20 Weeks

Oh, belly shots...

So fun to try and take a tasteful picture of my ever-growing (and now definite) baby-bulge.  We have our Anatomy Scan scheduled for Tuesday, so we (hopefully) get to find out if we're team pink or team blue.  Of course, I get to torture poor Logan with the girl-name-game.  Grunts & 'no-ways' will no longer be acceptable answers...he's now going to be expected to play. 

I will say that he might luck-out if we get a definite 'meat and potato' shot.  Harrison left nothing to the imagination and we're pretty much in agreement on a boy name this time. 

We've been seeing a homebirth midwife this time around, so we're getting into nitty-gritty questions like 'what kind of birth pool do we want'  and 'where are we going to keep/what are we going to do with the placenta'? 

Logan is still kind of in shock that the midwife doesn't take it with her... 

I'm hoping that I'll actually want to do a water birth, but the biggest thing I learned in my last birth was that I may change my mind while in transition and everything I thought would be nice and comfy wasn't.  

But I also wasn't 'allowed' access to either a shower or tub last time...

Most everyone we've mentioned our preferred birthing method to this time around has been supportive, 

and I don't know if we've just become those friends/family that do things a little offbeat or not, but we really appreciate the support and open-mindedness of those we've told so far.

We're truly hoping and planning for a smooth, uneventful birth 

but we are also preparing a back up plan should it be necessary.

If you had told me while I was pregnant with my first that I would be SO excited to give birth, I would have thought you were nuts.  I look back now on my first pregnancy and I was so scared of labor and delivery that I pretty much ignored that it was going to happen until I was actually in labor.  It was a medicated birth, helped lead me to my second and very empowering birth, and I'm curious how this birth will continue to change my perception of this process.

Until next time...

xoxoxoxo

Fourteen Weeks

We're officially at Fourteen weeks today...which means...SECOND Trimester!! Here's a belly shot/self portrait. I know I haven't posted in a while, etc. but I really forgot how exhausted pregnancy makes me. It's all I could do to get out of bed, put in eight hours at work, and then hand the kids donuts and easy mac while rotting their brains on a random cartoon (insert awesome parenting award here). Finally, I'm starting to get a little more active (by this I mean that I'm not lying comatose on the couch...), knitting & reading a bit here and there, and planning for the birth. I'm sure you'll get a dose of the plans here as we think through them. We are going to attempt to find out the sex provided this little bean cooperates and we're completely unsure of names (although I have a solid contender if we find out we're having a boy this time around).

We have had a bit of tragedy these past few weeks regarding our pets. As a few of you know, our cats tested positive for Feline Leukemia. This meant that we had to make the hard decision regarding our kitties, and they are now no longer suffering (some of them had become quite sick very quickly) or spreading the virus. I still have two that I was not able to catch before vacation that need to go in and I am dreading it as much as I was the first time around, especially since one of them is our favorite. We also lost Dr. Bombay this past week. He was 10 1/2 yrs old (an average life span for a pug) and his snoring and snorts and pugg-y wiggles are missed. He has been sleeping most of the time for a while now, so it wasn't completely unexpected, but still...it wasn't a good week for the Tipton pets. Currently, we're down to three, and at the end of the week, we'll just have Gideon (sweet, brain-damaged, unable to handle noise Gids....). We're going to try and wait a while before we dive into pets again, but I doubt it will be too long before we have another kitty randomly show up on the back doorstep or a snorting creature of some sort added to our family.

So, until next time <3....