3 + 2 = 5

We are excited to announce the third addition to our family! I will just answer everyone's questions so there is no confusion or wondering. Yes it was planned, yes we know how sex works (and sex protection), yes we know we just had a baby, yes we know we multiply like rabbits.... There... did we cover everything? ;)

Having our babies so close together all started when we realized the time frame we had originally planned for baby #3 landed me 9 months prego or very postpartum during a big family race Scott and I will be training for the end of next summer. We then decided I needed to either be postpartum enough that I could still train and run the race or we needed to hold off enough that I would only be 7ish months prego and would still be able to participate in the race. As you can see we shot for before the race which meant Ida and the babe being 15 months apart and Jacob and the babe being almost exactly 3 years apart. Although we decided to try for before the race doesn't mean that after I found out I was pregnant that I didn't have a huge freak out while all the realizations hit of the reality of the situation and how close together all my children would be. I freaked out and wondered what the heck I had just gotten myself into. I also wasn't really thrilled to deal with all the "judgement" we were going to receive for having our children so close together. I didn't want it to bother me but it really did. Why should I care what other people think? It's not their family and it's not really their problem. Now I'm over it and have accepting my kids are going to be so close and I'm just excited for the journey... Most of the time. :)

16 week baby bump

This pregnancy has been so awesome compared to my other ones. My sickness has been minimal and the first trimester wasn't that bad. Just normal tiredness and having to pee all the time. I really think the Lord is blessing me because I'm still taking care of a baby.

Date: December 9, 2015

How far along? 16 Weeks

Total weight gain/loss: I'm up 6 pounds bringing my total to 140 lbs. My pre-pregnancy weight was 134. But I was still in the process of trying to lose the weight from Ida so I have a feeling I might gain more weight. Already by the time I was  into my second trimester I had gained 7 lbs. Which is more than double the amount that I gained with either of my two other pregnancies. So that was really depressing for me and I just felt really fat. But now it seems I've evened myself out again and I'm on track for being up 10ish pounds at my half way mark which is the same with the other two.

Maternity clothes? I am not wearing any maternity clothes yet. Sometimes I do pull out some of my long sleeve shirts though just because I don't really have any and I want to wear a long sleeve shirt. But it's not needed by any means. 

Sleep: I probably would be sleeping good if not for two other children getting me up 2-5 times a night. I've been so exhausted lately. Worse than I was during my first trimester. At my appointment today my midwife started me up on a 5,000 UI dose of vitamin D. I hope it helps.

Movement: I felt the little babe move the first time 4 days ago while I was out shopping with a friend. I love those first movements. I think they feel like little fingers lightly scratching you from the inside.

Feeling sick? This pregnancy has been soooo awesome!!!! Yes I am sick. But I remember shortly after finding out I was pregnant I starting thinking about what that really meant and I started dreading feeling sick. Then when I starting feeling sick around 7 weeks I was just miserable. And I just kept waiting for it to get worse. But it never really got very bad. I've never thrown up once this whole pregnancy. And now I should still be feeling sick all day long and throwing up but I feel good most of the day as long as I make sure to keep food in me. Usually in the evenings I feel sick regardless. But it's so much better then any other pregnancy! I've been so happy with it! I haven't taken any zofran in at least 2 weeks and it's just been awesome! I finally understand what people say when they say they forget they are pregnant. Because there are lots of times where I don't feel sick at all and I really do forget that I'm pregnant.

Other pregnancy symptoms? Other symptoms I'm having are round ligament pain and heartburn. I went through I really bad stretch a couple weeks ago with the ligament pain. Every morning getting out of bed always created this sharp pain. And If I coughed or sneezed at the wrong time. OUCH!! It was so painful. Like I tore my ligament in half. The heartburn just started a week or so ago. But it's not super bad especially if I make sure I don't eat right before going to bed. My groin/hip pain does bother me sometimes in the morning. But not very often. I feel like the hardest time I've been having lately is dealing with my emotions being crazy. I feel very overwhelmed by them and often spend some part of the day feeling like I can't take care of my children and in tears. It's been so exhausting on top of my exhaustion. It doesn't help that I've had this ridiculous sinus cold that has lasted for like 12 days now and I feel so crappy and achy and Ida has been teething and sleeping terribly and Jacob has been getting up 2-4 times a night. It has really just been awful. Thankfully Ida is done teething and I think I'm finally starting to kick this sickness so I've been feeling better. I hope in the next week or two I start feeling a lot better.

Have you started to show yet? No I don't think so. I think it's funny because you feel so huge! Then when I take my picture I'm like... Oh.... I'm not that big. But it always feels like it's so obvious that I'm prego. Like if anyone sees me they will think it. But I'm not really showing. Just feeling like I'm really fat and all my belly skin hangs over my pants. It's great.

