Well, like I mentioned in my What’s Up Wednesday update last week, we are expecting a little boy in April! We waited a little longer to announce his upcoming arrival because we wanted to know the gender before we announced this time so we could just make one big announcement.

Back in June, we decided that we would start trying for baby number 2 once #2 and Olivia would be at least two years apart in age (June would have been 2 years and 1 month). It took us 9-10 months to get pregnant with Olivia, so we just decided to be patient and were good with whatever age gap we ended up with at that point.

Well… turns out we were going to have a smaller one than we anticipated, haha! I got pregnant on the next cycle in July, and found out the first week of August. Steven had been in Chicago the weekend before for the first year fellow endoscopy conference, and Olivia and I drove to Austin Monday evening to pick them up from the airport. I remember being tired that day, but not anything out of the ordinary, but drank my usual coffee, a Dr. Pepper that afternoon, and tea with dinner, so my caffeine intake was definitely higher than usual! That night after we got home, I remember looking the mirror before getting ready for bed and feeling like my under-eyes looked haggard- my concealer had totally dried out and was tugging at my under eye wrinkles, and I thought I’d never looked more old and worn out, haha! The next morning, I got up to get ready for work, and went ahead and took a test since my cycle was due to start over that day. Steven was around because he was getting ready for work, too, so when the test turned positive, I just walked out of the bathroom and handed it to him while he was sitting on the side of the bed putting on his socks. We were honestly a little in disbelief, but obviously happy!

We told everyone super soon with Olivia, and we had decided beforehand that we would wait a little longer before telling people this time around. It was going to be a little while before I was able to get in with my doctor anyway, so we held off telling our families until about 6 weeks (I was 4 weeks when I found out).

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We used these little pictures to tell our parents! I was finally (it felt like an eternity!!) able to get in for my initial pre-natal visit at seven weeks and some change just before Labor Day weekend, and Steven and Liv got to be there, so everyone got to hear baby’s heartbeat for the first time together! We got our first ultrasound and due date- April 13!

Around this time, my nausea started ramping up. The doctor prescribed phenergen at my appointment, and said I could also take B6 and unisom together because it has the same active ingredients as one of the big nausea medications for pregnancy. This helped so much! I only took one phenergen (on Labor Day) because it made me so so sleepy! (And I told Steven, of course you aren’t nauseous when you are sleeping, but the point was to find something that worked when I wasn’t sleeping because I couldn’t sleep all day every day!) That’s probably been the biggest difference between pregnancy #1 and #2- with Liv, I could lay around and ignore my chores and mostly do what I wanted if I didn’t feel great. With this one, regardless of how I felt, there was still a baseline of things I needed to do because I already have a munchkin depending on me. Those first few weeks had a lot of snacks and TV watching in, but she didn’t seem to mind, haha!

By the end of Labor Day weekend, the rest of our family and our close friends knew. I had another appointment at 10 weeks where we had another ultrasound and got some good pics that looked more like a baby, haha! At this point, we were telling people around us that we knew if it came up naturally, but we hadn’t made a widespread announcement. Our doctor had me scheduled for genetic testing bloodwork at 14 weeks, so we knew we had just a little bit longer before finding out the gender to be able to just tell everyone.

I went in at 14 weeks and some change and we had a good heartbeat (that she had to move some to keep up with), and I did my lab work. And then obsessively stalked the genetic lab website for the next week and a half waiting for the results. They got them back to us this past Wednesday (Oct. 30). The nurse told me over the phone that everything else came back negative (which is good), and then we had them print the results and put them in an envelope so we could find out together. I picked them up on my way home for lunch, and we met at our house to eat and read them. My original plan was to video us reading them, but I just didn’t take the time to set it up when I got home (we got straight to opening them), and I’m glad I didn’t because it took us what seemed like forever to find the right spot on the paper that said the results! (It was at the very bottom and said “no abnormalities detected; chromosomes detected are XY; predicted fetal sex is male”, so it wasn’t like a just box saying It’s A…, we actually had to read and interpret!) We called our families and all our important people after we read it, and then worked together to stage our announcement picture for social media. Henry’s name came about when I was pregnant with Olivia (it was our boy name for her). I like the name Henry, and suggested it to Steven; he immediately agreed because his first rifle as a kid was a Henry rifle, and it held sentimental value to him (he now collects Henrys and Henry memorabilia). So, his announcement picture features Steven’s Henry collection and a tin sign that Henry sent us in a package when I was pregnant the first time that we’ll use in his nursery. His middle name will be Wyman- after we agreed on Henry, Steven suggested Wyman as a middle name because we are both big fans of Wyman Meinzer, the Texas state photographer. {This video is Yeti’s profile on Wyman} We think he is fascinating, and expemplifies some characteristics we’d love to see in our son (good work ethic, tenacity, toughness, creativity, and uniqueness!).

