Weeks 11-15

Well, here we are, into the second trimester already!  It's flying by this time, though those first few weeks of nausea and exhaustion seemed to drag on.  I know that this pregnancy will probably seem to go by much quicker because we already have one toddler keeping us on our toes (and boy does she keep us busy).  I'm trying to soak up every amazing thing about the miracle that is growing a baby, since I know this is the last time we'll be doing this.

The last few weeks have been pretty great.  I've (mostly) gotten my energy back, though I'm usually DEAD tired around 5-7 at night, which is the worst time to be tired.  No more nausea, and my appetite seems to be back, but not nearly what it used to be.  Now, I'm generally craving cereal; LOTS of cereal.  I went through four boxes in two weeks, and have a fifth open box in the pantry.  We had our 11-13 week appointment on the 19th, had our nuchal translucency ultrasound, and did some blood work for genetic screening.  Baby looked so adorable, and was very uncooperative.  S/he would not sit still for the tech to get good pictures, but it was ok for me, because that meant we got to see him/her for about 35 minutes.  Heart rate was 150, and baby was sucking their thumb - adorable!  Just like big sis!  The blood work was for the Verifi test, which looks for chromosomal disorders.  You can find out the gender from those tests, but we opted not to. :)  The nurse called me with the results yesterday, and everything looked great; though it's not 100% accurate, I feel much better.  I've also been feeling little flutters the past few weeks, and they've become more frequent, which is so amazing!

We've also been dealing with a sick little girl (and a sick daddy too).  Mark has been coughing for about three weeks; horrible, hacking cough, and it finally hit Lilly last week.  She had a fever Thursday, and Friday morning was worse.  She developed a runny/congested nose and a cough over the weekend, so we went to the dr on Monday, and she said it was bronchitis.  Giving Lilly her steroid medicine is a nightmare, and usually ends up with all of us wearing more medicine than she swallows, but she's much better so far, so the little bit she gets seems to be working!

I'll do a little catch-up post here, and then start my weekly posts next week.  Our ultrasound showed baby was 13 weeks, 5 days, but according to my due date, I was only 12 weeks, 6 days.  So I'm going to do the weekly updates in the middle, on Saturday! 

14 Weeks: Baby 2.0 is the size of a lemon!

How far along? 14w,6d

Total weight gain: -10.  Yes, I've lost 10 lbs, but it's ok!

Maternity clothes? Yes

Stretch marks? No

Sleep: Not too good.  I've been tossing and turning a lot.  I already feel uncomfortable on my stomach, so I probably have a few weeks left sleeping that way.

Best moment this week: Hmm... unexpected day off with Lilly on Friday was nice!  We got lots of cuddles in.
 Miss Anything? Wine

Movement: Little flutters and movement when I'm laying in bed.  Sometimes when I'm working too, if I'm still and quiet.

   Food cravings: Cereal, garlic bread, lots of random things!

Anything making you queasy or sick: Meat  

Have you started to show yet? Yes

Gender prediction: I go back and forth.  Mostly thinking girl though.
Symptoms: Headaches, exhaustion

Belly Button in or out? In. It's already shallow though, so I might have an outie before this baby comes.

Wedding rings on or off? On.

Happy or Moody most of the time: Excited! Nervous.
 Looking forward to: Feeling more kicks, punches, rolls, etc.  I can't wait for Lilly to feel the baby!  I think she'll be amazed.

Weeks 4-11

What a whirlwind it's been.  I can't believe I'm already 11 weeks (technically 11 tomorrow, according to the OB).  Either way, between the holidays, Mark getting three job offers, and starting a new job, it's flown by.

Let's start at the beginning, shall we?  I guess I was about three weeks pregnant when we found out.  Dating a pregnancy can be a little misleading, since technically you're considered two weeks pregnant before you're even pregnant.  My EDD based on my last period was 7/23.  I don't really count that first week, since I hadn't missed a period.  I called the dr on the day of my missed period, to schedule my first appointment.  She's pretty busy, but we got in on 12/9.  I knew what to expect from being pregnant with Lilly, so I was just anxiously awaiting that first picture and hearing the heart beat for the first time.

Weeks 4-6 were pretty uneventful.  My only real symptom was that I was RAVENOUS.  Around the middle of week 5, on a Sunday night, Mark was already asleep and I got up to go to the bathroom one last time before bed.  When I got up, there was blood.  Not a little, but a lot, and I panicked.  It was after 10:30 on a Sunday night.  What should I do?  I woke up Mark, hoping he would have an answer, but he was as baffled as I was.  Should we go to the emergency room?  With a toddler?  And work the next day?  Or wait?  I knew if there was something wrong this early, we didn't really have much chance of fixing it, so we decided to wait.  I went to the bathroom again, there was a little spotting, not much, so we felt a little better.  I called the OB first thing the next morning.  It was a holiday week, the week of Thanksgiving.  Due to some of my past history, they had me come in for some blood work, which I would have repeated on Wednesday.  Since it was a long weekend, I might not hear anything until the following Monday, a full week away.  It didn't help that my OB was on vacation, so I had to hope that one of the on call doctors would check her charts.

