Little miss Ila Dawn wants to share a secret with y’all… baby #2 is coming this September. Gender? Names? I cannot wait to share it all!
If you have seen me at all in the last thirteen weeks, you probably could have guessed this. I do not hide pregnancy well at all. With all three of my pregnancies, I have started showing almost immediately. Be it bloat, lack of proper abdominal muscles, or just the good Lord showing off what he has created, I cannot get passed weeks 9-10 without struggling to keep the bump from making its debut. And then of course there is nausea at literally any time of day, no matter where I am, to tell the world what’s really going on. So I have a feeling some who see me regularly may have guessed, but that is a-okay.
We feel very blessed and excited to be welcoming another baby this fall. Although we are about at our max of things we can handle with building our farmhouse, another baby is so exciting and our family is overjoyed.
I plan to share a first trimester update soon with more about how I have felt and what that first trimester was like this go around. It was a bit different in some ways than it was with Ila. But for now, I just wanted to share the news and talk about all of the exciting things we are looking forward to in this pregnancy!
My Due Date
I am due at the beginning of September. September 5th, to be exact. With Ila, I had a few complications and we ended up having her a tad early—contractions on and off throughout the last trimester, high blood pressure, and low fluid. I am hoping that with a few things we are trying this pregnancy maybe some of those issues won’t be issues at all this time around. Here’s to hoping baby can stay in a little longer! Although, it is definitely on my mind that baby could come earlier.
Gender
We will be finding out the gender but not early like we did with Ila. We knew by ten weeks with her (possibly earlier, I can’t quite remember) with a blood test. It’s funny how times have changed because not too long ago, it was very common to hear of women expecting a certain gender the entire pregnancy based on ultrasounds and then being surprised at the birth! Now we can know as early as seven weeks through some pretty reliable blood tests in many cases. That is how we found out Ila was a girl so early but we plan to just wait until the twenty-week anatomy scan with this baby so it’ll be a few more weeks until we know. I have found myself to be a bit more relaxed about so many things with this pregnancy so I can only imagine what will happen if (Lord willing) we are blessed with more haha!
So far I have only had people guess boy (our close family and friends know at this point). No guesses that baby is a girl. I had the feeling of a girl with Ila even before we knew but with this one, I am feeling boy. I guess we will see if everyone is right!
Names
We have had a boy’s name picked out for forever. So yes, we do have a name if it’s a boy. Girl names are really hard for us though. Even still, I think we had Ila named well before twenty weeks, but we are having an even harder time with names now! I definitely have a certain style of name that I gravitate toward and my husband does not love them haha! I know we will come up with something soon enough but we are not really in a rush since we don’t even know the gender yet!
Ultrasound
We have had one ultrasound at around eight weeks and at twelve weeks they bring in a handheld camera (but you don’t get printed photos). So technically I have seen the baby twice! It is always exciting to get to see the baby, especially with how fast they grow. At this point, the baby is already the size of a peach!
Baby Bump
Ahhhhh, like I said I am already showing and have been for a bit. Until about now I could get away with baggier sweaters to hide it but none of my dresses hid it well. And regular jeans just have not fit for several weeks. I am quite petite so any amount of bloat or changes to my stomach are obvious pretty quick. I have had strangers ask me at twelve weeks about the pregnancy!
I am starting to order a few maternity pieces, which I did not do much with Ila. I really do not like maternity clothes and prefer to just wear dresses. And going into Spring and Summer, I am so happy to get to do this. I will be adding a few bump-friendly dresses to my ongoing collection but I did go ahead and order a few maternity items because I am already bigger than I was last go around. I cannot get away with hair-tied jeans anymore! So I broke down and ordered a few maternity items.
I am so happy to finally share this news. I have been MIA for quite a while since the first trimester is always a little rocky. Not ideal by any means but I am hoping to get right back up to speed here in my little country space. The blog is my absolute favorite way to share on the internet and I really love writing here. I have many projects around the farm and house to tackle this Spring and Summer as well as some delicious recipes coming your way! Thanks so much for stopping by and sharing in this exciting time with us!