Pregnancy in a Nutshell

Since I never posted all of my belly pictures, I'll just do it now. :) I didn't do anything creative or catchy for these photos -- but I did include big sister. Well, she decided she wanted to be included toward the beginning when taking these pictures was something new and exciting. As we neared the end though, we had to do a lot of bribing with Smarties candies. You can see her progression from sweet, cooperative sister to crazy, silly sister in the photo below. We missed week 15, so I included a better picture at the end!

This pregnancy was a lot different than the first. First of all, I never really got over that first trimester exhaustion. I'm sure just being busy at work and chasing around a toddler every morning and evening played big parts in that. I carried a lot lower and could tell a difference in my body shape and how I was gaining weight. This was the biggest reason I thought Baby R2 would be a boy! Of course, big sister was adamant the entire pregnancy that Baby R2 was "Baby Stister," and Daddy thought the same. I gained about the same amount of weight with both kiddos (around 40 pounds!), but this time, I felt like it all went straight to my backside and thighs. And, I guess it really did since I'm still working on losing half of that "baby" weight. :\  With Madelyn, I craved fruit and healthy foods. Not this time. I tried to eat well, but I craved sushi and sweets. I normally have a pretty bad sweet tooth, but it was even worse those last few months. We definitely kept Blue Bell in business late last year! 

Another difference in this pregnancy was that, since we knew about my low platelet disorder (ITP), I began seeing a hematologist very early on for regular monitoring and got very acustomed to having my blood drawn on a weekly basis. My new hematologist and new OB were amazing and, although I really wish I hadn't had to have gone through my kidney stone ordeal, I'm glad that having that bad experience with my old OB practice led me to a new set of doctors that were so good to me. I ended up having to have steroids again toward those last few days of my pregnancy in order to get my platelet levels high enough for an induction.

This pregnancy really flew by, and while it was exhausting and not as easy on my body (you know, since I'm an old 30-something now), I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat!