Baby Boy Name Reveal + My Favorite Name Choices for Baby #2

Baby brother's name is Eren Michael.

Eren was a name my husband and I were actually able to agree on. A common name with unique spelling.
We like to use family names for middle names, so we pretty much listed out all the male family member names we could use and Justin liked Michael best. It is after my great grandpa on my mother's side. He came to America from Croatia, so we don't actually have record of his written name. He just have census records, which are super unreliable, and the fact that he was called Mike. So even if it wasn't Michael exactly, he's still named in honor of him.

Our close second name option that was very close in the running was Charlie Ray, but I felt like that was not this baby's name. I would like to use it on a future baby boy, but right now I just didn't think it was right.

Here are other names I liked too:

Arlan
Charlie
Harrison
Harvey
Emerson
Emmett
Eugene
Everett
Finn
Gavin
Isadore
Latham/Lathe
Lincoln
Luther
Lyle
Reed
Walt/Walton

Did you and your husband have an easier time agreeing on a name?

Thanks for reading.
Love,
Alaina & Baby Brother Eren

17 Weeks Pregnant with Baby #2

Week ending Oct. 24, 2017.
Due Date: April 3, 2018

Energy:
Getting better, I think. I stayed up til like 10:30 over the weekend. :)
But Calvin's been teething and has been having rough nights this week, so that sucks.

Physical Symptoms:

Nipples are starting to darken already.

Food:
Too much snacking this week!
Can't tell if I'm actually more hungry or just being bad and snacking more often.

Sleep & Dreams:

Super weird dream. We were sitting on the bank of a creek but it was in the location of the street in front of my parents' house. It was me and Justin, his nephews, and Justin's ex brother-in-law and maybe some others, I can't remember if Cal was there. It was also like we were on vacation staying in a cabin and I was going through Calvin's cloth diapers while sitting on the floor, but he got a new diaper that I had never used before, a different brand and everything. I don't know how these two events were connected. Ha. Pregnancy dreams.
Had kind of a creepy dream about being able to feel baby from the outside. You could look at my belly and watch his little spine move very clearly. I even woke up laying on my back with my hand on my belly too. Ha!

Favorite Moments of the Week:
I know it's not pregnancy related, but something very cool happened this week. Calvin finally started to care about story time! We've been reading bedtime stories since he was teeny tiny and he usually just runs around his room and ignores us or tries to talk over us. But all of a sudden this past week he will sit with you and look at the pictures and actually listen! It's amazing! I'm so glad our relentless reading finally paid off.

Random Thoughts:
Back on the whole "what if baby's a girl" thing. Lol. I couldn't help but think it was a girl in the very beginning but now I'm unsure about the Sneak Peek results and I'm wondering if we can even trust the results and shouldn't have announced the sex already.

Love,
Alaina & Baby #2

Random Thoughts : VBAC vs. C-Section Decision

The goal here is simply to express all the thoughts running through my head regarding the possible ways our newest little one is going to be brought into the world.

Calvin was born via c-section after 2-3 hours of pushing

Positives of a planned repeat C-section:
Baby's birthday is pretty much planned.
Knowing I won't have to go through labor ever again.
Being prepared for the c-section instead of failing at a vaginal delivery and having things cascade into the same sucky situation as last time.

Positives of an attempted VBAC:
I tried. I know I gave it my all.

Negatives of a repeat C-section:
Feeling cheated for not getting to try for a vaginal birth again.
Recovery time is long.
Risks of complications are higher.
The fact that I will now have to have c-sections for all future babies.
Possibility of limited family size due to too many c-sections.

Negatives of an attempted VBAC:
Feeling of failure again.
Risk of flashbacks to my traumatic first birth.

_________________

Of course a successful VBAC would be my #1 pick. That's what we all want! But I have to be realistic and look at all of the possibilities.

I think I will be able to accept it if I try for a VBAC and fail. At least I gave it a go.

But I have to prepare for the possibility of a planned c-section too. That's the scenario that's going to be harder to accept.
My doctor wants me to try for a VBAC, but she also made it very clear that we will know more the closer we get to my due date and it may end up making more sense to just go ahead with a c-section if baby is looking really big or if other complications arise. And that's the part that I have to learn to accept, if it comes down to that. It will be hard to live with the fact that I didn't get to try again for a vaginal delivery. It will be hard to accept that all of my babies will be born via C-section and I'll have never given birth "the right way."

Thanks for listening.
Love,
Alaina

16 Weeks Pregnant with Baby #2

Week ending Oct. 17, 2017.
Due Date: April 3, 2018

Bump:

I need to start applying more lotion. I've been kind of slacking on that this time around. I pretty much doused myself in lotion every single day from the moment I found out I was pregnant with Calvin. Not that it helped... I still got one million stretch marks lol. On the last day of this week, I felt baby moving a ton first thing in the morning and realized just how much stronger the movements get each and every week!

Energy:
Some days I feel like my energy levels are getting back to normal, then I'll have a day when all I want to do is nap and I question whether this is simply part of the exhaustion of parenthood and it's here to stay forever!

Physical Symptoms:

Haven't had morning sickness in a couple weeks.
Spoke with a nurse at the Maternal Fetal Medicine office about my migraines and she pretty much told me there was nothing I could take to help them, even though I told her Tylenol does jack. So that's super. I guess here's hoping they go away magically (like they did with Calvin at like 10 weeks)! I've been working on staying more hydrated, almost doubling my water intake. Yes, I am peeing all the time even more! But so far... it seems to be helping my head.
Little bit of heartburn.
Nose is still stuffy/runny/doing weird stuff.
Hairline zits feel like they're increasing again.
Maybe I'm getting a couple cold sores this week.
After going for walks, my wedding ring is feeling pretty tight.
The cats have been so clingy lately! I loved it when I was pregnant with Calvin, but I am not a fan this time around, I don't know why.
I keep forgetting to mention this, but it's been like a month now, ever since Calvin gave up nursing, I don't know if that's just a coincidence or what... but my nipples have been super sensitive. I remember they were sensitive in the very early weeks with Calvin, but totally not this far along. And I feel like they're way more sensitive than they were when I was pregnant with Calvin.

Food:
Having moments where I really don't want what's on the menu for dinner, not feeling hungry but knowing I have to eat or else I'll snack too much before bed, etc.
Egg-less cookie dough. All you have to do is replace your eggs with milk. Makes cookies just as good. In our recipe, I end up adding about 4 tablespoons of milk.

Sleep & Dreams:

A couple more nights of restless sleep, kept waking up a lot, but at least I could go back to sleep quickly.

Favorite Moments of the Week:
Seeing baby brother on ultrasound when I totally wasn't expecting to have one at that appointment. He was moving around like crazy! He's so little, yet so much bigger than the last time we saw him.
Also getting to spend another date night with Justin. We went mini golfing, out to dinner with my sister, then on a ghost tour in old town St. Charles, Mo.

Random Thoughts:
It finally is starting to feel right calling new baby by his name.

Doctor Appointments:
It looks like we're going to be spending a lot of time at the doctor this pregnancy. They are recommending I take progesterone shots every week and have ultrasounds every other week to check cervical length.

Here's a more detailed post about it.

The doctor who delivered Calvin never mentioned anything about having to have these doses in future pregnancies, my current doctor said it was unlikely I would need to, then I go to this specialist and he highly recommends it even though he said it only gave about a 20% reduction in chance of preterm labor.

I know it's all for the best to help reduce the risk of PROM happening again. And visiting the doctor every week is way better than spending 5 weeks in the hospital again, but it still just sucks. I just want a normal pregnancy.

I feel like I just hit a brick wall in this pregnancy. Everything was going great and all seemed well and even though I know this is all just-in-case stuff and it's really not a big deal, it all just seemed super sucky at the time and I cried the whole drive home. I guess it all just boiled down to me feeling like I'm not even supposed to carry babies if shit is always going to go wrong, plus we want more kids, is it really worth it if we have to do this every time, plus I've always heard about insurance problems with this medicine so what kind of battles are we going to have to fight over this?

Sorry to leave on a somewhat negative note, but this week was just kind of sucky.
Love,
Alaina & Baby #2