Big Brother!

Baby bump

Here's how I started out this journey at 6 weeks pregnant-


And here we are six weeks later at 12 weeks pregnant! I've been pretty surprised at how fast I got a belly this time around-


For comparison purposes, this is a picture of when I was 12 weeks pregnant with Tyler-

Baby News!

I don't think there is anyone left to share our news with, so this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone reading this, but we're expecting baby #2! I am now 12 weeks pregnant, just entering the second trimester and FINALLY starting to feel a little better! I'm blaming all of my pregnancy symptoms for my two month blog hiatus, but hopefully, I can get back on track here. (I have lots to catch up on and pictures to post coming soon). Things have definitely been a lot different with this pregnancy. With Tyler, pregnancy was a piece of cake and I rarely had complaints about anything at all. The past six weeks have been a little difficult. I had about two weeks of just feeling completely horrible the entire day. I never actually got 'sick,' but felt like I could at any moment and the only thing that seemed to settle my stomach was eating... anything... so I ate all day and I gained a few pounds in just those two weeks. :-( My energy level has been really down, which is to be expected and I know I was more tired while pregnant with Tyler during the first trimester, but I wasn't taking care of a toddler AND trying to work then. It's exhausting and needless to say, my bedtime is a lot earlier these days. Not to mention, my irritation level is at an all time high. Poor Travis. And then my most unexpected pregnancy symptom- I have a tipped uterus, which didn't cause one single problem during my first pregnancy, but apparently it's tilted towards my back and sitting a little lower in the pelvis, which is putting a lot of pressure of my sacroiliac joint and has been causing me to have horrible back pain for the past two weeks. So bad that there have been a few days where it has been difficult to even walk! My doctor said that this will get better over the next few weeks as the uterus gets bigger and lifts out of the pelvis, but this is definitely my biggest complaint so far. I asked the doctor if all these different symptoms meant a different sex and she said, "Absolutely not. You have a 50% chance of having a boy and a 50% chance of having a girl." haha. I'm so impatient and am ready to find out now, but I guess we have to wait another 6-8 weeks like everyone else. :-)

And speaking of doctor appointments, we have now had two. They did an ultrasound at our first appointment when I was 7 1/2 weeks and we were able to see our little one and its little heart beating. Even though we've been there, done that and seen that before... it's still such an amazing experience to see this. I'll never forget that moment or the moment we first saw Tyler.

Here's our first glimpse of baby Barrett #2 (although it's hard to really see anything):





I had my second appt. this past Wednesday and was able to actually hear the heart beating this time. The nurse/technician had a lot of trouble finding the heart beat, most likely because of my tipped uterus. Travis wasn't able to make this appt., so I attempted to record the heart beat for him and actually shut the recorder off after five minutes of us not being able to find it. She briefly found it afterwards and said it sounded good and was in the 160 range (normal 120-160's). I was unable to hear it or make it out at that point. I absolutely love my doctor and once she found out that I didn't hear the heart beat, she said I HAD to and that we would take as much time as needed to find it. It took her a while as well, but she eventually got it and I heard it loud and clear (but didn't get it on the recorder). It sounded great... very strong. I thanked her for taking that much time with me and she said that she didn't want me to leave there with any doubts, etc. Like I said, she's really great! And that's that. The baby looks and sounds healthy at this point and I'm just so excited about bringing another little one into our family.

Although we talk about the new baby often, I know Tyler doesn't fully understand yet. He has said several times that HE has a baby in his belly (haha!) and when I ask him if he wants a brother or sister, he will almost always say 'sister,' but when I ask him if he wants a boy or girl to play with, he very quickly says 'a boy!' Ha! I'm anxious to see how he handles having a new baby in the house. He plays so well with other children and has such an interest in other babies, so I have high hopes that everything will be great for us. :-)

Here's the proud big brother-to-be: