The Wellness Care Blog: Baby Bean 2018

gender reveal cake photo

{It's a BOY!}

Hi Friends!

I find it somewhat surreal that I'm writing a third one of these posts but I'm so excited to be able to! If you're somewhat new around here, I'll give you a quick overview of some of the baby-related posts I've written over the past several years:

Getting Pregnant Isn't Easy For Everyone: A post I shared about our journey trying to conceive. I published it a month before I found out I was pregnant with Squish.
Our first pregnancy announcement photo
Baby Bean details: I shared all the details of our journey to get pregnant the first time. Spoiler: It took 2 years, 3 failed rounds of clomid and we were scheduled to start infertility treatments the month I got pregnant. I also answered some questions about the first trimester.
Breastfeeding is Hard: What started as a case of mastitis when Squish was a week old ended with me spending 5 days in the hospital with a breast abscess when he was six weeks old and I had to stop breastfeeding. I shared my story on the blog.
Party of 4: Our second pregnancy announcement photo
Baby Bean 2016: All the details about our journey to conceive baby #2. Spoiler: Took another several months of actively trying plus 3 rounds of clomid again. Plus I answered questions about my first trimester.
To The Parents with the Colicky Baby: My second baby screamed literally nonstop and never once slept more than 2 hours straight for 7 months. I wrote about it here.
Baby updates: I also shared monthly updates on both kids, some day in the life posts and other parenting posts which you can find here.

Ok…so now that we've got that out of the way, let's chat about baby #3.

Baby 3 Announcement

Here are some FAQs:

What's your due date?

December 4, 2018

How far apart will the kids be?

Squish and Little Miss are 2 years and 1 week apart. His birthday is Oct 29th. Hers is Nov 6th. Since this one is due Dec 4th, Little Miss and baby will be 2 years and a few weeks apart depending on when he decides to make his appearance. Squish was 2 weeks late. She was a week early.

Will you find out the gender?

Yes. It's a boy. We found out at 11 weeks thanks to some genetic blood testing. Which I think it's the absolute coolest thing to NOT find out and have it be a surprise, there's just no way I could do that for my own pregnancy.

Are the kids excited?

She has no idea. Squish loves the baby already. We waited until about 10 weeks to tell him and he immediately said he wanted a brother. At 11 weeks we had a cake made and let him cut it. Check out my Instagram post for a video of him cutting the cake. For several weeks I think he kinda forgot about the baby but the past 2-3 weeks he's demonstrated that he's well aware. He gives the baby a kiss and a hug every night before bed, wants to name him Catboy and appears to understand that he's growing in my belly.

Are you nervous about how they'll handle it?

I'm actually very nervous about Squish this time around. I was nervous last time and it ended up being fine. He adjusted pretty quickly to more daddy time and although she is also very mommy-focused, I suspect she'll do the same since she'll be a similar age. He'll be 4 this time, however, instead of 2 and I'm a little nervous because I think he'll be much more aware of the lack of mommy time initially and might get frustrated by it…but we'll see!

Are you nervous about having 3 kids?

A little bit. I'm sure it'll be crazy and chaotic but I also know I can handle it and that I'll absolutely love it.

Did you always want 3 kids?

No. Growing up I always wanted 2 kids. After I had Squish, I always just wanted one more. It wasn't until a while after I had Little Miss that I realized I just didn't want to be done…that I wanted one more baby. But after our struggles with the first two, I didn't want to get too invested in the idea in case it didn't happen.

dad and son eating gender reveal cake

Did you have to talk your husband into it?

No! He was always on board with adding a third.

How did you tell your family?

We put them in the shirts they wore for the announcement photos and texted my parents saying Squish wanted to show him his outfit for family photos. My in-laws were actually meeting us at the end of the family photo shoot so we took the announcement photos at the beginning, changed their shirts and then after we were done, we had my mother-in-law help us change Little Miss back into her t-shirt and told her to look at what it said. The shirts are from this Etsy shop.

Why did you wait so long to announce?

There is, quite literally, nothing that makes me more anxious than pregnancy. While I respect that it's an amazing journey and certainly love the end result, I do not enjoy being pregnant. It makes me super anxious, I stress about every little thing, I always feel terrible and I'm constantly worrying about things going wrong, even though I do my best not to. I have positive mantras that I repeat to myself over and over again when negative thoughts enter my head and I use a breathing app to calm myself down when I get super worked up…but bottom line is, sharing always makes it feel so much more real and scary to me. This is also my first pregnancy where I'm sharing a lot of my daily life every day. I didn't get snapchat until Squish was like a year old…and I only had like 100 followers, and I didn't start IG stories until Little Miss was about 6 months old. I know that people can have very strong and polarizing opinions about things when it comes to pregnancy and parenting and while I'm lucky that most of my followers are nothing but loving and supportive…it's still scary sometimes to put yourself out there as much as I do every day.

Did you conceive this baby easily?

