It's been awhile

It's been a really long time since I posted and I'm going to try really hard to start back up again.  A lot has changed in the 13.5 months since I last posted.

On October 1st I found out I was expecting once again, and I am so excited that Kieran is going to be a big brother come June.  I'm crossing my fingers, toes and legs that I can keep this baby cooking as close to his/her due date as possible.

I have not made this "facebook official" because we are still waiting on Sean's family to tell.  We are seeing his parents for Christmas and therefore want to tell them in person.  Once we tell them in person I am hoping to make a post on Christmas!  I can't wait to be out to everyone.

We have decided to wait until the baby's birthday to find out the gender.  We really enjoyed waiting and having the suspense build throughout the pregnancy and we are anxious to do it again.

Sean and I went for our first "fun" appointment last Friday November 30th.  During this appointment we had our first ultrasound and the pregnancy finally started to feel real.  Prior to seeing the baby it's hard to believe that there is a little life growing inside of me.  I am already feeling the body changes, breasts are huge and clothes aren't fitting, but it was nice to see that there is actually a baby with two arms and two legs growing inside of me.

During our last appointment my doctor talked about what we can do differently this pregnancy in hopes in getting me further than 34 weeks and 4 days, which was how far I was with Kieran when he was born.

The first thing will be to start weekly shots of progesterone.  The progesterone shots have been shown to help prevent pre-term labor.  I will receive a shot every week from week 16-36.  According to my doctor progesterone has shown to give you another 2 weeks.  If that gets me to 36.5 weeks, I think that will be awesome.  I'd love to make it to at least 38 weeks, but ideally anything that will avoid NICU time will be fine with me.  I just can't imagine having another NICU baby, especially with a toddler.

The second thing will be a constant monitoring of my cervix.  With Kieran I went to the doctor at a little over 33 weeks and was already 3 cm dilated, 100% effaced and had a bulging sac.  This time around at every appointment they will check my cervix to make sure it's thinning out and also to make sure I'm not dilating too early.  It's possible I had been thinning out for some time but just never knew it.  With constant monitoring if I start to show signs of pre-term labor we can come up with a game plan to stop it from progressing any further.

At my appointment last Friday my cervix was 6 cm, which the doctor said was really long.  I have no idea what is normal, but he said it was good.  And I'm writing this down as a baseline so I have something to go back to and compare to.

The baby was moving around a ton during the scan and had a heart rate of 160.  I looked at my blog from when I was pregnant with Kieran and his heart rate at the first scan was 167.  It'll be interesting to compare as the pregnancy progresses.

Similar to when I was pregnant with Kieran I have not had any sickness.  I have less of an appetite and certain foods turn me off.  I am also a little more tired, but of course I have a 2 year old at home, which I didn't have the first time around.  I am fully taking advantage of his 4 hour weekend naps and taking a 2-3 hour nap myself!

I have unfortunately started out at a much heavier weight. I was about 10 pounds heavier then when I got pregnant with Kieran.  I also have not been as active leading up to this pregnancy.  When I was pregnant with Kieran I ran until 31 weeks.  I am already no longer running, and trying to just stay active walking on the treadmill.

I started at about 140 pounds and am currently around 144 pounds.  Considering I was 150 pounds when I had Kieran this kind of makes me sick to think what I will be when I have this baby, but I'm trying not to worry about the numbers too much, but to just stay healthy.

I will try to start doing weekly updates and adding weekly photos, because I know my family will want to see me grow from afar.  Fingers crossed I stay on top of this!