The Secret is Out..

So the secret is out...our family is expanding and by God's grace we're having another baby! It feels wild this time around as the boys fully know what it means when we say we're having a baby!! Jack was only 14 months when I got pregnant with Ryan, and just 23 months when Ryan was born. He was still a baby himself. And now he's five, and that just feels so old as he's fully aware of the baby growing in mama's tummy.

To answer some questions...

Do we have a nickname for Drennan Baby #3 or a name picked out yet?

I suppose his nickname is baby brother, but that's not very original now is it?? And we most definitely do not have a name picked out yet. How in the world are we to decide on another boy name? I feel like we've used them all up by now! Would welcome any and all suggestions!

So how far along are you then...I'd rather not do the math?

So as of Tuesday, I'm 17 weeks pregnant, which means baby is about the size of a turnip! If I'm honest, I'm still not feeling all that great. Definitely feel pregnant, which is a blessing, but just feeling so tired and just nauseous. I keep waiting to feel some relief from it all, I mean I'm in the second trimester so it should be coming soon right???????? At least that's what I keep telling myself, maybe in another few weeks? I haven't taken anything for the nausea or anything this time around, so maybe that's why? Who knows. All I know is I definitely feel pregnant and for that I'm thankful!

When is Baby #3 due?

Baby brother's official due date is July 3rd, but we're already talking about his June arrival. So whenever people ask when's your due date, I say July, but follow it up with, but I'm sure it will be more like the middle of June. Our goal once again is to get me to 38 weeks before my blood pressure starts to do crazy things, to have a vaginal birth and to take baby brother home with me when I leave the hospital. It's funny to me as I read those things to think those are like normal things a mother hopes for, but the reality is, none of those goals were met with my firstborn Jack. He was born at 33 weeks 6 days via a c-section and I most definitely went home from the hospital without him. So it was such an incredibly beautiful and healing moment for me to be able to accomplish all those things with my secondborn Ryan.

Ironically my blood pressure didn't get exceptionally high last pregnancy, but I was leaking fluid and going in for regular non-stress tests, so they could see it was starting to affect Ryan's heart rate. And if I'm honest, I can't even imagine going to 40 weeks now that both my babies have been born early! However, it would be pretty incredible to just go into labor spontaneously. I'll most likely be induced somewhere between 37-38 weeks, which would put us at the middle of June.

How in the world do we already know gender?

We did a blood test! We've never done any chromosomal testing before, but since I'm 35, insurance covers it at a different rate than they would have with my past pregnancies. So we decided to do the testing and find out the gender early, and they found a Y chromosome floating around in my blood! Hence, a boy. And to be honest, I think I wrote on a blog post with baby #2 (Ryan) before we found out gender that I thought he'd be a boy, and I just imagined myself as a boy mom. My feelings around having a third boy warrant a blog post all it's own because God was so gracious in preparing my heart. I just knew this baby would be a boy due to all the conversations I'd had with Jack about the gender of his future sibling, and I was right. Well actually Jack was right, and I felt like God was using Jack to prepare my heart to fully lean into the possibility of being a boy mom!! I can't wait to share all those conversations at a later date, but one of them being, when we showed Jack the ultrasound photo I asked him, "Do you know what this is?" and he replied with so much certainty and sincerity, "Yeah, it's my baby brother!" And I laughed it off, but on the video, I say "Baby brother, we can't wait to meet you!....I mean if you're a girl too, baby sister, we'd be excited to meet you too!"

So what do you think this baby's birth story will be like? 

I'm hoping it's more like Ryan's and less like Jack's, but maybe he'll have a totally different story. We shall see with time! I think they started me on blood pressure medicine sometime in my third trimester with Ryan, as my blood pressure started to rise. But my blood pressure has been fairly normal at my last two Drs. appointments, maybe just a smidge high at like 124/78, but nothing alarming. And I think it was higher than that at this stage in the game with both babies, but I'm not entirely sure.

But if I had to guess, I'm guessing this baby will not have a story like Jack's seeing as we're following the same healthcare plan as we did with Ryan. I have an incredible OB whom I love and adore, and I actually said to Peter, are you sure you don't want to have another baby? I'm going to miss my OB so much because let's be real, you see them ALOT when you're pregnant and not so much when you're not.

How does this pregnancy compare to your others?

Can we talk about the exhaustion? I think I forgot just how tired you truly are that first trimester. I mean like don't want to get out of bed even after 9 hours of sleep tired, most definitely don't want to get yourself dressed or your little people dressed, let alone fed and off to school/daycare and yourself off to work. And I'm definitely not interested in doing all the household tasks like folding laundry or dishes or even cooking dinner...can we just have cereal every night for dinner please? Oh and the food smells from lunch or dinner that linger in the house long after the meal has been eaten, no thank you. Gross.

I've just felt incredibly off for months, with stomach aches and indigestion and gas and just bad stuff all around. There were nights I couldn't sleep because my stomach hurt so bad! So to be honest, I haven't been eating much during the day, and on my good days, I'm able to make it to the gym which feels amazing. So now, I just don't eat anything past like 6 or else it's just downhill from there, and I finish the night off with a hot cup of tea.

Being pregnant while caring for two little people is so very different than being pregnant the first time or even the second time. The boys know I'm pregnant, but it doesn't mean much to them as I don't really have a bump, but they talk about their baby brother, and Ryan was even kind enough to give his binkie to his baby brother. So now Ryan's binkie free and thinks baby is sucking a binkie in my tummy! I'm excited to have a real baby bump, for the boys to feel the baby move and for them to rest their little heads on my tummy. And I'm excited to feel a little better? Will that day come?

In the meantime, I'll just be over here eating all the bread and cheese.

And that's all for now folks. Read our Jack reveal and our Ryan reveal. Can't wait to meet our newest addition and hold him in our arms!

And this is how Jack feels about having a baby brother!