We're having another baby!

I am pretty sure that anyone who is reading this blog (if anyone is still reading...) already knows about our exciting news. These days, the information I disseminate pretty much goes out via Facebook (except for letting my immediate family know first, of course). Most of my family and close friends all use the Social Network and since I currently have 649 friends, what better way to let people know what is going on. There are a few people, however, including my brother (who left FB years ago and never got back on that train!) and both of my sisters (who have recently removed themselves from FB) who do not get their information that way. I do agree that blogging allows you the freedom to write more, include pictures and be able to look back on the posts years from now. So here goes...

WE ARE HAVING A BABY!! Yes, we are finally able to say that Baby #2 is on the way and due to arrive on August 24th. I have honestly been thinking about having another child since Jacob was about a year old. For me, having siblings is something that I love so much about my life. I definitely wanted to give that to Jacob if it was at all possible. Keith feels the same way and, since he is an only child, he may even feel stronger about it than I do! He just said to me last night, so are we stopping at two kids or going to try for three? I was like, What? Let's get through this one first and then we can figure out IF a third is in the plans!!!

This baby is definitely something that we have prayed about and hoped for and when we found out that I was pregnant it was really a surprise. It has been no secret to anyone close to us that we have been trying to get pregnant since we found out that we were not going on Semester at Sea...that is a completely different story that I never did blog about...basically, we were supposed to be going on SAS - a trip around the world on a ship - right NOW (Jan-April 2012). We had planned for it for almost two years and then we had to back out last July due to Keith's mom's health situation. Since her health has been so up and down lately with the cancer and related surgeries/procedures, Keith did not feel comfortable being unavailable and unable to help her for four months. Looking back now, it was the best (but hardest) decision that we could have made. And, thankfully the SAS staff were super supportive and understanding and we will hopefully be able to go on another voyage when the time is right for us.

OK, so back to the baby stuff. When we decided that we weren't going on SAS, we figured a positive outcome of it would be that we would be able to start trying for another child. As many know, conceiving for us was not easy with Jacob and I figured it would be the same with this child. I tried not to get too overly obsessed like I was the first time, just praying and hoping that God would allow us to get pregnant when the timing was right. I had an appointment with our fertility doc in August to get back on the low-dose of Clomid that I was on when I conceived Jacob. We started actively trying in September and then in mid-October, my body got all out of whack with unexplained bleeding. My doctor was unsure what was happening so he decided to put me on birth control pills for one month to get my body back to normal. We were allowed to try again in November and I could have sworn in early December that I was pregnant. I even remember telling Keith that my breasts were really sore and I just had "a feeling" that I might be pregnant. But....on the 10th of December, I started bleeding and had a regular period (or so I thought!). It was hard emotionally for me and I even had a minor meltdown to Keith. My MIL was visiting us at the time so it was hard to keep a happy face around her and Jacob while feeling very disappointed inside. I remember thinking at the time, we are never going to get pregnant! (Yes, we had only been trying for a few months. And, yes, I did realize it may be hard to conceive. But, still for someone who REALLY wanted another baby, this was all I could think at this point! I agree that it was pretty irrational but at the time, it didn't seem like that to me!)

Well, we had decided that we weren't going to "actively try" in December due to the crazy holiday schedule and traveling. I figured, we would just wait and see what happened in January once the craziness of the holidays settled. Even so, I took the Clomid in December just to keep my body on track. Once January came, I waited for my period to start and low and behold it never started. I have never been one to go over 30 days between cycles, so when I counted and realized that it had been 31 days, I was wondering, Could I be pregnant? I surely figured that wasn't that case, but I decided to take a pregnancy test anyway and low and behold....it came back positive!! Of course, I didn't believe it so I went to CVS and bought another test (one of the really expensive ones because surely those are super accurate!) just to be sure. And, yes, it came back positive too! I was definitely shocked, a bit confused, but defintitely excited!!

I called the doctor the next day and they had me come in and have a blood test that confirmed I was indeed pregnant. Then, we went back in a few days later and had an ultrasound. We were able to see our sweet little bean's heart beating and the scan told us that I was approximately 8 weeks pregnant.

We were really excited and, even though I was only 8 weeks along, I wanted to share it with my immediate family the next weekend at my nephew's birthday party. There wasn't going to be another time that we were all going to be together anytime soon so I thought it was a good time to share. I certainly didn't want to overshadow the birthday party so we waited until the very end when it was just my parents and siblings left at the party. I had written on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope and told Jacob to give it to my mom. The paper said "Are you ready for Grandbaby #7? We hope so...because Baby Weimer will be here in August!" and it had a picture of the ultrasound. I was able to capture a picture of my mom's awesome reaction when she read it. Does she look just a little shocked and excited?!

We are all very excited and can't wait to see what the next weeks have in store for us!