happy birthday to me!

this post has taken me forever to create and get posted online :P  but here goes:

it's official...we're pregnant with baby #2!  since this wasn't a planned pregnancy, it took awhile for me to get over the shock, and for the fog to lift off my head.  a few weekends ago we shared our news with friends, and their excitement for us has brought me around.  my biggest fear about being pregnant was the pregnancy itself, and the labour/delivery with gabe wasn't a great experience either...so having a 2nd baby was an unlikely event.

everyone knows that my pregnancy with gabe wasn't the best, and it looks like i'm in for a repeat with this one.  when i was only 6 weeks pregnant, i took the proactive step of going to physiotherapy to get some stretching exercises to minimize my sciatica.  well, the stretching has helped a bit, but it looks like i'm in for another painful pregnancy.  on quieter days, i can get through it all with minimal pains, but just having one too many activities can push my nerves to their limit.  it got pretty bad last night, and i was suffering on both sides so ultimately i just went to bed to forget about the pain :P

new for this pregnancy was the queasiness.  in my first trimester, i felt the need to eat all day long just to ward off the ill feeling, and luckily i was ok and never had to throw-up.  i've also been having a lot more lower belly pain - nothing severe - but if i stand up too quickly this baby is just reminding me of his/her presence. i was also getting morning headaches, which was likely due to my interrupted sleep - i'm usually awake every 2-3 hours :P

before we told our friends about the pregnancy, we explained everything to gabe and he took the news well (i've asked him in the past if he wanted to have a little brother or sister, and he's adamantly said NO!). now that everyone is openly talking about the baby, he's very excited and always likes to remind us that there's a baby in my tummy and that we should use our quiet voices (i'm not sure when we've ever yelled in front of gabe?!).  hopefully he'll still be as excited once the baby actually arrives!

our original due date was dec. 22, but after my OB sent me for a dating ultrasound, it got pushed back to dec. 28 - yup, my birthday :P  so this poor child of mine is going to be stuck with a christmas-time birthday.  as i'm just past 13 weeks, today was the first time we got to hear the baby's heartbeat and since i scheduled it on my day off, gabe got to accompany me he was very excited to be included.

in the meantime, we've taken a stroll down memory lane at my parents' place looking at all of gabe's old baby stuff that needs to be dusted off and freshened up for this new little one.  it's also giving way to some anxiety about where everything will go in our little home!  somehow we will make everything work for us, and we'll be a cozy family of 4 by the end of 2013!