Things are chugging along over here.  One day I feel OK, the next I feel nauseous and exhausted again.  The nausea and sluggishness are definitely hanging around longer than I would like (and longer than I expected).  I’ve felt little flutters here and there that I am pretty sure are  baby movements.  The sensations aren’t really consistent yet, though.

We find out the sex pretty soon, which is crazy.  We didn’t find out Holden’s sex in advance, but this time we decided to try something different and find out.  Plus, I thought it would help me feel more bonded to this baby to know the sex, and that Holden would feel more connected to the new baby if he knows the sex ahead of time.  From a practical standpoint, it allows me to have enough time to sort through the millions of boxes of boy baby/toddler clothes that are taking up space in our guest bedroom.  This way, I’ll know whether I need to donate the clothes or simply sort through them to be used by us yet again.  Did I mention we have a million baby boy clothes?

I’ve begun the slow process of getting the baby’s room ready.  It’s going to take me forever.  The baby’s future room is our current office.  We’ve decided to move our office downstairs to share the room with the guest bedroom (the guest bedroom is actually the largest bedroom in the house and is big enough to house an entire bedroom set plus our treadmill, and whatever office stuff/desks/bookcases/books we move down there).  The baby’s room still has our office desks and miscellaneous paperwork sitting around, but I’ve already moved the majority of our books down to their new space in the guest room.  The baby’s room definitely needs to be painted, which is going to be a huge job because of the dark wood trim that needs to be tackled.  But luckily, it’s a tiny bedroom so painting the walls should be a quick job (after the initial prep of fixing all of the holes that the previous owners left behind).  Holden’s current dressers will be moved over into the new baby’s room.  We’ve treated Holden to a brand new dresser, which was a huge splurge, and probably one of the most expensive pieces of furniture we’ve bought to date.  It’s a nice piece, so he’s stuck with it through young adulthood!  We’re still waiting for it to be delivered, so hopefully it will get here before Christmas and will “count” as one of his Christmas presents.  We’re trying to go “light” this Christmas since I won’t be teaching in the spring and won’t have that extra income coming in—not to mention the miscellaneous added expenses that come along with having a baby.  And other random expenses seem to keep cropping up all at once—for example, we need to buy ourselves a new mattress, and probably also a new bed frame.  We got our bed frame used when we first got married 10 years ago….that’s also when we bought our mattress.  Our mattress hasn’t been as comfortable lately, and the bed frame squeaks loudly ever time we shift in bed ever so slightly.  So that is annoying.  The bed came apart completely at one point several years ago, but we managed to re-secure it with a number of nails.  I think the time has finally come to buy a replacement, though.  We had kicked around the idea of a king size bed since we’ll have a nursing newborn soon, but I don’t know that our little bedroom can handle a bed of that size.  So we’ll have to see.  Either way, the mattress for sure needs to be replaced.  True confession—my water broke on our mattress when I went into labor with Holden.  So yeah—it probably should have been replaced a while ago:)

Holden has been enjoying Halloween-related activities and school field trips to apple orchards and pumpkin patches.  He is getting increasingly articulate, is obsessed with random dinosaur trivia, and is so so so excited to be a big brother.  I love that he will be nearly 4 years older than his sibling—he totally and completely “gets” the idea of being a big brother.  I can’t wait for him to meet his little brother or sister.

Last week was the first time we took H to a midwife appointment.  He was so excited to be a part of it, and was especially psyched to use the doppler!  I’m up 5 lbs. finally (I can eat again, hooray!), and we’ve scheduled our anatomy scan for November.  We didn’t find out the sex when I was pregnant with H, but we *are* going to find out the sex this time.  So only a few more weeks until we know!  It’s crazy!

I haven’t hit the 2nd trimester energy boost yet, even though I’m close to 16 weeks.  I’m still feeling a bit sluggish, and the queasiness does rear its head sometimes (although it’s really, really manageable at this point).  I remember feeling pretty awesome at this point in my pregnancy with Holden, so this has been pretty different.  I just paid for a bunch of prenatal yoga classes, and I had been planning to take my first one this Sunday, but I ended up having a crazy week and now I won’t be able to go.  Holden goes to school on Tuesday and Thursday, and I usually use those days for grading and class prep.  Well, I had jury draw on Tuesday (cool, but I got no work done).  On Thursday, I went to drop H off at school, only to find that they were closed for in-service.  So I lost Thursday as well.  I’ve accomplished about 2/3 of my grading so far (somehow, with H in my midst), but have to finish the final bit tomorrow (Saturday) because midterm grades are due to the Registrar by midnight.  THEN, I can actually begin prepping my 3-hour Monday night class.  So yeah, no yoga for me.  Have I mentioned that I hate my job???

But you know who I love?  I love my Holden. And I love Rob.  And I will love this baby sometime soon (I’m one of those people who doesn’t feel the love until the baby is born, weird, I know).  I love my little family so much.  I think they are the greatest bunch of people I could ever share my life with, and I feel so super lucky for that.  Yoga or no yoga, crappy job or no crappy job, I have my little family to hug and kiss at the end of the day, and I think that is pretty darn great.

Here’s my big update post.  I was pregnant half the summer and didn’t even know it.

Let me explain.

In July, R and I went on our wonderful 10-year anniversary trip.  Apparently, I got pregnant on that trip, but didn’t realize it until a bit later.  Quite a bit later.  At the end of July, I had what I believed to be my period (it wasn’t).  We hiked Camel’s Hump on my birthday (yes, I was pregnant and hiked an over 4,000-ft. mountain).  At the beginning of August, I heard through a friend about a potential postdoc position in Psychiatry at the university.  “Awesome,!” I thought.  I can get back into research.  I had a series of interviews (with the principal investigator, and later with her research staff).  Long story short, she wants to hire me, but EEOC regulations may prevent her from doing so.  They have to do a national search (which takes time), and hope that the affirmative action office is satisfied with me from the diversity perspective.  So, I wouldn’t be able to start the new job for a few months, *if* I get hired.  Fine.  I am already working part-time, so no problem.  After I wrap up my job interviews, (this is now a couple of weeks after hiking Camel’s Hump), we head to Storyland.  We had a wonderful little vacation, where I had a beer one night with dinner, and went on all sorts of rides with H.  I would have been around 6 weeks pregnant at that point.  A week after that, we got ready to embark on a camping trip.  The morning of our camping trip, Holden had a 101.1 degree fever, and I was starting to feel kind of queasy.  I assumed I was maybe coming down with whatever H had, or maybe I was feeling a little stressed over my uncertain employment outlook.  We did go camping and had a great time.  We hiked Mt. Elmore (5 miles round trip).  I was so tired afterwards, but figured it was just because of whatever mild stomach bug I had.  When we returned from our camping trip, I still felt sick.  And of top of that, coffee was beginning to taste weird to me.  This has only happened one other time in my life, and I pretty much knew at that moment that I had to take a pregnancy test.  I took the test, and it was positive.  This was towards the end of August.  I assumed that I was just shy of 4 weeks pregnant.  What ensued was nearly 7 weeks of pretty horrific morning (all-day sickness), that slightly eclipsed the severity of the sickness I experienced when pregnant with Holden.  I went to my first midwife appointment in mid-September.  The midwife did her exam and told me that I seemed “more pregnant” than the 7 weeks that I was supposed to be at the time of the exam.  She scheduled me for a dating ultrasound for the following week, where I found out that I was actually TWELVE weeks pregnant, and due in early April.  Holy shit.  So all of a sudden, I had to process not only that I was pregnant, but that I was much more pregnant than I had thought.  Many things started to swirl around my head.  Good:  morning sickness is almost over.  Bad:  WHAT?  Good:  My new April due date is sooner than my previous May due date.  Bad:  April is sooner than May.

I started to feel guilty that I didn’t even realize I was pregnant for so long.  How could I have been so stupid?  How could I have missed the signs?  I also had to go back to the woman I interviewed with, and tell her that I was pregnant, and talk about how we were going to deal with that.  She was surprisingly supportive, and offered me part-time work from my date of hire (which is still not established) until the baby gets here.  After that, I can take as much leave as I want, and then return at either part-time or full-time status.  Wow.  I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome from such a weird situation.

I am now 14 weeks and I am just starting to feel a little better.  I can finally eat again, although I still have super queasy moments.  I didn’t gain any weight during the 1st trimester, but I didn’t lose any weight either, which is a minor miracle considering my eating habits (or lack thereof).  My parents just flew up this weekend for a visit, and I finally shared the news with them.  We had Holden tell them that he is going to be a big brother.  They were very surprised!  Holden is excited to be a big brother.  He talks a lot about things that he wants to teach the baby, and he is already setting aside “baby toys” that he wants the baby to have.  One such baby toy is his prized yellow school bus, which was nearly attached to him at all times from about 18 months of age to 24 months or so.  He was very casual about it when picking it up and explaining, “Mommy, this bus is a baby toy, so I think we should give it to your baby.”  Sniff.  That was his favorite toy.  Now he has moved on.

I’ve had a lot of weird thoughts about this pregnancy.  I worry sometimes about loving another baby as much as I could love H.  I don’t think this feeling is too unusual.  But what I do think is unusual is the fact that I am kind of mourning the loss of our close-knit threesome.  Our family is going to change, and that is kind of scary, because I think we work so well together.  My image of Holden for a long time has been as an only child.  I think of him as my one little guy, and now he will have someone else to share his life with.  That idea is going to take some getting used to.  I don’t think I’ll absorb that concept fully until the new baby is here.

As for why I can never hike Mt. Elmore again……I hiked Mt. Elmore for the first time, on the morning that I found out I was pregnant with Holden, October 6, 2007.  I hiked Mt. Elmore the 2nd time, when I was already pregnant with this second baby, but did not know it.  I found out just a couple of days after vacating our campsite that our family was on its way to changing forever.

I have so many thoughts and emotions around all of this, and I get to document it all again, right here.  Won’t you join me?

Holden started preschool at the beginning of September.  He LOVES it.  He is only there two days each week, but having that structure has really helped his behavior for the other days of the week when he is with me.  He’s been better at playing independently, he doesn’t seem to get frustrated as easily, and he doesn’t seem to push my buttons on purpose quite as much.  He is learning a lot at school and seems to be well-liked by his peers.  His class took a field trip to the apple orchard last week and they got to see how apple cider is made.  They took the apples they picked back to their school where they made apple crisp.  Yum.  I don’t think I’d mind being a student at his school!  Here are his pictures from his first day of preschool:

And of course, the picture he will hate us for when he’s older:

I have some big updates to make to the blog—expect a big update post next week when (hopefully) I have time!