Another Adventure… Another Baby!

Oh, baby! Here we go again!

This may come as a shock and surprise to many, but I guess life is more fun when you’re on your toes. We’re expecting our third baby in August, and we are so thrilled!

We’ve been keeping this secret since the week before Christmas, and I’m so excited to finally share.

I have certainly been through every emotion in the world. Am I too old? Are my kids too old? What are we thinking starting over again? Will I still be able to do this? I don’t know why, but I have been more worried this time than when I was with my other two pregnancies. It’s a strange feeling to “get out of the weeds” that we know as the baby and toddler years and then start over. My kids are pretty self-sufficient, we all sleep really well, and we have a pretty good routine. 

However, the more and more I think about this, the more I think it will be a blessing. A baby is always a blessing to begin with! Greg and I will have a lot of helping hands. We’ll also have a lot of one-on-one time with this new baby. My girls will be in school, and I don’t have to worry about “going back to work” in the traditional sense. One of the things that caused me the greatest amount of worry with my last two babies was the terrible maternity leave I had as a teacher. 

This time around feels different in so many ways, but we’re ready for the next adventure.

When we told the girls, we filmed their reactions and it was the best thing ever. Watch the video below to see for yourself and have a good laugh.

Here are a few answers to your possible burning questions!

Were you trying? Kind of. I’ll spare you the explicit details (haha), but we’ve always been back and forth on whether or not we’d have a third. We had a “why not?” moment. So we “tried” one time and here we are.

How far along are you? I’ll be 11 weeks on Friday.

How did you find out? I was being very diligent about tracking my cycles with the Clue app and noticed I was few days late during the week before Christmas. Greg ran to the store and grabbed a digital pregnancy test. We were both sitting in the office waiting for what seemed like an eternity. The word “PREGNANT” appeared after the longest three minutes that have ever existed. We couldn’t focus the rest of the day. LOL.

How did you tell your family? We told my family on Christmas because everyone was in the same room and it was fun to tell everyone on Christmas. We left for Austin that evening and told Greg’s family that evening, too. It was a fun little addition to the holiday season.

When did you tell the girls?  We waited until January to tell them, after my first doctor’s appointment. It was so hard to keep the secret from them for over three weeks! I am so glad we filmed their reactions. It’s something we’ll cherish forever.

How are things going? I’ve already had two doctor’s visits. I also had full blood work done yesterday for chromosomal conditions (I believe the technical name for this is NIPT – Noninvasive Prenatal Testing). I also think the blood work tests for any other abnormalities. Since I will be 36 years old at delivery, my OB recommended this early testing. My OB is not worried about my age at all (even though I’m technically considered “advanced maternal age”), it’s just something to give us more peace of mind and to get a head start on more in-depth testing if anything irregular shows up. We’re going to take advantage of as many scans and tests as we can to make sure we know what to prepare for. Another plus of having that blood work done this week is that we can find out the gender earlier! We will likely know within the next two weeks.

Are you hoping for a boy or a girl? We want whatever we are given. Would it be cool to add a boy into the mix? Sure. But we’ve got this girl thing on lock down and would be incredibly happy to have another one.

What will the age gap be between your kids? Kennedy will be 7.5 years older, and Caroline will be 5 years older.

How are you feeling? I’ve always had easy pregnancies, and this one is relatively easy so far. I haven’t thrown up at all, but I have felt pretty nauseous, extremely exhausted, and just an overall feeling of “yuck” throughout the first trimester. I’m pretty sure I’ve said “I feel like garbage” about 47 times. I also cannot breathe out of my nose… I’m so stuffed up all the time. I have gotten headaches/migraines here and there, and luckily my OB put me on a pregnancy safe migraine medication. That has been a life saver. I’d say that this pregnancy has been the “hardest” so far, but on the spectrum of hard vs. easy pregnancies, it’s still on the easier end.

Any cravings or aversions? Ground turkey has all of a sudden been the worst smell and taste ever in life. I haven’t really been into meals that are a piece of meat with veggies on the side (random, I know). I have really just been eating a lot of small meals. In fact, if it were up to me, I’d just have hors d’oeuvres all day. I’m not much of a fast food lover but I’ve gotten Whataburger twice. (Whataburger is my comfort food – when I would have a really bad migraine it was a great fatty/salty meal to help take the edge off, and it has also helped with pregnancy nausea/headaches.)

What does this mean for your blog? I’ve always incorporated my children into my content, and I’d love to share this pregnancy with you along the way! My usual beauty content will not change and you can always expect that from me. We’ll just have a little added bonus of the baby. Essentially, there will be more content! A lot of things in the baby world have changed since I was last pregnant, so I’m looking forward to sharing those new discoveries with you. I’ve also completely changed up my skincare and beauty routine now that I can’t use Retin-A or get injectables. I’ll definitely be exploring all kinds of pregnancy safe alternatives and plan to share them with you!

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We are so excited for this new journey, and our kids are, too.

To celebrate, we have a little “Babymoon” with the girls to Disney World in a few weeks. We are also headed to Colorado this weekend for a partnership with Winter Park Resort. Travel isn’t taking the back seat (until the end of my pregnancy), and we also have two trips planned at the end of this year after the baby is born. We’ve never let kids interfere with our love for travel before, and we don’t plan on changing that mindset anytime soon!

So, on that note, cheers to new adventures. Thank you so much for your support throughout the years. I can’t wait to take you all on this journey with us!