Gender prediction: We have decided not to find out the gender if this baby. We figured why not since we have a boy and girl so we have everything we need. I'm pretty excited for the experience! Scott is currently thinking it's a girl. I've kind of always felt like it was a boy. So I don't know. I really wouldn't mind if it was a girl just because Ida and the babe will be so close in age... But it will be good either way. 

9 Months

This little lady is 3/4's of a year old... It's hard to believe in just 3 short months she will be a year old. We had a doctor's appointment today and discovered that Ida has gained a whopping 3 oz in 3 months. Bringing her total weight to 13 lbs 12 oz and dropping her to the 1st percentile. Although she is still growing and is now 27 inches (15th percentile). The doctors were a little concerned that she hasn't gained a lot of weight but after passing her physical exam and telling them I'm still nursing every 3-4 hours and she practically never stops eating table food they seemed to be less concerned. Jacob dropped a lot of weight as well. He just started in a lot higher percentile. I was only 16 pounds when I turned a year doing the same thing. So we are going to do a weight check next month and I hope that she starts gaining a little more. The Doc said she looks really healthy though! I moved Ida up to 6 month clothes about a week ago. I think I probably could have held off a little bit more, but honestly. I was just ready for some new clothes! Babies aren't supposed to be in the same clothes for 6 months! They seem a little baggy on her, and long, but she'll grow into them. She is still in size 2 diapers as well.

9 months is such a fun stage. A couple weeks ago I think Ida went through a mental developmental jump. She just became so much more aware of what's going on around her. I love watching her watch the world around her. I also love when their personality starts to shine through. She is very very loud and lets you know when she isn't happy with something. Especially when pertaining to food. I feel like I have to stay on the ball and make sure I'm giving her something to eat every 3 hours or less. She just always wants to eat. She is still very content and isn't so much a busy body that has to get into everything. Although her crawling has improved much and she is now able to navigate around things and from room to room she still isn't interested in getting into things. Mostly she's interested in just getting to me. I feel like she follows me around everywhere and I'm not used to it!

Ida got her first tooth a couple days ago. I started suspecting she was teething after a week straight of me not being able to put her down and her sleeping horribly. So the day before she got the tooth I looked in her mouth and her little gums where all red and swollen and I knew that had to be it. She got her second tooth 2 days later. So now she both or bottom teeth and I hope she will start feeling better.

Ida took a long time before pulling herself up onto the furniture. I thought she would get it quick, but I'm realizing I think she needs a little extra motivation to do things. She wants to make sure she can really do it before doing it. She has been pulling herself up to her knees and sitting on her knees all month. 3 days ago I decided to see if I could get her to do it with a little incentive from food. Well it took her about 3 seconds to crawl over to the couch and pull herself all the way up without even a hesitation. Haha little stinker. She had figured out how to get herself down from standing before she even learned how to pull herself up from mom and dad standing her next to the couch so that wasn't even a problem.

Ida has started clapping her hands this past month as well as blowing. I find the blowing pretty impressive although I don't really think she knows what she is doing... One thing she hates though is people touching her hands and trying to make her do things with her hands. She has a bubble and always has. (Which is also why we can't cuddle her). I feel like she thinks Jacob gets in her bubble way more than her liking. 


Finally nursing has gotten better! YAY! Man am I excited... Because that was a really rough month. We are now nursing every 3-4 hours. Although I think my milk supply has dropped a bit, I haven't really been supplementing much because a couple weeks ago Ida decided she no longer wanted to take a bottle or drink formula. (Can't blame her. It smells nasty!) That was one of the incentives I had to keep with nursing. I had almost decided to give it up and just go to formula when she stopped drinking it. So we are doing the best we can with nursing. This past month I also discovered Ida will eat purees if it's from a pouch! So my friend found some reusable ones online and I ordered some and LOVE them! It makes feeding her so easy and fast and she is getting her veggies and fruits again! I also love them because I can put my own homemade baby food in them and add cereal to them. She is still eating a lot of table food. But she loves eating out of the pouches so we do a good mixture of both. I also started giving her a sippy cup of water during meals to help wash down the food. She is really taking on to that as well and loves drinking out of it. Now if only I could get her to hold the pouches and sippy cup herself.....

This past month Ida dropped down to only waking up 2 times a night instead of 3. It was great because she dropped out the middle one which means I get the most sleep. She is so considerate. :) That is until she started teething and then was getting up like 5 times a night and refusing to go back to sleep. But, thankfully that is over and I hope she goes back to her only getting up twice a night again soon. I've realized quickly that Ida does not deal with pain and sickness nearly as well as Jacob did.  You have to be a lot more hands on with her which is why the majority of her Christmas presents are for teething this year. :) She is also still taking 3 naps a day.