My son... My son... I just keep saying it over and over again. I've felt this whole time like you were a boy, but now that we know for sure it feels so real and wonderful. It will be a whole new experience for us to have a boy, and your dad is very excited that he'll no longer be outnumbered by the girls. More than anything we're just so happy that you're healthy and growing right on track. 20 weeks down, 20 more to go!
ONE WEEK! Only one more week until we find out if you are a girl or a boy and I can't wait. Your dad is convinced you're a girl, but I think you're a boy. I honestly don't care either way, I just want to know already so I can start planning everything. Knowing me, I'll have your whole nursery planned out before we even leave the doctor's office. :)
PS... missed any of the previous weeks in the series? Click here.
I've been spending a lot of time in this crazy position lately. Why, you ask? Here's the thing... your sister took two and a half days to make her grand entrance into this world, and I'm doing everything I can to make sure you come out a whole lot faster. I'm going to yoga and my chiropractor every week and doing my prescribed stretches every day in an effort to have the most open hips of all time by D-day. Will it work? No idea. But it can't hurt. Well, okay, clearly it hurts a little. But hopefully it'll all be worth it!
I'm sorry if you've been feeling how stressed I've been this week. You'll find out some day when you're a parent that you'll spend a lot of time worrying about your kids. I worry about your big sister, who's been struggling to adjust to some unexpected staffing changes at school. I worry about you and you're probably the safest and most protected you'll ever be in your life right now. Worrying just comes with the territory when you're a parent. But, if there's one thing I've learned in my short time as a mother it's that there's a whole heap of stuff I have absolutely zero control over. So I try to focus on what I can control... I can't promise that I'll always be able to protect you from life's hardships, but I can promise I will do my best to make sure the smiles and the giggles far outweigh the tears - and that when the tears do fall, I'll always be there to hold your hand and dry your eyes.
You've been growing up a storm these past few weeks... so much so that I can't button my pants anymore! And I promise that's not just due to my increased ice cream intake. I'm starting to feel you move around a bit and I so love those unexpected little thumps in my tummy. It's only a matter of time before those kicks become an hourly occurrence, and I can't wait. We love you so much already.
That’s right! Our little family is expanding. :) I’m thrilled to announce that Baby Shellaway #2 is due in early October. We’ve officially made it through the First Trimester and I, for one, am quite relieved. And it’s so nice to have our little secret out of the bag. (Although it was MUCH easier to hide this one since I work from home now!)
As you can see, I decided to start my maternity series a little earlier this time with a few photos during my First Trimester. (I’ll start the weekly photos with the letters once I hit 16 weeks, just like with Emma.) I also thought I’d switch things up for this series by doing the photos as lifestyle self portraits.
The photo above was taken right after we found out I was pregnant… the excitement on my face says it all. And then the morning sickness set in…
I wasn’t Kate Middleton sick or anything, and I wasn’t even as sick as I was with Emma… as long as I ate small amounts fairly often I felt somewhat okay. But the problem was nothing in my fridge looked appealing. And I was bone tired all day every day. So naturally, I decided that was a perfect time to potty train Emma. Seriously, do NOT potty train your toddler during your First Trimester. Epically terrible decision. Potty training requires immense amounts of patience and energy, neither of which I had in spades the past few months.
But, we made it… we made it through potty training, and we made it to 12 weeks. Emma is so excited to be a big sister. She points to my belly and says “baby!” and has become so interested in the baby doll in her classroom. She reads to it, gives it a bottle, and puts it to bed. And if she sees a baby sleeping anywhere – a book, real life, the box of wipes – she says, “shhhhh! Baby sleeping!” It’s quite endearing.
Thanks as always for your support! I’m so looking forward to sharing this journey with all of you. If you want to follow along with my maternity series, be sure to subscribe via RSS, email, or like my page on Facebook.
At long last... I've finally compiled my maternity series photos into a slideshow! I'm also planning to make the photos into a photo book at some point. Looking back at all the photos, I'm so glad I decided to do this project. There were many weeks where I sooo didn't feel like being photographed, and there were more bad hair days than I would have liked, but I'm really happy to have this so I can eventually show Emma how much I truly loved being pregnant with her. Thanks for sharing this journey with me! :-)
This post is long overdue... the picture has been sitting on my computer for months but I finally just got around to putting this together. Sorry!
You might notice that this week's photo is a bit different... I had to pull one from the shower pics because the stomach flu prevented me from being in even halfway decent shape to take one of my regular belly photos. Having the stomach flu at 7 months pregnant is pretty much as miserable as it sounds, but thankfully I'm finally starting to feel better.
