14 Weeks | Baby #4

1.7.17 | 14w0d



Truman has become obsessed with knowing how big the baby is each week, so we looked up an old app and discovered today the baby became a peach. It's a little over 3" long now and it's truly mind-boggling to think about how much this baby is growing every day. Truman was floored that at week four, baby was the size of a poppy seed and ends up as a watermelon in my belly. It's pretty freaking cool, isn't it?

Cecelia has told her teacher and also me that she is 'worried about how the baby has to come out.' She said that she doesn't want a baby to come out of her privates anytime soon, and I told her she doesn't have to think about that for a long, long time! We are trying to be honest with the big kids about babies and birth and all of that....to a point, at least. They haven't asked technical logistics about how the baby got inside of me, thankfully.

The biggest occurrence this week was that we told the internet (i.e. the world) about our fourth baby. It was nerve wracking and a little scary, as always, but also felt really good to finally share it with everyone. Nearly all of the comments were overwhelmingly supportive, some made me want to cry, many made me smile. People were either shocked, excited, got The Fever, or were horrified. ;) Some said they were expecting this announcement, but most were not. Pretty fun times!

Truman announced the news to his entire class the first day back to school, as expected. He's told them that the baby was the size of a lemon last week, that he wants a sister and hopes to name her 'Rose', and that he has many assigned tasks as big brother times three. He is the cutest and can't stop talking about this baby. The other day he told me, 'Remember when you said we weren't having any more babies? Well, you were wrong!!!' LOL, good point.

Cecelia didn't even mention it to her teacher until Mrs. K teased it out of her, since we are friends on Facebook and she saw the announcement. Porter has said a few times, 'My mommy is having a baby,' or 'I'm going to play trains with the new baby.' Still can't wrap my head around Porter as a big brother. It's going to be interesting, for sure. One huge task that must happen well before baby? Potty training our current babe. I pulled up the froggy potty from the basement today and am mentally prepping for a real deal potty training event, but not quite yet.

We also officially decided to move forward with the house addition! We've been discussing it seriously since we found out about baby, and originally I wanted to wait to sign any contract until after baby is born. The more we talked about it, though, the more I realize that waiting until the baby is born wouldn't be the best timing. It's morbid to think that 'something could happen' to the baby, but IF it does, we have always planned to do this addition anyway. Now it will just be done and we can stop talking about it for the next 5-10 years! No harm done, really, and it's not healthy for me to think that starting a home addition will somehow jinx this pregnancy.

Also, there will never be the perfect time to get this done. The more time we spend with our lives in shambles from a major renovation (i.e. the mess, the guys in and out of our house, living with the noise, feeling displaced, etc.) BEFORE the baby, the better. If we waited until the baby turned one, like I originally thought would work, then we will be crammed into three or maybe even two bedrooms for awhile with an older baby likely right next to us at night. No. I'd much rather share our bedroom with an infant, because we do that anyway for several months. If we lose the use of the nursery (Porter's room) during part of the renovation, then Porter can for sure sleep in the big kids' room. It won't be pretty, but we will make it work. Because the end result is going to be FREAKING FANTASTIC. Let the Pinterest boards begin!

As a review: we will finish our entire walk up attic, making this a big fifth bedroom or just a rec room; we will add a master bedroom and master bathroom off the back of our second level; we will have a covered porch on the first floor because of the addition on the second and third floors. Hopefully the kitchen and everything on the main level will remain untouched, but the second floor and third floor will be chaos. Also we will be getting a new roof and roofline which will be exciting. Enough of the house talk, you'll probably be hearing a lot about it as we go along.

I seem to have rounded the first trimester corner this week! I haven't napped in ages, food is sounding amazingly delicious and my appetite is back with a vengeance, and I even started walking on our treadmill for a little exercise. Walking for 30 minutes while I watch an episode of Weeds seems very boring compared to running, but I'm totally okay with it because it's SOMETHING to get my body moving again. I need it! And I'm so thankful that my energy has rebounded a bit, hope it lasts until the very end of pregnancy when I will likely nap and complain again;)

I'm wearing maternity jeans today but they really don't fit me yet, super baggy in the upper butt area. Regular jeans just feel too constricting and leggings are too cold for temps in the subzeros (disgusting), so I think I will just rock the saggy butt look for awhile. I need to find my bigger bras because my usuals are not fitting anymore. YES.

I vividly remember feeling Porter kick me for the first time at 14 weeks, and I swear I've been feeling taps this week, too. The doppler tells me baby has a heartbeat of 160-165 and I had my blood draws for my first appointment next week. I seriously cannot wait to see my old OB again, she is one of my favorite people and I didn't think I'd ever see her again! I'm looking forward to talking about being AMA and what that means to her, how it will be different than the last three times with tests and what not. I have a few friends that are pregnant at age 35 and so far, they have had a perinatologist do their 20 week ultrasound, and then they had a 32 week ultrasound to check growth. That's about it, which doesn't seem too bad. I mean, extra ultrasounds are always a plus in my book, and I kind of hope my OB does one in her office next week, too.

Into the second trimester and feeling more like myself again, hallelujah. This is really happening and it's awesome. Thanks for reading along, I truly appreciate all of your comments and emails, my blog readers are the best.