so much with her. I know that this new little girl and her cute personality will fit perfectly into our family though. I'm really excited to see what she is like.

I have had people ask me how I feel and if I'm nervous now that it is getting closer. I'm nervous, and scared. I'm honestly more nervous for this delivery than I was for Aili's. Not because Aili's delivery was bad, it was actually great. I just feel like I was a lot more ignorant the first time, or just chose not to think about everything that could go wrong. Ignorance really is bliss I guess. I'm also really scared about how I will feel going into the hospital for the whole experience. I'm afraid that a lot of overwhelming emotions will come back to me. Emotions that I felt there that were really, really hard. I don't want those feelings to taint this second experience for me. Not that the experience with Aili was bad.....it was just really hard, but super sweet at the same time. I don't know. I'm just nervous about the emotions I'm going to feel, and how it will all go down.

I'm also nervous about how Aili will react. I want her to be happy and excited. I mean you can only prepare a 2 year old so much....but none of us really understand how it is going to be. I think it will be a shock to all of us, adjusting to being a family of 4 instead of 3. I know I can take care of a baby....but can I take care of a toddler AND a baby....ah.....I'm not sure. It's going to be interesting. I think it is probably a good thing that Aili really likes her dad. Because then when he is home he can give her all the attention she needs and hopefully Aili won't be too jealous. But when Chris is not home....now that will be interesting.

We are slowly getting organized and getting the babies room ready. Chris built us a bunch of shelves in our storage off our deck so we could pack more crap in there. I thought that baby #2 would't be as expensive, especially because it's another girl, but there is a lot of stuff we still have to get for her! New bed for Aili so she can have the crib, mattress, swing, double stroller, dresser, glider (because the chair in Aili's room is an excellent chair to read her books in). Man it adds up. Children are expensive.

Chris build shelves on both sides of the door. It helped us use the space so much better! What an awesome husband!

The babies room was our office. But since neither of are in school anymore the desk in there rarely was used. We mostly just used it to print off the occasional paper, and for storage. We moved the desk to our garage, and the book case to the family room. All other junk was thrown away or put onto our awesome new shelves Chris built for us on our deck storage space.

The babies room was quite a disaster for a while.

But it is improving now!

No name yet. Not that if we did have a name I would tell any of you. But a second awesome girl name is difficult.

I'm kind of getting tot he point where I want her to come now. I know I will be so dead tired, but my body is so tired and uncomfortable right now, I might switch one being dead tired for my body to not be so uncomfortable. I usually sleep really well at night. I real blessing when I'm pregnant. So I am well rested but my BODY is just tired.

I can't believe we are going to have two kids. It is really crazy. I love my family. Chris and I still gush every night at how much we love Aili, and love our little family.