And then there were 9...

Little Rachel is going to be a big sister! We are expecting baby #7 in May 2015. I'm 11 weeks and I had my first checkup this week, and uterus feels the right size and the midwife only found 1 heartbeat, so pretty sure it's only one. :) Plus it's been a very easy pregnancy so far, much like Rachel's (maybe another girl?!). I get to have an ultrasound in a few days, yay! So excited to see the little bean!

For now I'm seeing the same midwife that delivered Rachel. Despite being told by someone else that she doesn't take vba2c anymore, she never said anything about it to me, so maybe she's just not taking any new vba2c patients. I don't know. It's still likely I'll end up delivering somewhere else when we move (still waiting for someone to buy our house!), though if we are still within 30 minutes of her I'd like to just stay with her.

I would like to try to be surprised for this baby, since I've already got everything needed for a boy or girl and this will be our last one. I think it would be fun to wait until birth to find out what we're having.

I'm also already dealing with blood sugar issues this pregnancy, so we decided to just skip the yucky GD test and diagnose me with it. I already know how to eat for it and track my bs and everything, so hopefully I can keep it well controlled again like last time.

And yesterday I realized that I am due 3 days after Mother's Day. It would be so cool to have the baby on Mother's Day, what a fun present to myself! LOL And my sister found out a few weeks ago that she is also pg, due about a month after me (maybe she'll have a Father's Day baby haha). So excited to be pg with her again and have our babies close in age. :)

And time passes, and life changes...

Well, it's been almost a year since I lasted posted on here. My sweet Rachel just turned one last week! I can't believe how fast the year went! She has been such a doll, a cute and calm baby that everyone adores. She's walking a little bit and not saying any real words yet, but babbles more. It has been so much fun having a little girl! The clothes for one are much cuter and she has over 100 headbands, bows, and flowers. And she is such a cuddlebug still, and very much a mommy's girl. :) Here is a collage I made of her from her first year:

See, she's a total doll, right?!

Anyway, we have started thinking about having our next (and last) baby. It would be fun to have another girl so Rachel can have a sister, but obviously the odds favor me having a boy lol. We are not preventing so just letting it happen whenever. I've heard that the midwife who I had with Rachel no longer does VBA2C, which is a bummer. But we are planning to move soon so I would have probably needed to find a new one anyway. I'm already in the ICAN group for the area we are moving to, so hopefully they can give me some good referrals. I believe there is a birth center there that can take VBA2C so I'm going to look into that. We are planning to live in a more rural area so I'm not comfortable with trying a homebirth without a hospital close by, but a birth center would be wonderful if they'd take me.

I sometimes find it so odd to think that my last c/s was almost 6 years ago (Nathan will be 6 in a few months!) and my first was almost 10 years ago. Where has the time gone?! With the passing time I've found more peace with those experiences. I don't know if I ever would have done more research and learned more about birth if it hadn't been for that first c/s. And the 2nd one was truly necessary. Sometimes I still think back and imagine how it "should have gone" but it's more wistful instead of angry and sad. I know I would make the same decision over and over again for my baby. I have had so many different birth experiences that it helps me to be able to provide support and information for others during their pregnancies and birth. I can tell them what it's like to have an epidural or go natural, healing from tears, having a c/s with an epidural or general anesthesia, and what to expect from all those different recoveries. I have been with my sister through her deliveries to support and encourage. When my SIL had an emergency c/s I was able to talk to her about what helped me during my recoveries. My experiences have helped me learn and grow and be able to help others, and that is a wonderful thing!