If you read the posts linked above, you know it took about 2 years for us to conceive Squish, many months of trying, three failed rounds of Clomid and we were actually scheduled to start infertility treatments when it happened. I never went back on any kind of birth control after having him and it still took many months of trying and 3 rounds of Clomid again to get pregnant with her. This time, I again never went back on any birth control, but I also didn't get my cycle back until a month after I stopped nursing (I stopped on her first birthday). We had already talked to my OB and asked to skip the months of trying and go straight to Clomid when we decided to start trying and this one was actually conceived the month before we were going to start the Clomid. I found out I was pregnant about 3 weeks after hubby's Type 1 Diabetes diagnosis…so it was a lot all at once!

How is the baby doing?

Baby is doing great so far! This has actually been my most "normal" pregnancy so far. With Squish I got a lot of ultrasounds at the beginning because we were being seen at the fertility clinic and then I had a lot of extra ones at the end because he had some fluid in his kidneys and we were referred to a specialist because one of his leg bones was measuring quite short. (Both issues ended up being fine). With her, I had a very large bleed in my uterus (you can read about it here) so I had a bunch of extra appointments and ultrasounds to monitor that. (The bleed ended up coming out at 19 weeks which was absolutely terrifying as I thought I was losing the baby…but all ended up fine). This round I had an ultrasound at 8 weeks which went well and have heard the heartbeat at my 12 and 16-week appointments. At my next appointment, I'll have my 20-week ultrasound.

{My mom took this picture of us the minute Squish cut the cake}

How are you doing?

Not great As with the previous two pregnancies, I'm battling my thyroid (I have hypothyroidism and take Synthroid and pregnancy tends to really mess with my thyroid) It's under control for now but we definitely had to up my dose when I got pregnant and I'm getting it checked every 4 weeks. Also like my previous two pregnancies, I am struggling with horrible nausea. It's pretty much all day every day for me and it lasts my whole pregnancy. I actually feel best in the morning and then it all kinda goes downhill throughout the day and I feel worst at night. Fatigue is also a big thing for me. When I was pregnant with Squish I never really got tired. In fact, I remember writing about how weird I thought it was that so many pregnant women complained about being tired all the time. With Little Miss, I definitely experienced the exhaustion but I'd say it's been worse this time – probably because I now have 2 toddlers to chase around. I've crawled into bed every night by 8 pm since I found out I was pregnant. Not exaggerating. And most of the first trimester I was asleep by 8:15. It's gotten a bit better and I've been able to get in bed and do some work lately, but it's still pretty intense.

Since I know many will ask about nausea – yes I've tried almost everything out there. And since I know people will try, please don't try to sell me essential oils. I have all the respect for people that use them and I'm thrilled if they work for you, but I've tried them and they don't work for me. I've also tried sea bands, ginger chews, ginger tea, small frequent meals, not drinking with meals, Vitamin B6….if it's a known morning sickness remedy, I've probably tried it. Nothing helps.

So, just like the past two pregnancies, I'm doing my best. And I know I'll survive Weeks 13 and 14 were actually two of my worst weeks nausea-wise…then we all had the stomach bug which didn't help. I know the drill and from here on out I know I'll have some bad days and some better days so I just take them one day at a time!

Have you felt him kick yet?

No, but I typically don't feel kicks until about 20 weeks. I'm 17 weeks today. I'm excited for Squish to feel the kicks!

What are you eating?

Not much No, I'm doing my best but it's hard. I try to get good meals in for breakfast since that's when I usually feel best. Dinner is a major struggle for me so I just do what I can. Bread and Ritz Bitz and fruit have been my BFFs.

What are you doing for workouts?

This is my first pregnancy where I haven't had a CrossFit gym. With Squish, I did CrossFit regularly up until 39 weeks. I modified weights and movements when I needed to a took a few more rest days but for the most part still attended classes regularly. With Little Miss, we owned a CrossFit gym. I was probably in the best shape of my life before I got pregnant with her. Then with all the issues with the bleed, I took a lot of my first trimester off. After the bleed stabilized and they told me it was safe, I jumped back into it and continued through most of that pregnancy as well, although I did a bit more of own thing vs regular classes (perks of being an owner). This time around I've just been trying to give myself a lot of grace. I was certainly not in the same shape I was in before her this time around so I had a much lower baseline. But I'm also just working out at home, by myself. I've been focusing more on lifting and not really doing much cardio and I'm definitely taking more rest days. It's also been frustrating because whereas working out was hard with the other two, I usually felt somewhat better after I was done. This time around, working out has often been making me feel worse- not while I'm doing it but for the rest of the day afterward…so I've been struggling to balance the desire to stay active, the fatigue, and listening to my body. It's a work in progress but I'm doing the best I can.

Are you getting a new car?

Yes. I drive a Mazda CX-5 and while I love it, it would be tricky to find 3 seats that would fit across the back seat. So I'll be getting a minivan. My husband drives a Honda Pilot, which has a larger back seat and will fit 3 seats.

wild haired toddler