January
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We rang in the New Year with my 2nd pregnancy by
way of a new round of IVF. I was so thankful that this only took ONE try
this time. We had always planned to have our babies close together in
age, they’ll be just about 19 months apart.
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At the same time as going through the craziness
of IVF meds and scheduling of appointments, we had our hands full with 11 month
old Anita and refreshing our old kitchen cabinets with a coat of fresh
paint. Looks so much nicer!!
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| This is what an IVF Med Schedule looks like |
February
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Our little lovely turned ONE! Phil’s Mom
was able to fly out for the festivities, and we also had in attendance my Mom,
Brother Shawn and Cousins Michelle, Jay and Cody. A few days later we
celebrated with all of our friends by hosting a potluck at the house. At
both of these events we came out to everyone with the happy news. Anita wore a
onesie that said “My best friend arrives September 2014” and it was fun to see
who really paid attention and got the message. A lot of laughs, hugs and
of course happy tears all around. We are all so excited to see Anita
become a big Sister!!
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I’m trying to keep up with Anita for as much as
I can. Took her to the park for the first time in Eagle and enjoyed a
warm spring day running around for a bit
March
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I’m in pain! Extreme hip pain.
Unfortunately it wasn’t until after becoming pregnant that someone told me how
tough this will be on my body having babies so close in range. I spent
much of this time waddling around worse than I ever did in the last trimester
with Anita. Weekly chiropractic and massage appointments are a life line.
April
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Thankfully the hip pain is easing off! And
no morning sickness at all, I was lucky that way with my last.
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Phil went on his annual fishing trip to Duck
Valley, coming back with a nice batch of smoked trout for the freezer. It
was his first time away from Anita, and I was glad he was able to escape for a few days
to fresh air (even though he would never admit a little break is nice).
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My longtime friend, Meagan and her family
visited from Washington. She is also pregnant with her 2nd and
we’re due weeks apart from one another. It was fun to compare pregnancies
and talk about what’s to come. If only she lived closer!
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Now that the weather is warming up, we’re
outside more and more (Thank the Lord!). Anita experienced her first mud
puddle with neighbor Addie, and that was a ton of fun.
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Easter was going to church, stopping in at my
Mom’s to see her and then home for a quick egg hunt in the yard. Anita’s
too young to understand it much, but she quickly took to finding eggs and
putting them in the basket. Her Godfather Roger sent a basket as well,
and that was fun. In it was her first ever batch of candy. We gave
her a sucker and watched that first sugar high kick in full gear.
Girlfriend was bouncing couch to couch at full speed for a good 20 minutes
without pause, we laughed so hard!
May
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Oh my, Anita is one busy little toddler, or I
could say clumsy. We’re on our 4th or 5th black
eye. If there’s a toy or corner or something similar, you can be certain
she’ll find it…with her face. But other than that, she’s doing
great. Such a sweet and happy girl. Such an explorer. I look
forward to every day walking in the door from work to her excited that I'm home. She’s still holding off from saying Mommy, but she is saying Daddy
and a few other words.
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We briefly entertained the idea of moving to a
larger home. Looked at a few homes here and there, saw that our home
should be relatively easy to sell. But in the end put the kibosh to it
all after seeing that what we truly want is just a tad outside of our spending
range. Thankfully all our years to playing smart with money has worked
to our advantage with a high approval amount and excellent credit score, but I simply refuse to be house
poor! So back we trudged to our little 1040 sq. ft. abode – snuggling in
with a smile on our faces.
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We went in to the OB for my 20 week checkup
(already!) and learned the amazing news - we’re expecting a BOY! I’ll
never forget the look on Phil’s face, and with a heavy voice saying “That’s my
son”. I still tear up thinking about it. We’re officially carrying
the family name forward. I couldn’t be happier and feel that our family
is complete. I’m feeling great. Mother’s day and my birthday were
low key and fun events with Anita and Phil at home.
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| Babies, best birthday present ever. |
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| Seconds away from the big reveal! |
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| Daddy in tears learning the news of his baby BOY! |
June
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The house officially belongs to a toddler.
A MESS! And girlfriend does not sit still for anything. Go. Go.
