23 weeks! *pics*

*wrote all of this yesterday..so happy 4th of July!  I put a few random pics at the bottom..a cute onsie I got Caden, Bryan and Emily at the beach this morning, some pics from earlier in the week

and Caden’s closet doors!

Holy busyness.  I honestly have not had a minute to write since I wrote last.  It’s been crazy!  Last week and a little bit of the week before I felt really weak and heavy and just really feeling pregnant, you know? Lol.  I was constantly tired and being run ragged at work and then trying to play with Emily as much as humanly possibly the second I got home until she went to bed.  I had my first “breakdown” of this pregnancy one of those days and came home and cried and cried.  It was beautiful outside and Bryan had kept her cooped up inside all day, like he does every day (I shouldn’t get myself started) and I was SO exhausted, but I needed to make her dinner and do a billion other things in the short time before her bedtime, so I wouldn’t be able to take her out either.  I just lost it and cried.  I had guilt for being gone all day at work, telling myself what a different life she would have if I had been the one who worked part time and was home more.  I would take her to the zoo and outside and to the park every day…but she has to sit inside and wait until the exhausted me comes home and takes her out.  And I was so exhausted for two weeks that it was so hard to do that.  

 

I was having this shooting pain in my right butt cheek that would go down to my knee every time I took a step and that was contributing to the fun.  Bryan was staying up until like 3:30am every night to work on Caden’s room (even though he has the entire month of August off and doesn’t need to get it done right.this.minute) and so he was tired and cranky and useless.  I am so glad that’s over, lol.  This week has been much better.  Yesterday the pain in my butt/leg was gone and I had energy and I had Emily outside playing with her water table and filled up her pool and walked around the neighborhood a bunch.  Back to normal. =)  I was a happy girl. Today I feel great too!  As soon as I get off work Emily and I are headed over to my mom’s for the long 4th of July weekend.  I really need this weekend.  

 

The second trimester was the hardest for me in Emily’s pregnancy too, so I’m just waiting for the third trimester already.  I think I missed being pregnant because I forgot how sucky this part of it is for me, lol.  The third trimester was great with Emily.  I felt like I had energy and was used to the weight and since she was never head down and stuck in my pelvis, I could still walk comfortably.  I am really looking forward to that feeling again, even though it’s going to be harder no matter what taking care of a toddler at the same time.

 

I had a high-risk dr’s appointment last Friday to check my cervix length and it was great!  3.5..which makes me a very happy girl.  I’m pretty darn confident that we’re not going to have any problems with it this time and so are the doctors.  They are doing one more check in a few weeks and then I’ll be done with them!  Caden was 1lb 2oz and measuring right where he should.  He’s just like Emily and likes to hang out sideways.  Emily actually did go head down right around the 20-week mark, I believe, and then once she went sideways she stayed that way or breech until she was born.  Caden has never attempted going head down, lol.  His head is on my left side and his feet are on my right and I feel a ton of movement now.  Sometimes it feels like he’s flipping or doing something crazy in there, but the movement always ends up being on the sides either way.  I had a regular OB appointment this Monday and everything was great there too, of course.

 

I’m going to talk about my weight for a minute..so if you don’t want to listen to it, just skip this paragraph and the next, lol.  I don’t have a problem with how I look, I really don’t.  It sucks being big, but I know it’s only temporary and it just doesn’t bug me since it’s for such an amazing reason.  But…the numbers are starting to bug me.  I don’t know if it’s because my eating is just so drastically different with this pregnancy than with Emily’s and I’m sort of surprised I’m gaining weight even though I’m supposed to!  I have to force myself to eat this time around.  I am just not very hungry.  I was upset with myself last night when I got into bed because I realized I barely ate that day!  It’s just polar opposite this pregnancy.  I was sooo hungry all the time with Emily and I will admit I didn’t make the best food choices in the 2nd and 3rd trimesters.  Fast food, candy, sugar, sugar, sugar, I just wanted it all.  This time

I have had fast food maybe once, because we were out and about and hadn’t eaten in a long time, and I could only eat half a burger and a third of my fries before feeling sick.  It just doesn’t sound appetizing at all.  Cookies, candy, sugar?  Yuck.  It just doesn’t sound good.  I have been eating fruits and veggies and grains and drinking only water and milk.  I feel like I have been so good, but the numbers are going up almost exactly the same as they did with Emily!

