Mothership Confessional

I'm writing this up from the hospital on day 2 of recovery...can you believe it?! Things are totally different this time! We checked into the hospital at 9 am on Monday morning. Not going to lie...I was fighting the tears saying goodbye to Ava - it was crashing down on me that life was about to change and that things would never be the same. I was so nervous and excited and my heart was pounding as we walked in! I hardly slept the night before. I spent about an hour and a half in the recovery area hooked up to an IV for fluids and then they monitored Liam for about another half hour. It was kind of a long, boring 2 hours - it was hard to keep my mind occupied! Then they came back and told us it was time to go! We walked back to the OR and I got my spinal while Chris got dressed up. It's crazy how fast the spinal works - I felt the warmth race down my leg, into my buttocks, and then the other leg. It happened so fast I was pretty numb before I could even lay down on th...

I can't believe we are counting down the final days before Liam is here! My back and pelvis are going to be so happy!! But I am still feeling apprehensive! Nobody wants  to have surgery. I'm nervous to be awake for it this time! It was pretty sucky that I had to be put to sleep to deliver Ava . I woke up back in my room and they brought Ava to me and said, "This is your baby!". Chris wasn't a part of her birth, either, since everything was so rushed and I was put under. He says they asked him if Ava was his baby, and he said "I guess!". We are both looking forward to witnessing the birth of our child this time around! It's going to be so emotional!! I still remember walking from the car to the house when we brought Ava home. My belly jiggled like Jell-o with the absence of the baby I carried for 9 months! I felt so unbalanced. It was almost an out-of-body experience! It's bizarre to go into a delivery this time knowing what to expect! I r...

This has been a fast week! It helps that I was out of the house for 3 mornings...even though it exhausts me! We always go to the commissary on Tuesday mornings - we would do Mondays but they are closed - because we like to start the week out with a full fridge and the weekends are too crowded/shelves are picked over. So because I'm so very pregnant now, with a toddler in tow, commissary runs now take up practically the whole morning! It wasn't until after Ava was well into eating table food that we got into the swing of meal planning. It has really made things sooo much easier! I plan about 3/4 meals for 7 days and that gets us through the week. There's always leftovers and sometimes we will eat out for a meal on the weekends. It makes budgeting super easy too, because we know about how much groceries will cost us per week. I highly recommend meal planning - I usually go to my Pinterest boards for new ideas if I'm tired of our old favorites! Wednesday is library sto...

I forgot to share this little tidbit! If you are expecting a child, you definitely need to do an Amazon registry! Here are my reasons why: 1. You can add ANYTHING from ANY website. 2. Your shipping information is on the registry and Amazon Prime members can ship to you for free! (Items must be Amazon Prime eligible) This works great for out-of-town friends and family! 3. You receive a completion discount of 15%   off  a month or two before the expected arrival date (I forget the exact timeline)! This is a one-time use coupon with exclusions, but it works on most items! I stuck some things for Ava on Liam's registry so we could get the discount on a couple things for her, too! 4. I had 3 registries with duplicates items across each one to see which store had better prices.  99% of the time, Amazon has been the same or the cheapest ! Our double stroller has been priced at $299 in store, and I found the price fluctuates a bit on Amazon. The green versio...

Ok, things are getting hard. I can only choose about one major task to do  per day . I went to the commissary today and it pretty much wiped me out. AND it just so happened that Chris met me there, so I had help the last half of the trip. I came home and unloaded the car (never getting paper bags again...I could not load up my arms like I usually do with plastic so it took A THOUSAND trips from the car into the house) and had to sit on the couch until it was time to give Ava lunch. I was seriously almost in tears trying to put groceries away and prep Ava's food (thankfully it was just a matter of reheating leftovers and chopping some grapes) and I realized there was nothing for me to grab and eat for lunch, despite just coming home from the store. Ava was done quickly (she was mad the mac and cheese was all gone and didn't want anything else, it was the same story at breakfast except with eggs) and then I got her ready for her nap. She's been kind of a spitfire today so s...

