Pregnancy Story - Trent's turn

No, we're not naming our son Trent.

 

As I wait for Trent (aka baby boy #2, aka Brent’s little brother, aka BAY-beee) to arrive (now two days late), I am struck by how it seems like I’ve been pregnant for years and yet I have very little documentation to show for it. This pregnancy has been different than the first one, which means mostly uneventful, healthwise (a good thing).

We found out we were expecting in August 2013, the same week we had plans to have dinner with the Ranney and Stinson families (and also about 2 weeks after Brentley stopped nursing). Instead of trying to pretend everything was status quo, we gave up the secret early on to our close friends and immediate families. Everyone was legitimately surprised as I don’t think they were expecting us to try for kiddo numero dos so soon.

We were so excited to find out I was pregnant. It had been such a long process with Brentley, we couldn’t believe how quickly we were blessed this time.

My first trimester was a little rocky, morning sickness and tiredness set in quickly and I had some unexplained significant bleeding that was stressful. I have to say, even with all of the issues when I was pregnant with Brentley, the novelty of being pregnant still made everything exciting. There’s no novelty the second time around – being pregnant is not my idea of a good time! I was also training for my first ½ marathon – no easy feat considering I was not an experienced runner and the morning sickness and tiredness was working against me. The San Francisco ½ Marathon was October 20, 2013 – 13.1 miles when I was 13 weeks pregnant – I was proud of myself but mostly really glad it was over. I completed it about 2 ½ hours but was proud that I ran the first 6 or 7 miles without stopping at a decent pace. This was good for me considering I never ran more than 6 miles when I was training, the sickness and bleeding put a damper on my training schedule. Just for kicks, I ran a 5K at 27 weeks (Brent did a 1K). I also continued with Baby Boot Camp twice a week up until I was about 30 weeks.

The second big “pregnancy event” was we decided to sell our house in Redwood City and get into something bigger. There was no way I was going to raise two little boys, with two dogs, in an 830 square foot house with one bathroom. We were already outgrowing the space, especially since Brentley was in full-speed toddler mode (started at 15 months), and adding a baby plus all of the baby equipment, would be impossible. It was suggested to me that we find a house to buy first and then put our house on the market. We found a house to buy the week before Christmas which gave us the push we needed to get our house in Redwood City ready. We worked like crazy for several weeks in December to list it the first week of January. Long story short, the house sold very quickly for a very good price but the house we tried to buy didn’t work out. We decided to move to San Jose anyway to be close to Ryan’s work and Almaden, where were looking to buy. So, at 30 weeks pregnant, and after 6.5 years, we moved out of our first home that we had invested so much time, effort, manual labor, and of course, money, into. Our very helpful families were our laborers, we didn’t hire movers.

We moved to a 1200 square foot apartment off of North First Street in San Jose. It is as close as possible to Ryan’s office. The adjustment was difficult, Brent was unhappy, the dogs were unhappy, I was unhappy because I was responsible for making decisions that caused everyone to be unhappy, and Ryan was unhappy because we were all were unhappy. We lost Brent’s nanny that we had two days a week since he was 7 months old, she couldn’t commute any further south. We started him a daycare (in addition to the move I was frantically searching for a quality daycare not knowing where we were exactly moving to – lots of fun). The daycare situation added to the stress. It turned out not to be a good fit. Brent cried every time we dropped him off and was not his usual happy, easy going self when we picked him up. He was acting out at home a lot, was constantly sick with a cold, and eventually contracted hand, foot, mouth disease. On top of this, work was really busy for me, I was working 35-40 hours a week (28 hours is normal). We also found a house to buy and closed at the end of March. Searching for a house, making offers, signing paperwork, gathering financial info, etc is a full time job in itself. Needless to say, the second – beginning of the first trimester was so far the most stressful time of our lives/ marriage.

Healthwise, there wasn’t anything unusual during the second trimester. I’ve had almost daily nosebleeds that I didn’t have with Brentley. The best story is when I went for a little run at 26 weeks and my nose started bleeding uncontrollably. There I was a few miles away from home with no tissue. I was a mess. Blood was everywhere. Luckily, a man and his daughter pulled over to help and gave me enough tissue to get the bleeding to stop. On the flip side, I haven’t had the ankle swelling, allergy to my jewelry, or the tendonitis in my hands as I did the first time.

I started maternity leave on 3/31/14 and we decided to pull Brent out of daycare. I was really nervous about being a full time mom to a crazy toddler in the last few weeks of my pregnancy but it’s been the best decision we’ve made lately (hopefully buying our new house turns out to be a wise decision too). He is so much happier being with me every day and now that we have a routine, I am mostly really happy taking care of him every day. I say mostly, because Brent is working on hitting and kicking (he is never going to hear the end of how much he kicked me when I was pregnant with his brother).

Back to Trent, I am planning on a VBAC. As of Friday (my due date 4/25), I am 2 centimeters dilated, 90% effaced, and lost my mucus plug. The doctor says my cervix is “excellent” and if for some odd reason I don’t go into labor spontaneously, the doctors will try some induction methods. I’m pleased about this because up until then I was told repeatedly that Kaiser’s policy is not to induce patients who have had a cesarean. I have am having contractions all the time, have been for the past several weeks, but they are irregular and are less than 30 seconds. Some are painful though. As I write this, Trent looks like he’s trying to escape through my belly button and I’m arching my back trying to relieve the pain from the contraction.

We ready for baby Trent to be here. I am very much looking forward to the joy parenthood brings and holding my little baby in my arms. Hurry up kiddo!!