 

I think a lot of it is that I started out with a higher weight.  I am embarrassed to write down the numbers, but I am going to anyways to keep myself accountable later.  Let me emphasize that when I did the juicing fast and got down to 132 (which is a very slim look for me), that was before I was TCC and I did gain weight back when I went off of it.  In fact, in the 3 months after I gained 10lbs.  I was 135 when I found out I was pregnant with Emily; 142 when I found out I was pregnant with Caden.  This is hard for me to write, but the dr’s scale said I weighed 160 on Monday.  I was shocked at the number for a lot of reasons.  First of all, at my high-risk appointment three days prior I was 155, and the day before at home I still weighed 155.  Three days later now my home scale says 156.  So, it could be because it was in the afternoon and scorching hot out, or whatever..but I didn’t like it.  My goal when I was pregnant with Emily was to gain 30lbs, which would be 165. (Granted, that didn’t happen.) Am I seriously only close to 5lbs away from that at only 23 weeks?  And I feel like I have zero control over it.  I can’t eat less.  I don’t even feel like I can eat healthier or better than I am!  I was on major restrictions in my pregnancy with Emily, bed rest for a week, didn’t move hardly at all until the end, and I ate a lot of sugar and stuff I shouldn’t have.  This pregnancy I feel like I am in constant motion, eating great (possibly not even enough!) and I’m on the same weight track?  How is that possible?

 

I read all these women who gained a lot one pregnancy and then was able to gain less the next..but what can I do?  I feel powerless.  And, like I said, it’s not about looks now.  I could care less that I look like a chubby pregnant lady, really.  But I could not for the life of me lose the last 10lbs after I had Emily until I did that juice fast..and even after that I gained the 10lbs back within a few months of stopping.  So what if I gain even more this time and can’t lose 15 or even 20lbs after Caden!?  THAT scares me.  I feel like I know I wouldn’t let that happen..but I still don’t want to gain an unhealthy weight for this pregnancy either way.  

 

I brought it up to the doctor after he weighed me and he didn’t seem concerned.  He said the weight I gained with Emily was fine and that my weight gain now is fine.  I just…feel like it isn’t?  I know there’s a point to it all and I know he’s growing and getting bigger..but he didn’t gain 5lbs, clearly..so where is my weight coming from?  I eat toast for breakfast, salad for lunch, something like asparagus and a steamed chicken breast for dinner.  HOW can someone gain this kind of weight with that!?  I am not snacking AT ALL.  I drink a ton of water every day.  Three 24oz bottles at work, and then whatever I end up drinking at home as well.  I am very well hydrated.  

 

So, that’s sort of bringing me down a little.  I hate to say it, but I feel like I’m not enjoying this pregnancy as much as Emily’s.  I just want it to be October already so I can meet him!!  I am so ready for that.  I just want to fastforward to that already, but I’ve still got a ways to go. =(

 

I know two years from now I’ll probably miss being pregnant, but I feel like this is cementing in my head the fact I only want two kids and, right at this moment, I don’t care to experience pregnancy again, lol!  It is a lot harder having a toddler and being pregnant, that’s for sure.  And my poor baby is having sleep problems, once again.  I think I wrote last time about her getting into the habit of sleeping with us and her having to cry one night and getting her out of the habit.  That worked great and she slept fine in her crib after that..but two days ago she woke up in the middle of the night again.  Bryan is exhausted and isn’t going to bounce her for a half hour at 2:30 in the morning, I can’t do it, so the only thing that will calm her down is bringing her to bed with us.  You can see where this is going.  The next night, like clockwork, she wakes up two hours after I put her in her crib wanting to come to bed with us.  I wasn’t going to get her used to it again, so I was going to let her work it out again.  Except this time she wouldn’t go back to sleep like last time. She cried for about 3 minutes, then just sat there in her crib for AN HOUR chanting “Mama! Dada! Mama! Dada! Up! Up! Up!”  WTF, child!? Lol.  She fell back asleep eventually (not that I could after an hour) and woke up EARLY the next morning, of course.  I will never understand.

 

So last night Bryan decided to go to bed at the same time as us..whic

h is a rarity.  But since he wasn’t going to wake me up coming to bed, I figured I would wake up when I had to pee and I would put Emily in her crib then.  Instead, she wakes up SCREAMING at 12:30 wanting Bryan to bounce her and put her in her crib!  I just..what the hell are we supposed to do?  In all honesty, when Caden’s here I’ll be getting up at all hours anyways so I better get used to it again, but I really want her to develop good sleep habits as well.  We’ve catered to her in many ways regarding her sleep.  Yes, she’s had to cry some, but we have done everything humanly possible to make it easier on her.  She is bounced to sleep (have you tried cradling a two-year-old lately? Not easy) for every nap, every day.  It’s the only way she’ll take a nap.  When I couldn’t bounce her at night anymore when I became pregnant, we thought the easiest thing for her would be to fall asleep next to me in bed, not just dumping her in her crib and letting her work it out.  So I lay in bed dodging kicks to the stomach and head for an hour every night before she falls asleep, then wake up at some point and take her to her crib.  What more can I do for her?  I know, I know, it’s just part of being a parent and I don’t mind going through difficult times with her, but I feel like I’m failing her somehow by not figuring it out.  She’s not teething, she’s not sick, she feels fine.  

 

So now that I’ve blathered on and on about the two most frustrating things in my life..I will write about all the good stuff. =)  As much as it wasn’t necessary for Bryan to finish painting Caden’s room right.this.minute, it is nice to have it done!  The stripes are a bit smaller than I think what we had pictured in our heads..but it still looks nice.  It looks very Dr. Suess-ey, or something, but there is no theme.  I’ve never been into the theme thing.  We’re going to hang his name in letter on the wall in dark colored wood and the crib will be a darker wood than Emily’s.  I think I’m going to paint the changing table to match it as well.  The changing table, glider and side table are all moved in, the new light fixture and new door handles are installed, and the new closet doors are up!  

 

Emily, aside from her ongoing sleep issues, is perfect.  The weather is gorgeous and we’ve been getting outside a lot which makes me happy.  She still doesn’t seem to have an interest in potty training, but I’m not pushing it.  I’m pretty nervous about potty training because peeing her pants doesn’t seem to bother her, lol!  It has been really hot outside lately and her cloth diapers are bulky and I don’t want to overheat her, so when I get home I’ll just take her diaper off, put her in a skirt (or nothing =P) and we’ll go in the backyard to play.  She will say when she pees, and the few times she’s peed on the carpet inside between diaper changes she will bring you to where she went and point to it, so at least she’s thinking about it I guess.  But yesterday she peed in her skirt and didn’t care at all.  So, I don’t really know why she would choose to go on the potty when she really doesn’t mind soiling her clothes. =/  I’ll just give her more time and hopefully she will get more interested.  She loves the potty and will sit on it and loves to put toilet paper in it and flush the big potty, but she won’t go in it. I’m really not in a huge rush though, so I’ll give her time.

 

I purchased 24 new cloth diapers from Sunbaby for Caden.  They were SUPER cheap, so I’m skeptical about the quality, but they only need to last until Emily is potty trained and can pass down the good BumGenius diapers.  She wears some blue ones, so he’s going to have to wear some pink, no matter what Bryan says, lol!  You can’t see what color they are under clothes.  We already purchased a box of newborn disposable diapers for right when he comes home though.  Emily was in newborn for quite a while, but I’m still not going to open the box until he gets here and we can tell he will fit in them or not.  So as long as the Sunbaby diapers work for a while, that’s all that matters.  Seriously only like $150 for 24 of them with 48 inserts.  Crazy.   Six BumGenius diapers (buy 5, get one free) are a little over or under a hundred bucks!

 

As soon as this stupid jury comes back with a verdict, I am going home, putting our stuff in the car and headed to my mom’s with Emily!  I have tomorrow off for 4th of July, then I took Friday off so I get a four-day weekend up there.  I am really looking forward to it!  My mom is driving a truck in the 4th of July parade in town and I think we’re going to ride along which will be fun.  Emily loves waving and saying hi to people, so I think she’ll really enjoy it. =)  We bought a bunch of fireworks a few days ago and we’re going to light them off on the beach tomorrow.  We got a lot of fountains in the hopes to not completely scare the crap out of Emily, but Bryan of course got some bigger ones so I might have to take Emily in the car and watch from there if it scares her too much.  She really likes sparklers (also one of the pictures below), but I think she won’t like loud pops or bangs.  We will see.

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Jury came back!  I am outta here!  Hope everyone who is celebrating 4th of July has a great (safe) time!

 

~Sheralyn