This pregnancy has been pretty brutal, I'm not sure the exact reason why either. Is it because I'm keeping up with 2 other babies while growing this third one? Is it because it's my third and my body needs more help as it gets older? I'm not sure... but here are a few images to show how it's been going, at least in the first 4 months... (good thing it was a rainy spring! = lots of movies and TV watching and jammies all day going on here)

Needless to say, I've been squeezing in as much napping and laying as possible. Now that these hot months are here (although it's been a nice mild summer so far, I've been lucky) I've been feeling pretty dizzy, dehydrated and of course, exhausted. Most nights I'll go to bed around 8 - 8:30p if I can. I've tried "nesting" a few times lately and it's pretty weak compared to the first 2 times I was going through that. Mostly because I know the baby grows out of everything, including that super cute nursery you worked so hard at, so quickly that I can't even bother to put much thought into it.

As someone who's regularly pretty energetic, it's so hard to mentally be so beat and exhausted almost exclusively. It's such a mind (fuck). That 2nd tri-mester "honeymoon" period people talk about... not happening over here. When I need to clean up the house, like actually put things where they belong and not just stack them in a pile out of view, I have to sit almost every 10 min to rest. When I go up any sort of incline I'm truly out of breath and my mind immediately goes to the big fat lady with an oxygen tank trying to breathe and get around.

I know, I know, this too shall pass... I'm making life... it will be over before I know it. I've heard them all and say them to myself everyday... but it still doesn't make me feel better! haha.

Thankfully my mother in law takes the kids on Wednesdays and since I've stopped booking shoots for the remainder of the year, I'm taking it easy at least one day a week. God bless her!

xo,

April

Hi Mama's... I've been wanting to share my journey from 2 to 3 babies with you because I feel like it's a question that some struggle with when building a family. I always find it helpful to read about other women's stories and thoughts to help me try and figure out my own. So, if you're teetering on whether you want to take the plunge into a family of 3 babies from 2 or you're just curious on why in the hell we would go for a third, here it is!

Deciding if we wanted 2 or 3 children was a question that haunted me specifically for the last year. Justin always pushed for a third, but I was pretty set and happy with 2. When I use the term "haunted", I pretty much thought about it every day. I couldn't get my mind off of it... not that I didn't already have my hands full, because I did, between all the traveling we do and 2 under 3, there was never a dull moment... wait a sec, now that I think about it, it's actually a question that haunted me as soon as Ethan was born. As I lay there on the hospital bed having just pushed out a 10lb toddler, the nurse (so rudely, in my opinion) asked If I was going to have another one. Who says that at that time?

I digress...

I was a pretty firm no for a very long time... 2 was enough for me and I was happily busy, borderline crazy... but the question still never left my head. Justin and I got to the point that, when the kids were acting good we'd say aaawww one more (he always wanted one more) and when they were bad we'd walk around saying "2's good, 2 is plenty good". We talked about how easy it is to travel with 2, one each, and how manageable it is, how family ski trips would be just around the corner etc etc...

But then Ethan turned 2...Sienna turned 4 and my feelings changed. All of the sudden this baby was turning into a toddler boy, and it seemed to have happened so quickly. I found myself getting more sleep and worrying less during the day because they both became muchmore self sufficient. Leaving the house and sticking with plans was becoming easier. He could feed himself, play independently... Sienna was still needy but I'm used to that by now... My life was getting easier.

And then my mind started thinking about, omg, am I done with this? has this baby ship sailed? We started tasting freedom by the baby spoonful. My body was back and I felt like I was 100% out of post-partum depression (which I suffered from greatly, without realizing, after Ethan was born).

I'm 33 yrs old... It's not like I'm in my 20's (which I 100% believe our bodies are still made for, even though our culture has shifted to having them later in life... but that's a rant for another day) the decision has to come now. Growing up in a large family, I'm the middle of 5 kids... and I couldn't get comfortable with the fact that they would only have each other, no other siblings. Of course then I get fixated on that thought, and couldn't come to grips with it. Why though? My one sister has 2 daughters, my mom was 1 of 2, majority of my friends only have 1 other sibling... why wasn't I comfortable with this?

So the question lingered on, I just couldn't let it go... I guess I always just imagined myself with a large family... completely ignorant of how hard mothering is and especially pregnancies in my 30's on the old bod.

It was getting pretty late in the game, for us, ha. We knew that if we wanted 3 we wanted them all to be close in ages, like we both are with our siblings. Also, I knew that I did NOT want to be getting pregnant 3-5-10 yrs down the road, on accident! So if this was it, Justin needed to get snipped and that was going to be it. Well, he refused haha. There were days when I would threaten to make him an appt at the doctor and he never took me seriously...

Being blessed with easy fertility, we decided that we would try one time, that's it... and if it happened then it was meant to be and if it didn't then Justin would get a vasectomy and we'd be done with it.

...It worked!