My first blood work came back on Tuesday.  The nurse called and said that my OB had looked at my results, and wanted me to keep my appointment on Wednesday, and also wanted me to come in the following week for an ultrasound.  I panicked.  Why?  My first appointment was in two weeks.  If she wanted me to come in before that, there had to be something wrong, right?  Mark was great at calming me down.  I went for my repeat blood work, and we went into the long holiday weekend holding our breath.  We decided to tell my family on Thanksgiving, because I wanted the support one way or another.

In between my blood work, morning sickness (or all day sickness really) hit me HARD.  That was good news!  I spent much of the week getting sick at the thought of coffee, and food in general, but I was still starving.  Thanksgiving morning was rough.  Let me tell you, throwing up in a Walgreens parking lot is classy.  At least I felt better to eat something on my favorite food holiday.  We'd thought of some great ideas to tell my family at Christmas, but needed some new ones since we decided to tell them early.  In the end we went with this:

Since my sister was hosting, we brought it as a 'housewarming gift' and had her open it.  She read it to herself and freaked out and hugged me... and everyone was wondering what was going on!  So I had her read it out loud.  There were lots of tears, and excitement!  It was great!  We still had a lot on our minds, but we were determined to enjoy our announcement and our holiday weekend.

I wanted to decorate for Christmas, and get our tree that weekend, but that Friday I was so sick and tired, I slept almost all day long.  We got our tree on Saturday, and Sunday was a repeat of nausea and exhaustion.  And my first blood draw came back and my numbers were sky high, so that was good too!  We had an ultrasound scheduled for 12/1 first thing in the morning.  I was so scared that morning.  I just hoped and hoped that everything was ok.  We got in the room, and the tech found the baby, and made sure there was just one and announced that everything looked good.  We saw the heart beat (what a relief that tiny little flicker was!) and she determined the heart rate was 114.  All good news. 

Baby's first picture!

My doctor called that evening after reviewing everything, and said everything looked great, and she was going to change my due date to 7/28 based on the measurement, and she would see me next week at my first appointment.  I was thrilled!  I think my due date is actually 7/25, since I was charting, but we'll let her keep it at 7/28. ;)

Week 7, we had our appointment.  We had another ultrasound where we heard the heart beat - up to 150!  It made me cry, again.  We talked about my nausea and I got some sample medicine to help, which has worked WONDERS!  I'm still exhausted, but now I have somewhat of an appetite.  We talked about a few new tests they can do, if I want them, and then I had about 15684 vials of blood drawn and a flu shot for good measure.  Then I scheduled almost all of my appointments for the rest of the pregnancy (up to 36 weeks).

Baby's second picture

In between all of this, we had to prepare for the holidays, Mark had THREE interviews and three job offers!  He ended up taking a new second shift job, which allows him to stay home with Lilly during the day, so it's a huge blessing for us.  We told everyone else the good news on Christmas Eve, and had a wonderful holiday with our families.  We slept at home on Christmas Eve, and it was so much fun seeing Lilly experience Christmas morning at home with all her presents!  She was so much fun, and kept saying "Oh look at that" (well, her version of it anyway).  Christmas with kids is so amazing, and I can't believe that next year we'll have another!

10 weeks... mostly Lilly leftovers, but there's a little bump.

Christmas week was wonderful, and then the week after was short with work, so it was more relaxing.  We're trying to get our house back in order, and get used to our new routine now that Mark is off Sunday and Monday, and home during the day.  We've had our bumps, but it's going to be great; we're very excited!

Like I said... it's been a whirlwind, but we're looking forward to all the crazy that is coming our way in the next few months!  I'm excited to keep you all updated with the progress as we get ourselves and our house ready for our newest family member! 

Expecting

So, we're expecting baby #2.  It was not quite a surprise this time around.  We had been talking about expanding our family for a while, and both knew we'd like to try for #2 in January.  I planned to start charting to learn a little bit about things before January.  One night in October, Mark told me that if we started trying before January, he wouldn't be that upset.  We both wanted another, so might as well get it over with sooner than later, right?

Little did we know it'd be RIGHT AWAY!  Much like Lilly, we were a little surprised it didn't take longer.  Just call me Myrtle.

There they are... those two life-changing lines.