How far along: 17 weeks/ 4 months

Total weight gain: I think I’m still down a few pounds from pre-pregnancy. I had lost down to about 115 the first several weeks from about 125, but I’m back up to 122 right now.

Maternity clothes: For the most part, no. I have a few maternity t-shirts that I wear some, but I’m still wearing all my regular pants and dresses. The bump isn’t big enough to really look right in maternity clothes, and my tighter regular clothes just make it look like I’ve just put on a spare tire, so I’ve just been wearing looser regular clothes.

Stretch marks: None yet that I know of. I need to be better at moisturizing, one, for stretch marks, but also because we’ve gotten to the time of year that skin is just dry as a bone and I feel itchier than usual.

Sleep: This has been better this time around because of my dear friend Unisom. When I was still getting pretty nauseous, I took a full Unisom with a full B6 every night. Now that that has subsided, I take a half Unisom every night just to keep me asleep. If I don’t (and I learned this the hard way), I don’t sleep very deeply, and wake throughout the night.

Best moment of this week: Finding out this munchkin is a boy!

Miss anything: Not really that I can think of?

Movement: Yes- since I knew what it felt like from the first time, I feel like I was able to feel him moving much earlier than I did with her. I’ve been feeling him moving since about 14-15 weeks. He’s not quite big enough to feel his movements on the outside yet, but he’s moving around a lot in there!

Food cravings: Probably more salty than sweet this time around, but nothing really in particular.

Anything making you queasy or sick: No, mostly just side effects from heartburn. I had terrible heartburn pretty much the entire time with Olivia, and it seems like Henry will be the same way! But the heartburn leaves like a gross taste in my mouth, so I pretty much chew gum constantly because that washes it out!

Have you started to show yet: Sometimes it looks obvious, but mostly it just looks like a spare tire!

Gender: sweet baby boy!

Belly button in or out: In!

Wedding rings on or off: On. I swapped my Lisa Leonard stamped ring with Steven’s name over to my left hand under my wedding set so I have room for my Henry ring to sit with my Olivia ring on my right hand at some point. The Lisa Leonard rings are thicker, so I figured I had less of a chance at fitting three of those on one finger (mostly when we get closer and I develop little late pregnancy sausage fingers!), than my wedding set and one of those since the bands of my wedding set are really thin.

How does this pregnancy compare to last pregnancy: There are definitely some similarities and a few things that have been different. With both, I really had no symptoms in the two weeks before I found out (I’d say I was equally as shocked with both to see a positive. I realize that sounds dumb because it shouldn’t be shocking to see a positive if you are trying to get pregnant, but, trust me, it is still shocking whether you are hoping for it or not!). My nausea was a little more intense this time than with Olivia (I had about a week to two weeks straight of just straight up vomiting, not just nausea), but it seemed to move on quicker (maybe because I took meds this time, and I didn’t with Liv?). With Olivia, my skin was the best it’s ever been (this is probably a TMI, but I’ve always struggled with acne on my chest and back, but it completely cleared when I was pregnant with her), but I’ve still been breaking out with Henry. This was probably one of the few things that tipped me to thinking he might be a boy. The few differences that I’ve noticed so far have been so slight that I didn’t feel like I could really call it one way or the other. I haven’t noticed really a difference in food cravings/ aversions, and the heartburn/ acid reflux has been about the same for both. Again, overall, I’d say they’ve been pretty similar pregnancies so far, with just a few very, very minor differences!

Linked with Lindsay for Hello, Monday!