I’ve been slacking so bad on the chalkboard belly pictures. In fact, no pictures at all have been taking since 16 weeks. I’m sorry, baby! I intended to document this pregnancy more since it most likely is my last, but I’m just tired. Most days I don’t feel up to taking a picture with my baggy eyes and crazy wavy hair.  Plus, I’m just busy trying to accomplish things on my to-do list and keeping up with my 2 kiddos. And, when I do feel decent I don’t always have someone around to take my picture the right way.

Yesterday I finally took a lovely bathroom mirror picture, better than nothing right?  I’m 22 weeks already. Time is flying by and I can’t believe we have tipped the scale past the halfway point to be closer to meeting this baby!  I’ll be honest, most of the 1st trimester and up to a few weeks ago I was feeling very stressed about this baby coming, even though this pregnancy is something I strongly feel God planned and blessed us with. I’ve wanted this baby for a while! But, the logistics of adding more chaos to my already established chaos is overwhelming at times and that was robbing my joy. Before, I was looking forward to simply pregnancy and birth again, but now I can see past that and am anxious to hold this little one and learn its personality. I think finally feeling this baby’s movements stronger and more consistently/daily has helped a lot with bonding.  So far it still seems like this baby is a more relaxed and lazy one (especially compared to super active Jaxson) and I’m enjoying the moments so much when I feel this baby move since it often has left me worried with its lack of movement at times!

I look at Savannah and Jaxson (and Kaylee!) and am in awe at how different they are in both looks and personality, I’m so curious to see what this new one will be like!   I’m glad at this point the fears and stress has seemed to dissipate some, I feel God near me and Him reassuring me it will be okay.  We can do this and we will all adjust! I’m praying our postpartum time is a much smoother one than it was after Jaxson and I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve to help physically like placenta encapsulation and forcing myself to rest by having a “baby moon.” Its amazing how each pregnancy teaches you something new, my experience with Jaxson helped me realized more what I need after birth!

Anyways, yesterday I took my 22 week picture and realized how differently I am carrying this time!  I decided to compare all my kids to see if I was right.  I’m guessing the difference is that I’m not “letting it all loose” and remembering to engage my abs constantly this time so I’m carrying much higher (much like with Kaylee since they were still tight as she was my first). I have a HUGE gap in my abs from my babies and it creates HUGE bellies (I tried to find you a link to one from Jaxson, but I apparently didn’t post it because its really awkward and kinda embarrassing how big and torpedo-like it got!), I’d like to keep that down if I can. Plus, for physical health reasons it can be dangerous to not support my growing belly (uterine prolapse, for one). Again, a lesson learned from Jaxson’s pregnancy.

 So maybe, maybe I won’t get so big this time? Please, God? I’d like to at least be able to fit into my shirts at the end without it looking like its going to rip in half. Or, that I have triplets in there when its only one.

Also, you may notice this baby is being called Baby Ash.  No, we don’t know what this sweet baby is besides a baby, and we won’t find out until birth!  But, we do have a boy and girl name picked out that both begin with Ash :-)