Someone's Going to be a Big Sister!

It's been 8 weeks since I found out. Hubby didn't want to tell anybody, so I decided to abide by his wishes. But now it's time to let the cat out of the bag. Baby #2 is on its way! I'm 12 weeks pregnant now and everything has gone well. I got to hear the baby's (strong and easy to find!) heartbeat at 10 1/2 weeks. We had a little scare around 6 weeks when I had three days of small amounts of bleeding, but that stopped, and then the morning sickness kicked in to reassure me that I was indeed, pregnant. Unlike my last pregnancy, when I craved potatoes in any shape or form, this time I'm craving cheese. Which has done wonders for my pregnant digestive system. Have I mentioned I hate chugging Metamucil?

My due date is April 27th although I know from experience (Princess was 2 weeks late and had to be induced) that a due date doesn't mean much. My sister, the one with a son 6 weeks older than Princess, is also expecting a baby in April. Hers is due two weeks before mine. So, if she goes a week late and I go a week early, we could save the relatives a trip to the hospital and kill two birds with one stone. But I know better than to count on that happening.

I'm nervous about adding a second child. I'm looking forward to having a baby again and am more confident this time because I know a lot of little tricks that make taking care of a newborn easier, or at least bearable. Of course, there is always the chance that everything that worked with Princess will irritate this baby immensely. What I'm nervous about though, is taking care of a toddler and a newborn. Especially since the toddler is very possessive of me and her toys. If I hold another child, she has a meltdown and tries to push them off my lap. Because Princess adores babies so much and is such a good little mother to her dolls, I think she'll love her baby brother or sister unless I'm holding him or her. Which could be a problem because newborns require a lot of holding. This time, I have a sling I plan to use which should help at least some, especially since I will breastfeed this one as well.

When I was pregnant with Princess, I didn't really start to show until I was over halfway done with my pregnancy. This time, I was wearing maternity clothes by 10 weeks. The fact that I'm a little pudgy around the middle and am wearing maternity clothes has made it a little harder to keep the pregnancy a secret. I thought I'd kept it a secret from most of my coworkers at the bed and breakfast, but apparently they had it figured out anyway.

My doctor told me that it's normal to show sooner with the second baby because your stomach muscles are already relaxed from the first pregnancy. No offense, doc, but that one was kind of obvious. Even though I lost all the baby weight and then some, my stomach never quite looked the same as before pregnancy. And by the way, although I was pleasantly surprised at the way the weight just kind of disappeared after having Princess, I hold out no such hopes for this one. If it does happen, great! But if it doesn't, I understand that it can be much harder to lose the weight the second time around.

Just a note to the person who left a comment on my last post about the pacifier saga-I will try to blog about how I got Princess to eat and stopped stressing myself out about her weight. However, just in case I don't get to it, leave another comment with an email address or something and I'll definitely talk to you about what's going on with your child. That way I could answer your direct questions better instead of just writing broadly about the subject. I know how rough it can be and I know it realllllllly helps to talk to someone who's been there.