Yay for little Boys!

I had my 20 week ultrasound on Wednesday and found out that we are having another baby boy! I was more surprised than I expected. Somehow I had almost convinced myself that this baby was a girl!

This pregnancy has been different since day 1. First of all, it took us 2 years, and 8 rounds of fairly high doses of Clomid to get pregnant with Bruce. This pregnancy came with no doctor's intervention at all! As a matter of fact, I was scheduled to start taking the Clomid again the very month we learned we were expecting!

With Bruce I had virtually no nausea, and if I was nauseous it was easily fixed with a small snack. This time I felt gross from week 6 to 13ish, pretty much all day. I have been blessed with a strong stomach though, and only actually vomited maybe three times, so I still can't complain. I have high functioning pregnancies and can keep my normal lifestyle throughout - unlike my mother and grandmother who were so ill during pregnancy that they would pretty much be hospitalized. Whew, glad I missed that gene :) I just didn't WANT to eat 99% of foods... I had such a hard time finding foods that looked/smelled edible that I lost 5 pounds in that first trimester. I read online that crackers with a slice of cheese would help, and I am pretty sure I ate several boxes of saltines by myself. I do love cheese...

Another difference is with Bruce I was so tired at the beginning. I would come home from work, eat dinner and go to bed at 6:30 to sleep until I woke up the next morning. This baby is the opposite. I have insomnia or something. I can't fall asleep at night, no matter how long of a day it has been. If I am able to get to sleep, I wake up at 2 or 3am and can't fall back asleep. This may be a blessing though, because I have had plenty of energy to spend my days with Bruce. I do sometimes take his afternoon nap with him though. Ok, most of the time. In my defense, he only takes a 1 hour nap or less so I figure it doesn't waste too much of the day.

Other than that, my belly popped out a lot earlier with this baby than Bruce. By 9 weeks I could tell I was pregnant, and by 13 I was having a hard time not looking obviously pregnant. For whatever reason, I feel like I spend the first 4 months trying to NOT look pregnant... no one wants to be asked how far along they are and have to say - only 8 weeks or only 10 weeks... that just makes you feel fat. :) Now I am 20 weeks, and there is no hiding this baby.

My goal for this pregnancy is to not gain more than I did with Bruce.
Shouldn't be hard - I packed on 40 pounds with him... I would prefer to gain a little less this time, but I have half eaten boxes of Oreos, Thin Mints and Samoas (all from the past two days) that say not to get my hopes up... I have had a net gain of 7 pounds so far according to the Doctor's office.

Which is one last thing to document. I was not fully prepared for the difference in how my body carries this baby. By that I mean physically prepared. I was worried about shedding pounds and didn't even think to work on gaining my abdominal strength back before we got pregnant again. As I mentioned before, my belly began protruding earlier, but also, I have a lot more round ligament pain already. I went for a jog (just a mile and a half) at 14 or 15 weeks, and had pretty intense pain for about a week afterwards. Both sides of my torso and my lower abs/pelvis were sore, but also had stabbing sharp pains. (not contractions - I know what those feel like) It literally felt like my muscles were being stretched to snapping point. I stick to the elliptical now so my cantalope-sized uterus isn't bouncing around in there wrecking havoc on my weakling muscles trying to hold it in. (TMI?) Makes me wonder what I will feel like at 9 months! yikes! So note to self,  focus on getting some abdominal strength back before the next baby!

20 weeks

We are so happy and excited to be having a boy! Not only will it be convenient to re-use clothes,shoes,  blankets, ect. but also Bruce will have a buddy he can really connect with. David's reaction in the Doctors office was something to the effect of  'whew, we are safe for a while longer...' while we would love a little girl, neither of us is quite ready for the traumatic emotional teenage drama that inevitably comes with girls. Maybe one day... but not yet.

Well, that is pretty much my thoughts on this pregnancy thus far. It has gone really fast until this past week when I was counting down the days until we knew the gender. Now that we do, hopefully time will pass quickly again. I am excited and nervous about being a mom of two... I cannot even begin to imagine what this baby might look like... I know it will be different than Bruce, but how? We will just have to wait and see :)

That's all for now!
I will try to do a Bruce post tomorrow...