337/365 & Baby #3

Baby Z #3!

Coming June 2014

This pickles and ice cream picture was hard fought.  I do not have photographers at my disposal nor do I have much skill with my camera or with “staging” photographs.  I’m a mom.  That’s my main job.  The rest is hobby, so it is not perfect.  Have you ever tried to take a picture involving ice cream when it’s 80 degrees with 90% humidity?  It ain’t easy.  I set up a step ladder, stacked a few books on top of it, messed around with settings on the camera, and when I thought I had everything just right I scooped my ice cream and then proceeded to take about 25 pictures, 2 of which ended up being worth using, only having to re-scoop ice cream 3 times.  On the bright side, I learned some great things about the self timer and focus, and how to press the timer button with my pinky finger while holding an ice cream cone and a pickle without getting anything on the camera.  Also, taking a bite of a dill pickle then licking some melting ice cream off of your finger is a surprisingly wonderful combination.  For real.

We have known we were pregnant since 3 1/2 weeks or so.  It is hard to keep this kind of news to yourself for 2 months!  I was shocked when we went in for the ultrasound, a good 2 weeks after we found out, to discover that little peanut was so small they had me come back the next week to get a better measurement since I was so early.  Home pregnancy tests are amazing things.

Baby is due June 19, so Betsy will be just over 21 months, Carson will be a little over 3 1/2.  So, what are we thinking?  Betsy was a hard infant, but now she’s such a joy.  Even if this next baby is hard and I cry and cry and cry about it, I will have the benefit of knowing that it gets easier and that children are a blessing, no matter how “easy” or “difficult” a stage of life might be for them and for you.  Someone make sure to point me back to this post when I start lamenting about how hard life is with 3.

Was this baby planned?  I know you’re thinking it.  The answer is yes and no.

I wanted more kids and was not opposed to having another sometime soon, like in the next 18-24 months.  I had heard a few stories recently about people having trouble getting pregnant with their second and third, even if they hadn’t had trouble with their opther pregnancies, and I didn’t want to say, “We shall just wait until a time that is convenient for us, a time that we deem appropriate, and then we shall decide to bring another baby into this world.” and then have trouble and possibly not be able to have more kids for whatever reason.  So we weren’t preventing pregnancy.  There is nothing wrong with thinking about when it makes sense to have kids and I don’t mean to suggest that if you are in a position to have children you should throw the birth control out the window and have as many kids as you can.  Everyone’s situation is different.  For us though, we knew we wanted more (or at least I knew, Ben was ok with two but is excited about three!) and so this pregnancy was a surprise but a blessing and we are very fortunate to be able to have children.  So while we were not trying to get pregnant, we weren’t not trying.

And now for a little over sharing, so skip this part if woman stuff makes you squirm.  Ladies, it is possible to get pregnant after you stop breastfeeding even if you haven’t started your period.  I knew it was possible, I paid attention in my pregnancy class, but now know that for us it is not only possible but probable.  It has happened to us twice now.  The last time was when Carson was not yet 1 year old.  I ended up miscarrying around 6 or 7 weeks.  So when I got pregnant this time I was a little anxious about the possibility of miscarriage.  Thankfully we have made it to 12 weeks and haven’t had any problems.