Not to worry, our next family addition is not being slighted, I'm keeping up with every other week belly shots just as I have with the other two kids. The big difference with this baby was that we waited much longer before making our official announcement. We found out about this unexpected bundle about 10 days before Christmas-things were incredibly hectic with the holidays, but life seemed to completely stop when we got that positive and did I already mention, unexpected pregnancy test? We spent a weekend in shock that we were already adding to the family (Lucy was 9 months old at the time); although we really weren't too far off from our "plan" to add to the family. I had wanted Lucy to be one, but really what's a few months in the grand scheme of life? Hank and Lucy are just 2 years apart and these two will be 18 months apart-yes, life is about to get even crazier..but honestly I love having children close together in age. Our lives are so hectic already, why not add to the madness? I think it makes so many things easier, and we are of the mentality that we get em in and get em out on the back end. Lucy and this baby will be just one year apart in school and Hank and this baby will be 3 years apart in school. By the time high school rolls around the we will have a senior, sophomore, and freshman all at the same time-Ritger rules!
So anyways, we decided to keep quiet to give us some time to process our new addition as a family-including getting started on the plans to add to the house, and I certainly needed that time. Now I am 16 weeks with another bouncing baby GIRL! Yes, estrogen will rule our roost now--Johnny's immediate reaction to having another daughter "oh great, another wedding to pay for!" followed quickly by "wow, there's gonna be all kinds of emotional drama in our house now" Don't worry, he's absolutely thrilled at the notion of having two daughters. Lucy absolutely adores her dad-I just don't think he ever imagined his life with girls :) Hank has been saying all along that he's having another baby sister, and this time around he's really enjoying going to my doctor's appointments with me to see the "xray of the baby". He asks the doctor all sorts of questions like "whats the baby doing in there?", "can the baby see me?", "how's the baby getting out of there?". He is really embracing his role as super big brother now-he has become rather helpful lately and comes up to my belly and gives his "other baby sister" kisses all the time. He just announced today that her name will be Baby Bertha-yikes. We have a terrible time coming up with girl names that we like--so don't be expecting any name announcements before this little is born.
How am I feeling? This pregnancy has been very similar to my first-much easier than Lucy's, hence my gut feeling that this was another boy. So much for that! I am past the first trimester exhaustion and obnoxious food issues, and actually feel fantastic now. I have more energy than I typically do when I'm not pregnant since the fog of fatigue cleared about 2 weeks ago. I feel like I can run a marathon everyday-which is good cause I need all this energy to keep up with everything on my plate. I don't ever recall having this kind of energy surge with the other two pregnancies. I know it won't last, so I will enjoy while I can. With the increased energy has come increased hunger-probably making up for the fact that in the first trimester I have exactly one thing each day that I felt like eating and then the next day the thought of that food made my stomach turn. For the first time I actually lost weight during the first trimester, not from sickness but probably due to the fact that I have two babies at home to chase around (one of whom I am still nursing). No worries there-I've easily put all that weight back on in about 2 weeks plus some :) My belly is growing, already starting to get the low back twinges and starting to feel the flutters of my sweet baby as we quickly approach the halfway point already!
This weekend we are off to test drive minivans-can't say what I'm more excited about-the minivan idea or the car dealer...blech.
12 weeks
14 weeks
17 weeks
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