Hubby and I finally  got a babysitter and were able to get out and see a movie! We were nervous how Ava would do with a stranger, but the two of them really hit it off! Apparently Ava was quite the chatterbox and the sitter adored her (I mean, who wouldn't...but I guess I'm a bit biased)! So it was nice to get out and it was nice for Ava to have a new friend to play with! We were finally able to make it back to church after 3 weeks of at least one of us being sick! Ava loves  the handbell choir and the organ music! She gasps in awe and asks for more as soon as it stops! She did much better at "behaving" when there was no music this time - I think I picked the right toys to bring this time, and there were a few kids in the pew in front of us that helped to distract her! She still couldn't make it the whole time without trying to escape our pew, but she's improving for sure! We stayed for fellowship time and Ava enjoyed a snack while we chatted with the famil...

We have finished eating our freezer meal stash, I'm working dinners around what's left in the pantry, and I've halted trips to SAMs Club. It's moving time! Time to start packing up our lives once again to move on to the next adventure! Fort Campbell was the first duty station Chris and I were at together, and it was a good 3 years. A  great  3 years, actually... Fort Campbell is where I learned how to live this Army life as a supportive wife, and how to not complain about things that cannot be controlled. I learn more about this duty every day. This is where I learned more about myself as an individual and had a tremendous amount of personal growth. This is where I went out on a limb and chose a different career path . As it turned out, I loved it! This is where I learned that your morning coffee makes you poop. (true story, people!) This is where I learned how to fold jeans in a nice, neat stack and how to fold shirts faster than I ever t...

Week 16 It's amazing to me how my love for this little baby seems to have multiplied in the last week. I love that we know he's a boy. I love that we know his name! We didn't have any ideas for names for a second child, unlike Ava, whose name we had picked out literally years  before she was even born! We stumbled across the name Liam, and we had been trying to find names to go with Alexander, which we agreed that we liked as a middle name. Once the gender-determining ultrasound was done, we spent the rest of the day calling him "Liam Alexander" and seeing how we liked it. By the end of the day, it was clear to us that should be his name! I've been more certain of the movements of little Liam! He was really  active during the ultrasound but I can't feel all those little wiggles yet! But I can feel little twitches when he moves his limbs and changes in pressure in my belly when he moves his whole body - mostly in the area where his head is on my right ...

Its funny how differently I feel with this second pregnancy. Not necessarily physically, but emotionally. With Ava, I truly felt happy and thrilled  and  ecstatic pretty much every single day of pregnancy, even despite the first trimester sickness and third trimester hugeness. It was my first time experiencing pregnancy after trying for 4 long years. I was enjoying every moment of it. I wasn't taking any day for granted and I honestly felt like I was glowing every day. I also had nothing better to do than to sit and daydream, plan and organize for little girl's arrival. This time around, the pregnancy itself was a complete surprise. I mean, we weren't preventing pregnancy so obviously we knew it could happen, but seeing how we didn't get Ava without medical intervention made us have our guards down a little. I still feel the timing for a second pregnancy couldn't have been better. I have absolutely zero regrets or hesitations about being pregnant again. ...

12 weeks... DONE!! We are 1/3 of the way to meeting our baby!! And we finally got to see little baby and we got an official due date! The ultrasound image was of a 9 1/2 weeker, so there wasn't much to see! Still a "little gummy bear" as the doctor called it! And I am due February 27th!  I was able to ask some questions about my delivery options. I will only have one more appointment with this doctor (if we are even here that long) so she gave me her opinion, but said my next doctor might have something different to say. She recommended letting myself go into labor, and have a c-section scheduled for a week or two past my due date in case labor did not happen. She said it is rare that they advise anyone against laboring, so it would be okay for me to do as well. Of course, this all depends on how baby is presenting; Ava was transverse or breech the whole time until the doctor did an external version to move her. I still feel a little reluctant to labor bec...