21 Weeks (Second Time Around)

Wow – this pregnancy is going fast!  I’m already over halfway through!  If you’re a mom of two, did your second pregnancy seem to go super quickly too?

I realize I haven’t done much blogging about this pregnancy yet, so I’ll give you a brief rundown of the similarities between this time and last:

My size: I double-checked my blog from last time, and I had gained exactly the same amount of weight at this point as I have now (8 pounds).  I also have finally started showing to the point where the rest of the world can tell that I’m pregnant and not just think I ate a little too much over the holidays.

Exhaustion:  Oh man, am I tired ALL the time!  I’m even more exhausted this time around, but I’m pretty sure that’s bc I’m chasing a 1 ½ year old around.  Last time, when I was tired, I could just take a nap.  This time, little Miss G will come over and grab my hand and insist I come with her wherever she wants me to go.

Nausea: Fortunately, now that I’m well into 2^nd trimester, the nausea seems to have subsided.  I definitely had a lot more nausea this time around than I did last time.  When I was pregnant with G, it seemed that any nausea was really triggered by hunger.  So I could just eat something (anything) and the nausea would go away.  That was definitely not the case this time.  When I was nauseous, I would eat to try to make it go away, but it would persist and then I would just be nauseous and full.

Food:  I am hungry ALL the time.  Just like last time.  However, I don’t seem to like the same foods as much.  Last time around, I could eat mac n cheese every day and not get bored of it.  I think I did eat a green apple every day – usually with some cheese & crackers.  I still like those foods, but they’re just ok, not something I necessarily prefer over all other foods.  This time, I seem to like beef a lot better than chicken.  I am craving fruit more than usual.  Last time, the weird food that I all of a sudden liked (which I had always hated) was mustard.  This time it’s salt & vinegar potato chips.  I usually detest salt & vinegar potato chips!  Don’t ask me why, but for some weird reason, they all of a sudden taste good to me!   It’s so weird!

Baby movement:  This baby has definitely started kicking!  And, looking back at my blog, it seems like I started feeling the movement on pretty much the same schedule as last time.  I just was able to recognize the feeling as soon as it started.  This baby (so far) seems to be on more of a schedule than G was.  There are certain times of day when I’m almost guaranteed to feel it kick, whereas with G, I never knew when she would be active.  We’ll see if that continues or not.  But it’s an interesting observation.  I’m also curious to see if this one gets hiccups as much as G did – though I won’t be able to feel that for a while longer.

Aches & Pains:  I have started to feel some of the back pain that I experienced last time.  I’m hoping to stay even more active this time than last time, which will (hopefully) help with the back pain, even though I know there’s only so much one can do to prevent it.  Last night I got my first foot cramp of this pregnancy.  I remember getting foot cramps and Charlie horses throughout the last pregnancy and had kind of been wondering when they would start this time.  Guess I better start eating some more bananas!

The bump at Disneyland.

Obligatory bathroom selfie of the bump.

Happy New Year!

Maybe I’m a bit late for my New Year post, but since this is my first post of 2014, I hereby deem the timing appropriate.  Everything this year (er, last year?) has been a little delayed.  We will be sending out New Years cards instead of Christmas cards this year . . . mostly because I just didn’t have time to do any holiday prep prior to the holidays.  I’m lucky I got my Christmas shopping done on time – thank you Amazon! Being a working (and pregnant) parent is time consuming/hard/exhausting!  (I have a feeling that will be a theme to most of my posts for the next several months . . .)

I am very fortunate that my office closes during the week between Christmas and New Years.  Due to G’s daycare schedule, I took an extra couple days and had two full weeks off of work!  I haven’t had that much consecutive time off since maternity leave!  Bonus: we didn’t have to travel this year.  The furthest we went was down to San Diego to do Christmas Eve with my parents.  Aaron’s mom came up to us for Christmas Day. 

Our staycation meant I finally had time to accomplish things around the house that I have been meaning to do for MONTHS!  Seriously, it took the entire two weeks to finally get caught up on laundry! (Why do we have so many clothes?!)  I finally got around to breaking out my maternity clothes and packing away the clothes that no longer fit. (I still have a couple pairs of non-maternity pants/shorts that fit!)  I cleaned out G’s drawers of the clothes she’s outgrown and re-organized her closet.

One of my favorite things this break was that I hired a cleaning team to come in and clean the entire house – it was my anniversary present to Aaron (ok, it was really more a gift to the both of us).  When I was a kid, I never understood the “cleaning before the cleaning person coms” thing – but now that I’m a grown up, I totally get it!  We had to clear all the surfaces and make sure the clothes were picked up off the floor (even more motivation to get the laundry all done!) so that the cleaning people could actually clean.  I got a great deal from Homejoy.  Overall their services were good – I only asked for general cleaning, not a deep clean.  We had 2 people for 3 hours and they managed to get to (almost) everything that I asked them to do.  My one complaint is that they didn’t put everything back in their places.  I had to rearrange all the items on the surfaces they dusted to get them back to where I wanted them.  But really, if that’s my only complaint, it must mean they did a decent job – right?

In addition to getting the house more organized, we took advantage of the beautiful Southern California weather and went out and about a bunch!  We took G on her first trip to the Zoo and went to Lake Balboa almost every other day!  I had originally thought that I might take G up to the mountains so she could see snow for the first time.  But the weather here, near the coast, was so gorgeous that I was afraid we would make a 2-hour drive for nothing, so that will have to wait.  I’m sure there will be more opportunities later this winter to take her to see snow. 

