Adventures and Reveals!
Since my last post about busy mom life, we've actually had a lot of fun summer adventures with both our babies! At the end of June we took some vacation days and first set up our photo shoot to officially announce we're having a second child! I made the arrangements with our photographer and she met us at a local park that has a beautiful lake backdrop. I sent her some pose ideas and brought along all my props like a sign that read "Our superhero needs a sidekick." Unfortunately, our little superhero was more interested in chasing birds at the park than smiling for photos, but we did get a couple of small smiles and a couple of funny shots too! These photos were saved for revealing on July 4th, which ended up a great success on Facebook and also just made me happy to be have some professional photos to commemorate our upcoming family of four.
After the photo shoot but before July 4th, we took a family vacation to San Diego. It was the first time we felt comfortable traveling during the pandemic and we would be visiting vaccinated relatives--Hubby's cousin and his new wife--and best of all, we'd get to meet their new baby. I wasn't sure how our son would take to a new baby given how isolated he's had to be growing up in the middle of a pandemic. But he took to her instantly! The squeals and giggles of delight upon seeing her, pointing out her tiny baby feet, trying to pat her ("gently," we warned), giving her her teether toys, and wanting to be by her side during trips to the beach and mall were the most adorable thing I could have witnessed. And it hopefully bodes well for how he'll behave when Baby 2 arrives, although I'm sure that situation will be a little different....
It was nice to go on vacation again, and even with two babies around, we still managed to have a relaxing time taking pictures on the beach, eating outdoors, visiting parks, and just chatting with family and friends.
The only bad thing about my appointment was the waiting for the lab results that could arrive in 5-10 days. I nervously, fervently checked online every single day after my lab work was done to see if the results had come through yet. We waited through four days, two of which were the weekend where we visited Hubby's sister and family who were in town since the 4th of July holiday. Baby 1 got to play with his cousins and we all went to the zoo together to see real lions and feed a giraffe! My son smiled every time the giraffe took a leaf from his hand. But, honestly, he was more interested in the giant toy balls the lions got to play with than the lions themselves.
Finally, on Monday morning I received an email from my OBGYN letting me know that my lab results were back and everything was normal! This was fantastic news as part of our nerves about the blood tests included the possibility of genetic abnormalities. None were detected. Baby 2 is healthy! But...the email gave no word about the sex of the baby (officially, presence or absence of a Y chromosome in lab speak). I emailed back to ask if my doctor could send me the sex confidentially so I could open it with my husband. I had to stop by their office after work anyway to drop off FMLA paperwork for my maternity leave. They could always hand me the results there. Except I didn't get an email back all day, and my nerves just grew and grew at work. I knew my results were back, which meant we would soon find out who this new member of our family was going to be.
Finally, after work I was able to stop by my doctor's office only to discover their system had been down all day. Computers, emails, even phones weren't working, so I was only able to drop off my paperwork and not get any info from their online system. The receptionist said the doctor was going through messages of all current patients that day, one by one. I left a little disappointed, but knew I would probably find out the next day at least. Until I got a phone call through my car speakers as I was driving away from their office. They just now read my email from that morning. They printed out my lab results, including the sex of the baby. And if I could return before 5pm closing I could pick them up today! I whirled my car around (safely, of course), headed back to where I'd just left from, and grabbed the envelope from the smiling nurse who was waiting for me. Then I immediately drove to my husband's work since this just so happened to be his late day so I otherwise wouldn't see him for another two hours. I couldn't wait two more hours when we were already this close. I hurried inside the building, spotted him up at the service desk, and flashed the envelop. He knew exactly what the envelope meant and took a moment to pull me into an unused conference room to read the results together.
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| THE envelope. Right before opening. |
It's. A. Boy.
My baby has a little brother! We are going to be a boy family! Growing up with brothers, I always knew I'd be okay with having multiple boys. I'd love the opportunity to raise a girl too, but since the universe has other plans for us, we're ready to see what this adventure is going to be like instead.
And we're going to have to work extra hard on coming up with a boy name all over again.
The news was a little overshadowed by the unfortunate fact that Baby 1 got sick that evening with a fever, and while he was in good spirits, the fever kept going for a couple more days and then morphed into a brief runny nose and cough. While common with kids, we'd been lucky and blessed that our son hadn't ever really gotten ill in his first two years of life at all! So seeing him a little more lethargic and confused about the liquid running out of his nose was heartbreaking. But the good news is, he's always been strong and recovered quickly.
The other good news is that he got a cookie treat out of our experience, as we wanted to do a Facebook reveal with pink or blue frosting coming out of a giant cookie cake.
Now I've reached the end of the first trimester at 13 weeks with Baby 2 the size of a hot jalapeno or a lemon depending on which app you use. At over three inches long that certainly seems big to me! And, believe it or not, I've actually felt him flutter inside me as early as 11 weeks along, and especially when I'm eating salt and vinegar chips!
Each new week comes a new adventure, and now that we know a little more about our new little one we can continue to plan our future. I've already started a tentative baby registry just to keep track of the things we do need for Baby 2 (though we've saved quite a bit from Baby 1). And I look forward to the next big reveal of seeing our baby up close: our anatomy scan ultrasound!
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