Fohner Family of FOUR!

yup...

this little one makes it official...

our rainbow baby stuck and we'll be a family of four right around New Year's  :)

This was the last ultrasound we had done at 8 weeks & 1 day along.  His or her heartbeat was going strong at 174 & the baby even did a bit of twitching for us.

We officially "graduated" from our high risk specialist doctor to the midwifery practice we go to & were able to visit them the next day after this pic was taken.  Clean bill of health, though I'll have to be monitored as we get closer to my due date since Abram was macrosomic & 15 days late, but I was used to going to get a NST or ultrasound every 2-3 days during the last few weeks of my pregnancy with Abram so that's not a huge deal.  Matthew & I are just praying that this one's birth goes a bit smoother than his or her older brother's arrival did.  Who knows, maybe this one will come on time or early?  At least we can hope  ;)

The midwife we met with a few weeks ago was the one who came on shift right around when things took a turn for the worse with A.B.'s delivery (a good midwife but not our favorite in the practice) so I didn't take too much stock in what she was saying (she tends to be the one to practice the most like an OB of the midwifery group).  We absolutely love the other midwives so hopefully one of them will be on call when the time comes.  It's not like I can do anything about having big babies.  I was 9 lb. 13 oz., the oldest of my little brothers was 1 oz. shy of 11 lb., & our "shrimpy" younger brother weighed in at 8 lb., 8 oz...it's in my genes, people!  All of us came from my petite mom & even though I have more of an athletic body type than my her, I gained within the appropriate amount of weight during my pregnancy with Abram (25-35 lb.) & wasn't even close to developing gestational diabetes (what tends to cause macrosomia).  I've only gained 2 lb. so far into this pregnancy & we're already a 1/4 of the way through so hopefully I'll stay within that 25-35 lb. range again.

I don't have a recent pic of my belly to post (I'm only taking monthly shots this time around instead of weekly ones) but I am a good deal smaller with this baby.  Everything I have read says you tend to show quicker with subsequent babies, but not so far.  This gives me even more of a feeling that this is a girl.  Oh my, what am I going to do with a girl?  I mean, duh, I am one...but seriously, I've got the boy thing down pat now.  Sure we'd love a girl eventually, but it would be neat to have all our boys & then a girl.  Though it would be awesome if we could have 2 girls.  I have absolutely loved having brothers, but always wanted a sister, too, so it would be nice if we could have 2 and 2.  I guess we'll see in time  :)

As far as finding out the gender, I was actually leaning more towards being okay with not waiting but Matthew seemed super set with not finding out again saying he really liked waiting until Abram was born.  All the sudden last week, he brought up not waiting saying it would be neat to find out ahead of time.  I had actually had my mind set on waiting since he was so adamant about not finding out again so who knows?  We still have around 2 months to decide, so we'll see.

Just as I was with Abram, I have been super exhausted.  I nap when A.B. does almost every single day (usually for at least 2 hours) & usually need at least 8-9 hours at night as well.  If I remember correctly, my exhaustion seemed to fade around week 14 with Abram, so hopefully I have a little under a month left of this sleepiness.

And thankfully, no morning sickness or nausea :)  I did feel a little "off" from weeks 6-8 if I didn't eat something every so often, but never felt like I was going to get sick so that's been a huge blessing.  My pregnancy hormone levels (hCG) have been super high...7-9 higher than Abram's were, so when we had the first ultrasound at 6 weeks we were so thankful to see that the one embryo we transferred did not split into identical twins.  It only happens in 1.7% of embryo transfers at our clinic, but since high hCG can indicate multiples, there we a few weeks where we thought that might have happened.  If God had chosen to give us twins, we would certainly feel blessed, but wow, 3 kids age two and under...whew!  We would be afraid we couldn't give them the attention & love they deserve.  I'm already slightly nervous that this new baby will be missing out on individual time since toddlers can be demanding.  I know we'll make it work though.

So can this exhaustion be my excuse for taking a break from blogging over the past few weeks?  Haha...I know I can only milk the I'm-pregnant excuse for under the next 7 months so I think it's okay to relish in it now  ;)