Well, I’m sitting here 39 weeks, 1 day pregnant and feeling like every time I stand up a baby is going to just slide right on out of there. The subtitle of my blog name is “I’m an over-sharer” so I do not feel bad telling you this information.

Anyways, to say that I never thought I’d make it to 39 weeks pregnant is an understatement. Everyone always tells you that every pregnancy is different. Guys, I just wasn’t expecting this pregnancy to be this different since the same vessel is carrying the child.

With Daniel, I was induced at 37 weeks because I had preeclampsia and they were like, “Let’s have a baby because it’s getting dangerous for both of you.” We had a pleasant ride to the hospital because I wasn’t in labor at all. After they broke my water, I had one more intense contraction and was like OK EPIDURAL NOW PLEASE. (I have nothing to prove to anyone, here.) I was 3 cm dilated when I got my epidural.

Now, here I sit, 4 cm dilated and the doctor is like “Well, your body is certainly ready to have this baby, but he’s not ready to come out.” 🙄

Two weeks ago, I went to bed on a Sunday night at 10:15 and at 10:30 I was like “Hmmmmmmm, are these contractions that I’m feeling??” And I was up until 4 a.m. with irregular and uncomfortable contractions. And then, they just stopped. And I was very annoyed. Like, come on. Don’t mess with me like that.

The next day I was exhausted and felt like I had done 1,000 sit ups. But there was no sign of the baby. At all. No more contraction-action. I had a doctor appointment the following Thursday, which felt like an eternity, and was 3 cm dilated and she stripped my membranes (sorry, TMI), and was like “If that worked, you’ll have the baby in 1-2 days!!”

Obviously the only thing I heard was “You’ll have the baby in 1-2 days!!” So I took action. My house has never been cleaner for a more consistent amount of time, and you guys, for the first time ever the landscaping around our house is basically weeded. Anything to make the baby come. I mean, I have never, NEVER willingly been like “I think I’m going to pull weeds for an hour!” Until now. At this point I’ll be doing it long enough to make it a habit, which would actually be really nice for the state of our home.

But he didn’t come in 1-2 days. When we got to the weekend, I was like “GREAT now he’s going to come on Daniel’s birthday and 100% of my kids will be born on the same day.”

Well, he didn’t come on Daniel’s birthday either. So obviously the day after Daniel’s birthday, I was like “The baby MUST be coming today!!” Wrong again.

Anyways, the point of the whole thing is that I am so anxious waiting for this baby to come, and have made everyone around me anxious too. I stand by the fact that had the doctor not put a 1-2 timestamp on it 10 days ago, I wouldn’t be THIS anxious.

I have to keep thinking about the positive things, like the fact that seriously, my house is SO CLEAN because I am constantly cleaning and doing laundry just in case we have to go to the hospital. And the fact that Daniel came at 37 weeks and had to be in the NICU for 10 days, so we should be fine this time around.

I AM starting to get concerned about the size of this baby though… I mean, I had Daniel 2 years ago, and I still remember pushing for 2 hours because of his huge head. And I remember when they told me Daniel weighed 7 pounds I was like “7 POUNDS!? 3 WEEKS EARLY!? WHAT IF HE WAS 3 WEEKS LATER?!”

And now, because I’ve done such a poor job of blogging during my pregnancy, here are some highlights.

• The whole pregnancy I’ve been feeling really, really good (until now when I’m just very uncomfortable and have to pee like, every 20 minutes). This was not the case when I was pregnant with Daniel – nausea for about 18 weeks, ew. I also felt this baby start moving around 17 weeks (compared to about 24 weeks with Daniel). Everyone was like “It’s because you know what you’re feeling for!” But trust me when I say, this baby moves a LOT more than Daniel ever did. That combined with the fact that I never had any morning sickness and incredible amounts of heartburn essentially convinced me that I was having a girl. The pregnancies were so different. I wasn’t going to be upset if I found out it was a boy (hello, two boys exactly two years apart = forced BFFL), but I really was so sure it was a girl.Also, side note, one of the reasons I didn’t feel Daniel move until around 24 weeks and didn’t feel him move very much for the duration of my pregnancy with him was because I had an anterior placenta, which basically means (per the doctor) that there was like an extra cushion between the baby moving and me being able to feel the baby move. The point is – if I had been pregnant with this moving machine first and Daniel the non-mover second, I would be worried all the time because of how much movement I wasn’t feeling.
• It’s a BOY! It was so much fun learning the gender and being able to teach Daniel to say “baby brother” and knowing that all of the cutesy clothes Daniel wore when he was an itty bitty baby will be the same size/season for the new baby. (Here’s to hoping the new baby is not a runt or a meatball and fits into this vision I’m having.)
• At my last ultrasound, they took the below alarming photo of the baby. I mean, does he not look like the angriest baby you’ve ever seen? So that gave me anxiety 😳
• I briefly mentioned heartburn above. At this point, I will be very disappointed if the baby is born bald. You know the old wives’ tale that is basically “heartburn = tons of hair!” Also, if the baby is born with a mane of hair, I am seriously considering naming him Mufasa. Middle name at the very least.

Anyways, we are very ready to meet this baby. VERY READY.

Any. Day. Now.

Written September 17, 6 weeks.

I’m not here to kid anyone – I took a total of 4 pregnancy tests after the very, very faint pink line of the first one. The last one I took was the digital, no-messing-around, PREGNANT or NOT PREGNANT, and surprise! Definitely pregnant! That tied in with the fact that I’ve had heartburn the last two days and I haven’t had my lady time of the month further confirms that there is another child in my womb.

SO! We didn’t want to mess up telling my parents about this baby like it got messed up the last time. Please take a moment to read the post about how my mom found out about my pregnancy with Daniel so you’re in the loop. It’s linked right there if you click on “last time” to make it nice and easy. I’ll wait.