Goooo! Phil made some money turning lawn mowers on Craigslist and spoiled
her rotten with a new sandpit that runs the length of our patio. Sand is
everywhere. She also got her first RC car, of which she’s so far afraid
of pressing the button to go. She finally says Mommy….on Father’s
day!
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I opted out of this year’s Happy Camp with my
girlfriends. It’s just going to be a quiet and lazy summer at home baking
this baby. A huge bummer, but the right decision nonetheless. I’m
not the only one, Kendall is expecting twins 7 weeks behind us and will be
missing out as well.
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Work unfortunately is not going well these
days. We’ve got some heavy HR issues causing some very unfortunate drama
in my office. I’ve never dreaded going to work, but I get that feeling
quite a bit these days. On top of that there’s a pending Admin req for
someone to fill in for me during my upcoming maternity leave – moving
along at snail pace. And if that isn’t enough, an office expansion
project that needs to close before I leave. Breathe.
July
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Phil’s parents came to visit for a week.
They haven’t seen Anita since last November when she was nine months, she’s now
16 months old. It was perfect weather for playing in the
sprinklers. Watched good fireworks from our cul-de-sac and overall had a
fun visit.
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We did a little yard project converting the dirt
parking patch on our side yard to a slightly improved road mix layout.
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My brother Chris was in town for a weekend
visiting his kids. He and I are on the outs these days, but thankfully
they still came over for a few hours of cousin time. I was so nice to see
them all play together. Unfortunately for my brother we didn’t talk much
and I was left feeling hurt and worried for him. I pray he finds peace
and happiness in his future.
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I’m very pregnant at this point, thankful for
the few dresses I discovered at Target to wear for the summer months. Little
man is progressing perfectly and we’re just waiting for the big day. With
baby number two I’ve been much more relaxed in regards to preparation – it’ll
all come together when it comes together. We need to get the guest
bedroom setup to include a changing table and crib. Need to dig out my
breastfeeding supplies, swing, bassinet and bouncer from the attic. Other
than that, it feels like there’s not much more to do.
August
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Celebrated our nine year anniversary at the Zoo
with Anita. Had a great time feeding the Giraffes, rawr’ing at the big
dinosaur statue (she LOVES dinosaurs) and going in the butterfly exhibit.
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Went to the Annual Treccani River Ranch
Party. Phil went earlier than us on his own to float the river, and Anita
I headed up later. It was extremely hot that day, I was hugely pregnant and
chasing a little 1.5 year old up and down a hill for most of it. Tried to
visit with friend’s best I could as we waited for Phil to get off the
water. Once he did, it wasn’t too soon after that I headed home with
Anita to get us both out of that heat. He stayed for the evening to party
with our friends, and I was so happy to see him take a night off to relax and
have a good time!
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Our sweet friend Lana threw us a baby shower for
our little boy. She’s amazing at this party planning stuff, ordered a
beautiful cake, had a large assortment of food, and her beautiful pool to cool
us all off. We had a really great time and were so thankful to all her
hard work, and everyone’s love and joy showered on us for our new little
addition.
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I’m still feeling good, but huge too. This
baby can come any day now. I remember with Anita I wanted her to wait
until the last possible second, grow as much as she can, blah blah blah.
Forget that, get out of my belly kid. Mom’s done!
September
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BABY MONTH!!! He’s due on the 25th.
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Work inside the home includes having a new wall
closet built in our room, with future plans to convert our walk-in closet to a
2nd bathroom.
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Baby furniture purchased! Daddy worked his
tail off to build it all and get down the rest of the stuff from the attic.
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Anita doesn’t know what’s about to hit
her. I’m emotional realizing these are our last precious few days as a
family of three. She’ll now have to share our attention. But she’s
also gaining her best little buddy.
Lucca’s Birth Story
Finally on the evening of the 23rd
contractions kick in and things start to progress. From about 10pm – 1:30
a.m. I monitor contractions and let Phil get as much sleep as possible.