So about a week or so before my period was due, I had some weird symptoms, and just knew I was pregnant.  I had some spotting and was super emotional (crying at random things).  I bought a few tests and took them, but they were negative.  I wasn't super disappointed, but I did go out and get another box.  It was pretty early, but since Mark's birthday was that week, I wanted to surprise him, if I could.  I had an idea to do a scavenger hunt for him, with little gifts along with clues, and the final clue being that we had a bun in the oven.  So the morning before his birthday, I got up and peed, and when I didn't see anything at first, I was a little disappointed, but walked away.  I came back in about 3 minutes later, and BAM!  There it was, a very faint second line!  I FREAKED out.  I think the only things I said for a full 20 minutes were "OMG OMG OMG OMG oh my god oh my god oh my god".  The line was pretty faint, so I decided to wait and test again the next morning, on his birthday.  The next morning, there was no question about that second line!

I gathered up all the gifts and printed up the clues and hid them.  Mark was coming home around 6-6:30, and then we had to make dinner.  But the scavenger hunt would be first, since the first clue was taped to the garage door.  I was worried he'd know something was up, but he didn't!  He got all his clues, and when he got to the last one (taped to a box of brownies in the oven) he sat there reading it, before he looked up and said "OMG really?!?" and gave me the biggest smile and hug ever.  Much better than his reaction to Lilly, lol.  He said it was the best birthday present ever.

I'm going to try to do weekly posts again with this baby, but let's be honest, I work full-time and have a toddler and a house to take care of.  I'm going to try really hard so that this baby has as much documentation as Lilly did though.  Since I'm only 10 weeks, I'll probably do one big post for the first trimester, and then start weekly pictures around 15-16 weeks.  We'll see! 

And there you have it, the story of how we ended up expecting baby #2.  Hope you all have a safe and happy New Year!

Ahem... we have an announcement!

This has already been made "Facebook official", but I thought I'd share here as well.  

That's right... Little Baby Tucci 2.0, arriving July 2015!

Books

One of my 30 before 30 goals is to read 30 new books.  Before I came up with my list of goals, I had been reading quite a bit, so I'm going to count those books because they were all read after I had turned 29.  I just thought I'd do a little progress post and see how many more I have left to go!

1.  The Fault in Our Stars
2.  Gone Girl
3.  The Storyteller
4.  The Book Thief
5.  Divergent
6.  Insurgent
7.  Allegiant

I need some suggestions.  I'm always on the hunt for some new books to read, so post any you'd recommend in the comments.  I'd love to hear what you all suggest.

Cast Iron Skillet Pizza + Pictures

Let's rewind a little bit, shall we?  I want to talk about my Mother's Day weekend.  This year was my second Mother's Day.  Last year was perfect, so we figure why mess with it and did something similar.  Mommy slept in while Daddy and Lilly made breakfast - this year there was a little more participation on Lilly's end.  I woke up and we had cards and presents and flowers (Frozen on Blu-Ray, the Frozen soundtrack, and a new Willow Tree statue).  Then we enjoyed some stuffed french toast.  It was heavenly.  I'm so spoiled.

My hubby likes to treat it like a Mother's Weekend though, so on Saturday while we were making our shopping list, he asked what I wanted for dinner.  And I knew exactly what I wanted.  I wanted this.

Cast Iron Skillet Pizza from How Sweet Eats

So we set out to the store for all the ingredients.  I was really unsure about it.  I mean, a fully cooked pizza in 3 minutes?  No way.  It can't be!  But I was so wrong.  It was amazing.  It was so good, I didn't mind at all that we didn't eat until almost 10 PM.  And immediately Mark decided this was the only way we could ever eat pizza again (it was that good).  We're gonna give it another try again soon, but with some different toppings.  They were amazing, but we just want to try some other variations.  So hopefully when we do, I'll take some pictures and write a post all about it!

In the meantime, please enjoy these other pictures of my favorite person in the world, Lilly!

30 Before 30

It hit me today... this is my last year in my 20s.  And I've already used up two whole months of it.  So after finding a new blog today - check it out... Brooke: Not on a Diet - seriously, she's so inspiring - I decided to come up with a list of 30 things I want to do before the dirty 30 hits next March.

1. Run another 5K
2. Sign up for (and maybe run) a 10K
3. Put in a new fence 
4. Start planning for our next house
5. Start working on/planning for baby #2
6. Lose 30 lbs
7. Pay off all of our credit cards
8. Plan (and book) a vacation for just Mark and I
9. Take a family vacation
10. Potty train Lilly
11. Blog at least once a week
12. Attempt a new recipe each month
13. Take a photography class
14. Get a Lilly tattoo
15. Read 30 new books
16. Take pictures of Lilly every month
17. Donate my hair
18. Take Lilly camping for the first time
19. Go hiking
20. Take Lilly to the beach for the first time
21. Complete Lilly's baby book
22. Take a sushi-making class
23. Plan (and complete) 1 date night per month
24. Try at least one new food I have REFUSED in the past
25. Make no new purchases for a month (food/necessities don't count)
26. Try clean eating for 1 week
27. Make a new friend
28. Plan and start our garden for next summer
29. Find a hobby Mark and I both enjoy
30. Try hot yoga