Delayed Announcement

It's come to my attention that, though we were very good at getting word out with Abigail, we have not really made it as well known that we are expecting again.

So here is the announcement.

I am expecting our second child, due on the Fourth of July.  

As our friend Emily says, apparently we favor having babies during extreme weather months.  Ben says it's because we wanted fireworks for this one.  I personally think it's much better management to have babies when it's warm - no snowsuits, much reduced chance of getting sick, and it's easy to put the babies in the stroller and go for a walk when they get sad.

It's taken me probably the whole five months to really believe we're really having another baby.  (It probably helps to believe with this one because he/she's quite a mover compared to Abigail - he's been really busy since about 13 weeks and I didn't feel Abigail at all until almost 20.)   

Part of it is that in some part of my mind I just always expect to follow in my mom's footsteps and she not only went three years before having her first baby but never had any children closer together than about 27 months.  So the idea of having two children 17 months apart is fascinating and mind-boggling to me.  I've just never lived with it.  And people thought Elizabeth and I were twins when we were over two years apart.

It's new territory to me, almost even newer than being Mom in the first place.

This pregnancy has been in some ways very much like Abigail's and in other ways totally different.  I've felt much the same, though demands on me physically are higher this time, just starting with having a very active 8-months-and-onward Abigail to take care of.  I had no idea how much time I had when I was expecting Abigail!  Yes, I was taking care of Grandma; but Grandma doesn't need constant attention, so even though there a few times she called Mom and told her "everyone left me and there's no one here" when I was taking a nap, I could ultimately still go take one when I couldn't keep my eyes open.  This time I had to basically force myself to sleep in during the morning as long as Abigail would sleep even though I would normally want to get up and do things; if I didn't, there was no time for a nap and I would end up pretty exhausted.

Of course, I think I also felt worse with Abigail than I did this time, looking back.  I certainly gained a lot more weight.  One side-effect of nursing one baby while expecting another is that I'm gaining a normal amount this time rather than fifteen pounds the minute I was expecting and then going up from there.  Okay...maybe that's a little vain, but losing weight is a lot of work and it'll be nice to handle a normal five or ten pounds instead of twenty.

It's really funny to look back at this time last year and think Abigail was just a few weeks old and this baby is already almost big enough to survive on his/her own.  It was even funnier on Christmas when I teased Ben that we haven't celebrated a Christmas since we were married that I wasn't expecting.

Back when we first got married, I had no idea what our situation regarding children would be.  I was actually a bit afraid that I was getting old enough that having at least the first baby might be a little difficult.  Losing Joshua didn't help my confidence level on this.  To be honest, I had to spend a lot of time NOT thinking about how we might start losing one after another.  I had no clue how helpless it would make me feel to be just expecting and have this tiny, fragile little person I was carrying around who I couldn't see or touch or check on to see if he or she was doing okay.  Having Abigail be so strong and healthy definitely dispelled a lot of that uneasiness, but not all of it.  I still spent every day for the first three months this time saying, "Ah, another day the baby is still with us."  I certainly don't take that miracle for granted.  I also certainly have no concern now that we're going to be taking the route of wondering if and when we'll ever have children.  

So that's the (belated) news from our house.  We keep telling Abigail about how there's going to be a new baby and how she's going to be walking and talking more by the time the baby gets here and how she's going to be a very good big sister.  And she looks at us with this blank look like, "What on earth are you talking about?"

Ah, my little twin who doesn't know she's a twin yet...