This is the little guy who is no longer the youngest in the family anymore!
Over the past few weeks, we've been letting people know our "little secret" and now, since there are so many people to tell, I found a creative way to spread the word. I made this picture my profile picture in Facebook and wrote "I believe in meaningful tattoos". It's funny how many people take a few moments before they really read the tattoo and put 2 and 2 together!
I am finding that although I am totally thrilled to be having another baby, and every pregnancy is exciting and special to me, the idea of another child really isn't a big deal! You get to the point where it's like... What's one more... the more the merrier!
So on a "medical" note, we used our Angel Sounds home doppler this week. I know I had intended to wait until I was a little further along, but I just couldn't resist. I have been feeling this baby move these past couple weeks, and there was something sentimental to me about hearing the heartbeat for the first time. So, on Tuesday afternoon, we fairly easily found the baby's heartbeat! The one thing that is different about the Angel Sounds doppler is that instead of a "clippitty clop" horse trot sound that you hear with the commercial doppler at the doctor's office, you just hear the more swooshy sound, but it is unmistakably fast. Since we could hear two different heartbeats (mine, which is slower) and the fast one, we knew for sure who we were listening to! It was pretty cool.
So tomorrow I will be 17 weeks pregnant (approximately..) I just checked out my exercise log, and because I lost some weight right at the beginning of my pregnancy, so far I have not gained any weight, I'm still about 4 pounds less then when I started out. I'm not worried at all because I have seen my weight start to creep up slightly in the past few weeks by a couple pounds, and I have been trying to eat well and I still exercise.
I started to drink Red Raspberry Leaf tea this week as well. I'm starting with one tea bag per day (or 1 small pot's worth) and I plan to work up to about 3 bags a day in the last couple months. I wonder a little if that was part of my problem with my last labor. If my uterus is "toned" as they say, then maybe my labor would be more efficient. I can't remember if I had been drinking RRL tea prior to my easiest labor (#3, a waterbirth) but I do remember that I had been exercising a bit more consistently, albeit just one my exercise bike for 20 minutes, 3 times a week.
This time around I am exercising a little more strenuously, using my stairclimber 3-4 times a week, usually for 30-40 min. I'm always quite sweaty and hot by the end and I work up my heart rate! I'll have to write a blog about exercise during pregnancy in the near future because this is one of the issues that there is a lot of controversy about.
Okay, it's time for me to get on with my day!