Finally I can’t take it anymore, wake him up and call our friend Arley who is
coming over to watch Anita while we’re away. Phil is initially thinking
I’m calling it too soon and that we’ll get sent home, but I’m sure. Get
me to the hospital NOW. Upon check-in at the hospital I’m dilated to a 4
and we’re admitted right away. The epidural is administered within the
hour and we wait for things to get settled in. I think they broke my water for me with an easy procedure. I pushed for about an hour
and we weren’t getting much closer, and the baby’s heart rate wasn’t recovering
very fast after each push. It was explained to us that most likely the
cord was around his neck, and to be safe we’d give some more time for him to recover
in between contractions. We were told that because of the cord issue, he
may not be brought to my chest immediately upon arrival, and that they’d have
more attendants in the room than normal to check him over and take him to NICU
if needed. My heart stopped hearing that word, but I stayed calm.
We prayed out loud. I pushed with extreme concentration, wanting every
one of them to count in progressing forward. Thankfully not soon
afterwards he was coming, the Dr. arrived and then so did he. He came out
pink and perfect, and came right to my chest! No NICU! No extra
nurses, they just unwrapped the cord and after a minute we heard that big,
beautiful first cry.
The rest of our hospital stay
went well. We had good care for the most part and were smart to get as
much rest as we could. Lucca took well to nursing. Friends and
family visited, and Anita came to meet her baby brother for the first
time. She thankfully did really well at home with Arley, Tim and
Di. We were home late the next evening to settle in. At
home, we settled in easy overall. Lucca is a very healthy and happy
little baby. Anita adores him and adjusted well. I think a key in
that was that we paid close attention to not change her schedule or setup in
any way. And we both made sure to give her special 1:1 attention as much
as possible.
October
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We stayed close to home adjusting to our new
sleep schedule this month. It’s so nice to be off of work and home to do
nothing but snuggle and enjoy this sweet time capsule of family time.
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Mom visited us for a ten day visit. It was
so nice having her help with meals and entertaining Anita while I focused on
Lucca. We had him christened while Mom was here at our church, St.
Mary’s. It was a beautiful service with my best friend Adria and her
husband serving as God Parents. Lucca’s Uncle, Jimmy is also his
Godfather but unfortunately couldn’t attend in person. Our favorite Fr. Bruno
Segatta oversaw the service, and was very attentive to our family as a whole –
making sure we were all participants. Anita ran around like a little
butterfly. We ended the event with a group breakfast down the
street.
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Halloween was fun this year. Anita dressed
up as ladybug, a costume gifted to us by my Aunt Karen. Along with the
cute outfit we had a pair of squeaky shoes that was perfect on a dark night to
hear where she was at and of course make everyone laugh. We walked around
the neighborhood with Arley, Jason, Timothy (Peter Pan) and Craig. She
did much better than I thought she would and I ran out of steam far sooner than
she did.
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Healing from labor is a slow process, and I’m
frustrated.
November
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The house got sick in November with head
colds. As our pediatrician put it, “We’ve got the funk!” Thankfully
it was nothing too serious and after about two weeks were feeling much
better. But it was surely scary having a congested newborn, I was
terrified it would turn into something more serious.
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The leaves are falling and Anita had a ball
running around in the cool weather jumping in the piles.
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Lucca is now smiling!
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Thanksgiving was low key with no one joining us
for dinner. We decided this year especially to not make a big deal of the
holidays. I’m glad there’s not a lot of fuss, but at the same time I’m
sad there’s not a big festive gathering.
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I went back to work when Lucca turned 7 weeks
old. It was time, we have the hang of things and there’s really no reason
to delay the inevitable. I worked to wean Lucca from breastfeeding at 6
six weeks to prevent having to pump at work. I did that with Anita and it
was a horrifying, unproductive experience. Lucca thankfully adjusted well
to formula and time marches on.
December
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A low key month. Not making any plans for
Christmas so that keeps things easy. I’m trying to refrain from buying
too much for Anita – but it’s tough seeing all the great deals online.
There’s nothing better than the excitement on her face!
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Phil played with making wine and working on his
tractor projects
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The tree was decorated by me and Anita, and
Daddy put the Christmas lights up outside.
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Christmas was nice and quiet. Anita loved
her presents and had fun playing with all the wrapping paper and
packages. Her favorite toy was the Sit N’ Spin – she loved it!
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My Mom visited the next day and came over to
decorate cookies with Anita. She was the cutest saying “Yummy, yummy in
my tummy” and “Sprinkle Sprinkle” over and over as she ate her way through
decorating.
And that’s a wrap! We are now a family of four.
Cheers to another year of love and blessings all around.
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