Aaron and I went to Disneyland and had an anniversary dinner at the Blue Bayou.  We got to see “snow” at Disneyland as part of their light show, so I guess that’s something.  Having grown up in San Diego, I always kind of wished that it would snow just for Christmas so that I could experience a “White Christmas” like you see in the movies and on TV.  But then when I’m wearing tanks tops and shorts on New Years Day and my sister texts me the forecast of 0 degrees Fahrenheit from where she is in New York, I am very grateful that snow is only a 2 hour drive away.

And now a photo dump of some of our activities during the winter break:

 

At the Blue Bayou celebrating our anniversary.

G all dressed up and ready for Xmas Eve.

This is the face of someone who is very tired and needs some rest before Santa comes!

G with her gift from Santa (her very own "laptop" - maybe now she won't always try to play with Mommy & Daddy's?

G was enthralled by the gorillas at the Zoo!

The Big News

My apologies for the long hiatus from blogging.  But at least I can say I have good reason (which most of you know already, since I think there are maybe 5 people who read this blog that are not my fb /real lifefriends) . . . I’m pregnant!

I am currently 17 weeks pregnant with baby #2!  The due date is May 21 (or 22, depending on which ultrasound you believe).  Guinevere will be about 23 months when this baby is born, so they’ll be almost exactly 2 years apart. 

For those of you who are wondering, no, this one was not exactly planned. (It’s amazing how many people have asked this question – a minuscule snarky part of me wants to respond, “You really want to know that much about my sex life?”)  It’s kind of funny, though, G was so planned.  When Aaron and I got married, we told people we would wait 5 years before having kids.  Five years later (almost exactly), we announced that we were expecting!  When it came time to having a second kid, Aaron and I had no idea what the timing should be.  We hadn’t really thought that far ahead.  We knew for sure that we wanted 2 kids, and it seemed like 2 years apart would be a good age difference – it seems kind of standard almost (you should see how many of my fb friends are now pregnant with #2 who also had babies in 2012!)  In fact, we literally had just started seriously discussing having another one and then . . . BOOM.  Pregnant.  So like I said, not exactly planned . . . but not completely unplanned either – if that makes any sense. 

The one nice thing about the timing of this pregnancy is that, assuming this kid isn’t late, I will be done having kids while I’m 35.  The downside is that I’m already 35; so all my medical paperwork is stamped with “advanced maternal age” (AMA).  Ha!  The nurses warned me about that ahead of time and told me not to freak out – especially since I’m exactly 35 (right at the cutoff for AMA).  Definitely glad they warned me, though.  Since I am 35, we had to meet with a genetic counselor and go through all of the risks associated with having a kid “later in life” and discuss the various tests that were available to us.  Fortunately, they now reserve amniocentesis for high-risk situations where you’ve already had bad results on earlier much more non-invasive tests.  Many of the tests are the same as before – basic blood work, NT scan, etc.  But there’s a new test that Kaiser has recently adopted where they draw blood and look for the risk of any chromosomal abnormalities.  A byproduct of that test is that they can tell the gender as early as 10 weeks!  So yes, we know the gender already.  We’re not really spreading it around yet, though – but if you ask me really nicely in person, I might tell you.

How am I feeling?  Exhausted!  I thought I was tired when I was pregnant with Guinevere . . . that was nothing compared to the exhaustion of being pregnant AND chasing after a toddler!  Plus, I’ve had a lot more nausea this time around.  With G, whenever I would feel a little nauseous, I could just eat something or have a glass of milk and the nausea would subside.  This time around, eating doesn’t really seem to help.  Now that I’m in my second trimester, most of the “morning” sickness has dissipated (morning = a wave in the morning, a wave in the afternoon and a wave in the evening).  I’m still getting some nausea at night, right before bed, when my exhaustion is at its peak.  

And that, my friends, is the major reason for the delay in my blogging.  Every night when I say I’m going to write something, I put G to bed, sit on the couch and fall asleep (or lay there in a ball not feeling good until I eventually fall asleep).  I really shouldn’t complain too much – I’ve had friends who have had much worse pregnancies than either of mine.  It’s really not that bad.  It’s just that I’m not used to having no energy and it really throws me for a loop!

Our little alien.  :)

Dancing Again!

I can’t believe it’s been almost two months since I last posted anything!  Life has been super hectic and busy.  Keeping up with a one year old, plus work, plus trying to keep the house in some semblance of an order has left me with very little energy in my limited spare time. Plus, my spare time is even more limited because I am dancing again!

Since I started this blog while I was pregnant with Guinevere, I realize some of my readers may not know my dancer background.  I grew up doing ballet, and continued doing it through undergrad and then semi-professionally for four years before going off to law school.  Even after law school I continued dancing and doing shows up until I got pregnant with G.  In fact, I was actually pregnant (I just didn’t know it yet!) during the last show that I did back in November 2011.

I’ve missed dancing so much during my hiatus – and now I’m doing a show again!  It’s called LA Unbound.  It’s one of those shows where several choreographers submit various pieces of various genres.  The piece I’m doing is a contemporary piece with half of us en pointe (including me) and the other half are barefoot.  Call me crazy, but I actually missed my pointe shoes!  Yes, my toes have experienced multiple blisters during the rehearsal period, but I really do enjoy dancing en pointe.  It feels like floating on air.

This show is kind of the perfect way to get back into performing again.  It’s a one-day only show, and because I’m only in one piece, the rehearsals have been only one day per week.  So it’s been minimal commitment, but maximum fun for me.

For those of you who are interested in coming to see the show, there are two performances, one at 4pm and one at 8pm on Saturday, November 9 at the El Portal theatre in North Hollywood.  Tickets are $18 in advance, $25 at the door.  Here’s a link for more information.

And now I will leave you with a picture of me from my more serious ballerina days :)

Photo by Chris McCaleb