This time around instead of just being like “WE’RE HAVING A BABY!” I bought Daniel a t-shirt that says “Soon to be BIG BROTHER” in big letters. We drove down to Lake Geneva last night after working under the pretense that we would be visiting some friends we hadn’t seen in a while. On the drive down, we talked about when we would present Daniel in his shirt.

Obviously because we’re so patient we decided on changing him into the t-shirt in the car and bringing him in the house half-asleep at 9:00 PM after he had just slept most of the three-hour drive. We’ve been pretty all-star parents, so we’re expecting great things with #2.

When we walked into the house, only my mom and dad were downstairs and awake, which was shocking because… Both my parents were awake at 9 PM. I put Daniel down and said, “Go by Grandma and Grandpa!” and he was acting all shy because again, just woke up, and my mom was all “… Why are you telling him to come over here, I don’t want him.” because she assumed it was a dirty diaper and I didn’t want to change him. (This may or may not have happened before.)

After some ushering and finally not-so-subtly straightening his shirt, my mom finally saw it and was like “!!! Oh my gosh! This is wonderful!” But my dad was NOT GETTING IT. I picked Daniel up by the arms and was like “Go by Grandpa!” and literally was holding the poor squirming kid RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY DAD’S FACE and my dad was all “Don’t force him to come by me!”

I finally was like DAD. HIS SHIRT.

“Oh GOD Sar, this is great.” I laughed and said, “I can’t believe you didn’t see his shirt!” My dad said he couldn’t read it.

Me: “Dad. If you couldn’t read that, you shouldn’t be driving.” 😐

After some hugs and congratulations and a bit of chatting, we swore my parents to secrecy.

Which lasted less than 12 hours.

Adrianna came in the house from chores and I was talking to my mom at the kitchen table, Daniel was eating breakfast. I knew IMMEDIATELY that my dad hadn’t kept his big mouth shut. Adrianna was being VERY smiley and very “Hiiiiiii! How aaaaaare you??” and told me to GIVE HER A HUG. Raise your hand if you know Adrianna. NOW raise your hand if you know how WEIRD THIS IS.

I hugged her and she said, “SO! You’re pregnant!” and I was like DAD TOLD YOU. And of course right when Adrianna said, “You’re pregnant!” Rachel walked into the kitchen and was like “What?!”

Adrianna then went on and told us that she asked my dad why Peter and I were in town, and Dad was like “OH! Sara has some BIG NEWS!” And Adrianna guessed that we were pregnant and my dad said, “You’ll see!!!!” and had a big ol’ grin on his face. Adrianna was like “Sara, I wish you could have SEEN how happy he was!” Which was really nice to hear because when we had told him last night, he was kind of confused, and my mom told me this morning that he had JUST woken up from a little nappy right before we were like “WE’RE HAVING A BABY!”

Tomorrow Peter’s parents are visiting in the afternoon on their way home from their cabin up north, and we’re excited to see how long it will take them to notice Daniel’s shirt. Since they usually make a beeline for him when they see him, I don’t think it will be long.

I also told my friend Kim today because I’m going to a craft thing with her tomorrow where we are painting pumpkin signs (let’s hope it doesn’t turn out the last time I did a painting thing turned out… 😳) and I knew she would know in a second if I was like “Oh, you’re offering me a mimosa, which I love? No thanks!” So I told Peter that I just HAD to tell her.

Just like with Daniel, the pregnancy feels a lot more real now that we’ve shared the news with a few people!

Written September 8, just shy of 5 weeks.

Well, if there’s one thing that will make me write, it’s a baby!

I had all of these magnificent plans of telling Peter that he was going to be a dad again, but in true Sara fashion, I took the pregnancy test, saw a very faint pink line, got butterflies in my stomach, and rushed into the kitchen where Peter was reading to Daniel and said, “I think I’m pregnant!!”

Peter was like “What?! Are you sure!” And I was like “I think I’m sure!”

I took another test this morning and it was another very faint pink line, so in an effort to not go broke on pregnancy tests, I’m going to wait a few days to take another one and will HOPEFULLY have a VERY SOLID second pink line.

Anyways, here are the two ideas that I had for telling Peter I was pregnant.

1. To celebrate birthdays in our house, I bought these chalkboard flags and some twine and write “Happy Birthday!” and it’s lovely. I use the chalk markers and love making the signs. I should also tell you that I have actually only done this once, but I’ve got BIG PLANS for future birthdays and celebrations.
   
   My idea for pregnancy was to write “I’m pregnant!” on the little flags and put the banner up before Peter got home from work. Man, even as I type that out I’m like “UGH, that would have been so fun.”
2. My SECOND idea was to buy a “soon to be big brother” t-shirt for Daniel (can we take a moment because DANIEL IS GOING TO BE A BIG BROTHER) and put it on him and see how long it took for Peter to notice the shirt. Maybe we’ll do that idea when we announce the baby to our families. Because I still think it’s a good one.

OK! So! We’re having another baby and this is SO EXCITING that I can’t handle it. So many questions this time around, and none of them have to do with the pregnancy, they mostly have to do with DANIEL. How is he going to react to the baby? Daniel exhausts me, how will I manage a toddler and a newborn?! How are we going to decorate the other bedroom into Daniel’s room so that the baby can have the nursery? (OMG I am so excited to FINALLY GET RID OF THE PACKER ROOM.)

Guys. We’re having another baby.

(Also, I was like “Hmmmm, should I call these posts ‘Baby Romenesko 2’?” But then I decided on Baby R2 because it’s kind of cute and reminds me of R2D2, and I WOULD call the baby “Baby R2D2” but I’m pretty certain the baby will not have a D name.)