One small step for Leah, two giant dumps in her pants

So, you guys, this potty training thing? 

You all got through it.  Right?  'Cause we're on day two and it's not looking so promising.

One of my greatest struggles as a teacher is knowing when kids really get what I'm trying to teach.  Often times, with kids who can talk the talk - that is, answer all my questions and thoroughly discuss whatever I'm teaching - it turns out they have no idea how to actually apply it to what they're learning when it's test time. 

I don't know why, but sometimes a gap exists between what we can talk about doing and what we can actually do.

That has definitely been the case with my little potty trainer. 

We've been talking for weeks about Big Girl Panties and how we don't poop or pee in them. 

Where does poopy go?  In the potty!!!!

The girl can shout it enthusiastically, and I'm pretty sure if I gave her a crayon, she could even draw me an accurately colored diagram.

When it comes the actual doing of it? 

Ah, another of those photos she'll thank me for showing the internet when she gets older.

I might as well be asking her to create a solution for peace in the Middle East. 

She has zero frame of reference for what I'm asking her to do.  The time spent on the potty is completely wasted, because there's always a little surprise in her pants ten minutes later, no matter how long we sat there. 

Or, maybe she is contemplating a solution for peace in the Middle East during all that naked-butt-sitting time. 

One success.  Two days.  Patience, patience, patience. 

The one where I compare my pregnancies

Okay, 17 weeks (minus one day) isn't exactly far enough along to truly compare... the word implies that enough has actually happened to give us similarities and differences.  Clearly, at not even half way, there's a way to go on the happening front.

Overall, things have been largely the same: very little nausea, the tired that takes up so much of my energy,  no heartburn, some cravings, and best of all - no major medical emergencies to speak of.

Things were so much the same that I began to be convinced we must be having another girl.

Until, of course, we weren't anymore...

Which has left me examining my "similar" pregnancies a little more closely, and wondering if there are any (possibly?) gender-induced differences to speak of. 

Turns out, there are.

With Leah, I craved spicy.  Like, tongue-on-fire spicy.  For those nine months and probably three afterward, nothing I ate tasted even a little spicy.  My nose would stream.  Casey would cringe.  And I?  I would sigh and accept that even the spiciest out there was barely more than a little bland. 

I don't have that super power this time around... in fact, it's pretty much business as usual for me and my taste buds. 

With Leah, I was an absolute narcolept.  I've talked about this a bit before.  I slept like a rock through my entire pregnancy.  If I sat down, I was probably asleep within about five minutes.  I could wake at night without having any real recollection of it in the morning.

I thought at first it was due to the simple fact that because I have Leah, I don't rest as deeply; now I'm convinced that it's just different this time.  I'm an insomniac instead of a narcolept.  At least 3 times a week, I wake in the wee hours - 1:30, 2:30, 3:00 - and cannot fall asleep again.  It's awful.  Torture.

Chicken.  Last time I avoided it like the plague.  Even the thought of it made me gag.  I truly thought I was never going to like those foul fowls again.

While I'll admit that this time it isn't my favorite food, I'm not completely revolted by the thought of it.  I've even been known to tolerate and - dareIsayit? - eat it. 

If I get my way and we're really lucky, we'll have another pregnancy.  If for no other reason than I'm dying to know if these changes have anything to do with gender, or if every pregnancy is, indeed, just a little different.

Conversations are elloquent at two

I've said it from the beginning, and it's still just as amazing as the very first time.  Our girl is a talker. 

She is going through such a fun phase when it comes to verbal development. Of course, she has been in the repeating everything phase of life for a while now, but the way her words and sentences get strung together, and the sweet, high-pitched inflection with which she says them are too precious. 

So I had to jot down a few of my favorites.

She can be demanding...
"Eva!  Listen!  Mommy, Eva's not lisnin' to me."
"Daddy gave this teddy to yooooouu! {meaning herself}  This teddy mine!"
"Brody!  Knock it off!"
"No like it either."
"Play in the bath more!"
"No!  Rock a minute with mommy!"

She can be inquisitive...
"What's that mommy?"
"Mommy, hear the helicopter?"
"Did you see that bird, mommy?  It fly away."

She can be funny...
"Fart!  BIG fart!"  {By the way, I would love to take back the day her daddy taught her that little gem}
"Look at me, mommy!" {Said while doing something silly}
"That tickles, Daddy!  No, Daddy, don't tickle me!"

She can be insightful...
"Leah's baby drinks from that bottle."
"Those polar bears smell stinky!"
"A triangle!  'Nother triangle, 'nother triangle."
"See those letters?  That letter R."
My favorite: "Daddy, stop bein' ornery!" (used in the exact perfect context, without any mimicking whatsoever.  LOVE.)
She has the funniest immaginary conversations, too.  Sometimes, when she is having trouble falling asleep, I can hear her upstairs in her crib and the dialogue is too hillarious and completely random.  The girl remembers everything, and it comes up sooner or later in conversation - regardless of whether there is an audience.

I don't know where she gets this stuff, but I sure am grateful I get to be there to listen.

Something blue

I'm not gonna lie: there's much more apprehension in my world about having a boy than there ever was having a girl.

I get girls.  We're normal.  Although a world full of men will disagree with me, the things we do make sense.

Everything, right down to changing the diaper and dealing with all those extra... ahem...parts seems odd to me. 

{Three words: pee pee tent.}

But this love.  It's big, and it's very real. 

The blue elephants.  The teeny, tiny feet.  The "Mommy Loves Me" onesie I've currently stashed in my dresser so I can see it every day.  The slender, warm body I'm in production of. 

Mommy loves me.  I'm going to be the mommy to a boy. 

And OH, how I love him already.  Even if he is a little more foreign to me right now (and maybe always, and that's okay) than my little girl. 

16 weeks and a surprise

We met with a new doctor yesterday for our 16 week appointment. 

The doc who delivered Leah left a little over a year ago, and the one I met with intially isn't my favorite.  He's awfully negative and literal when it comes to statistics and odds, and had me about convinced that I don't want to try for a VBAC (which I definitely, definitely do). 

The new doc is awesome.  I feel much more comfortable with her.  In addition to the fact that she is a woman who has actually been through the process of labor and delivery herself - a giant plus, in my book - she is also very open to and supportive of the idea of trying to let nature take its course before we jump in with medical intervention.  She's a keeper.

We also got an ultrasound that I hadn't anticipated, and a little something else...

This is the oh-so-immodest and highly intrusive between-the-legs-shot, which I'm sure Baby will thank me for displaying on the internet later in life.

See those three little dots right there?  Yep.  You know what that means.

It's a BOY!

And when I finished picking my jaw up off the ground, I began to get really excited.

I was convinced we were having another girl - despite the, you know, 50/50 odds it might not end up that way.  So far I'm 0 for 2 in the gender guessing game. 

There is still a slight chance this may not be accurate, given the fact that it's still early and the ultrasound machine at the doc isn't particularly advanced.  But those three little dots are clear even to me, and our doctor gave it 99%.  All in all, I'm pretty confident that we'd better add a little more blue to our baby wardrobe.

Oh boy, it's a boy!  A whole new kind of adventure is just beginning, but we can't wait to meet you!

Healing is forever

I have spent a lot of time thinking about how easily I wound up on the "other" side. 

I never really fell into the category of infertility - and thank God for that.  That being said, I'll never be fully cured of the heartache that is the desperate wanting, losing and not getting a baby. 

Through the grapevine that is the internet, I came to read one of the best posts about infertility I've ever seen. 

I can't tell you how much this post touched my heart.  How easily the tears fell as I saw myself - the me from only a few short and lonely months ago - in these words. 

Compared to so many stories out there, 8 months and a miscarriage is a walk in the park.  And yet, I don't think I'll ever forget or recover from the experience.  The uncertainty.  The lonely.  The hurt that stems from what should be joy.  The desperate longing.  The frantic clinging to slim hopes, which are dashed so easily.  The forced smiles when everyone tells you to just relax.  The constant awareness of 9 months later. 

It's a form of torture many people understand.  Unfortunately, those people seem to be vastly outnumbered by the obnoxious "easy-conceivers" who I'll forever (irrationally, and through no fault of their own, since I used to be one of them) loathe. 

Even though I'm on the other side; even though I never really "understood" to begin with, I know that recovered isn't a term I will apply to myself. 

I'm just lucky.  That's all that separates "us" from "them," and it will never again be lost on me how easily that veil could fall and the fortunes reverse.

When I feel this little one move, I'll say a little prayer of gratitude, and shed a tear for the divine blessing that made it possible.  It's an answer to prayer, and although I will never understand why mine was answered and others' are not, I will not take for granted the fact that the answer was YES.

Thank you, God for my YES. 

A little wigglin'

It's my absolute favorite part of being pregnant.
I'm not fully there yet; the books say I shouldn't be feeling what I'm feeling quite so early.  And maybe I'm wrong and it's just a little stomach flutter.

Having felt it before, though, I'm convinced: this baby is a movin'.

It's not the big kicks and leaps I know it will eventually become.  It's not even really anything except a little rolling waaaay down low in baby land.  If it didn't come at certain times - the same certain times Big Sister used to get the wiggles, I might add - I might even dismiss it as some other perfectly natural bodily function. 

I didn't feel it with Leah until about 20 weeks, and then it was a little different.  Looking back, I wonder if I missed this sensation because I didn't know what I was looking for. 

This time, though, having been through it, I know that rolling sensation.  I vividly remember it. I've been looking forward to it for more months than I can count. 

This little miracle is moving.  That amazing, awe-inspiring wigglin' that tells me there is, indeed, a beautiful life growing in there. 

And it is every bit as awesome as I remember. 

Love, love, love being pregnant.