Round Two

Here we go again, folks!  Baby #2 is on its way.  Wes and I have been very lucky so far in our baby-producing attempts.  This one took only about two months of trying (compared to Liam's one WEEK of trying...)  I. am. baby-making-machine!  Just kidding.  Pregnancy does me no mercy.  This time around, I have been sicker, fatter, and more exhausted-er than I ever was with Liam.  We found out July 3rd, after taking my...oh, seventh test?  I have a self-control problem.  Rather, I am a planner.  I want to have as much information as possible as early as possible in nearly every life situation.  (Thus, I'm finding out the sex of the baby while Wes continues to protest.)  Let me clarify; I like surprises, but only surprises for which I have absolutely NO foreknowledge.  For example, I know I'm having a baby, so there is no sense in waiting to know what flavor.  I know we all die one day, so it would be great if I could have all of the details regarding what that will be like as far in advance as possible.  Get it? 

To celebrate the big news, Wes and I had a romantic evening out on Main Street, Park City.  I don't know if food tastes better when I'm preggo, but Wahso was De. Li. Cious.  (Thanks Mom and Dad for the gift certificate!)  We basically had the place to ourselves, which is typical in PC in the summers (you can barely get a table in the winter), so we got some great personal attention.  The staff suggested baby names, and they even made us a special dessert. I bet you can figure out what their inspiration might have been...

I am a lucky girl.  I have a perfect-in-every-way little boy and a sweet, empathetic and involved husband.  This new little one is just going to be icing on a fantastic cake.  We are totally excited, worried about money, full of questions about how Liam will deal with a sibling and virtually drunken with joy.  I have no idea how to have two children at the same time, but we'll figure it out...I hope.  I guess I'll have to get over some of my OCD because things will be less than orderly very soon.  

Check out Wes after he ordered the only thing on the menu that featured his nemesis, onions, as a main meal component.  

I felt the little guy (I'm going to refer to him as a guy because I am more than convinced he is a he) kick way earlier than with Liam...around twelve weeks.  Wes hasn't felt him yet which makes him very jealous, but at the size of a large heirloom tomato, the time will come very soon.  I love my new midwife, Danielle Demeter, although I miss Tina Fought terribly.  I was looking forward to keeping her for all of my pregnancies the minute I gave birth to Liam and then she pulled a bait-and-switch on me and moved to West (Death) Valley.  Lame.  Danielle let me see the baby via internal ultrasound around 8 weeks and then again at 12 weeks (we couldn't find the heartbeat via Doppler, per usual.)  Nearly everyone I know in Park City has gone to her and I have not heard one bad thing from anyone.  Not one.  I hope she's okay with a non-natural-birther, as I plan on not being stupid this time around, getting pitocin/epidural before it's too late and hopefully cutting my twenty-six hour marathon labor in half-ish...like less than thirteen hours would be nice, please?

Although I really don't need an ultrasound to tell me that this one's a boy, I find out today with Liam and my mom at St. Mark's Hospital.  Wes is in California for work and we're both bummed he won't be there, but I'll just force him to come to a few of my upcoming monthly appointments.  (Many thanks to the late Steve Jobs for FaceTime on the iPhone 4.)  Until today, Wes has requested that I hide the gender from him until the birth, which I totally can do, but he caved today indicating that he would probably find out anyway...so... 

Here is preggo-me at 8 weeks...

And at 13 weeks...

And at 16 weeks...

17, and growing!  

I will be 20 weeks in five days.  Wes thinks this all has gone by very quickly, but when you're throwing up nearly every night for a month and can't catch your breath because of acid reflux, time slows down a bit.  I still have PTSD from Liam's birth, but I remember the awesome reward at the end of everything and I focus on that.  We're going to have another one!  I have to say, we make pretty cute babies, so I think we know to expect nothing less than heaven.  Yay for babies!  

The Cat's Out of the Bag

Well, the secret's out (not that we had anything to hide...)  A few friends of mine have hinted that if I don't announce this on my blog, then I'm not ACTUALLY pregnant.  I promise you,

I am.  I am pregnant with a GIANT, big-headed baby boy (estimates of his head size are in the 95th percentile), and I'm already head-over-heels in love with him.

Liam Rawson Charles is expected to join the Wes and Rachael Charles family sometime in late October (I hear that babies can't read calendars, so no need to put down a due date, eh?)  Life is about to change forever, and frankly, it already has.  This little guy consumes my thoughts.  I mean, how weird is it that I'm MAKING a PERSON right now?  I just can't get over that humans have the ability to turn a tiny egg and tadpole looking thing into a living, breathing, thinking, laughing, independent person that could literally change the world (hey, if our country can be fundamentally changed into something unrecognizable in a matter of months, why can't little Liam fix it?  I don't have high hopes or anything...)

Now, since I haven't really documented this pregnancy anywhere other than my personal journal (most entries begin with "Well, I still weigh less than Wes, but more than most of my guy friends), I'd like to share with the blogging world some tidbits about the past 33 weeks in the life of my family.

Wes found out that he was going to be a daddy on a snow-shoeing/mountain top adventure on February 14, 2009.  Many of you also will remember that he proposed to me on a similar outing (using his Braveheart proposal, no less) which just happened to be almost exactly one year prior (February 16, 2008).  And so it seems we have a little tradition... I put the positive preggo test in a little pink box with a silver bow, and had him open it at a hidden, wooded amphitheatre behind our house in Bear Hollow.  I'm pretty sure he thought the test was a thermometer at first.  Sharing the moment of realization with him was divine.  (I caught it all on camera, but for some reason I keep getting error messages when I try to upload it to the blog.  Someone help!  I'm sure you can imagine- hugs, tears, laughing, inappropriate comments about how great his "swimmers" are...)

Here's how I looked the day I found out I was going to be a mamma.  Don't I look totally ready to take on the world?  You should see me now.  Overly-tired, overly-large, overly-emotional.  Yes, I think RADIANT is the word you're looking for.  I literally want to KILL all of the women who say "I've never felt more beautiful than when I was pregnant."  Lies.  All lies.  Pregnancy is NOT a pretty time.

We first got to see Liam (but we didn't know Liam was Liam) on April 6, 2009 when my doctor couldn't pick up the tiny heartbeat with the Doppler and had to resort to a quick ultrasound.  He looked like a bean pod at the time- half head/ half body.  He even did a couple of dance-moves for us (the worm).  I still didn't think 8 weeks was too early to tell that he was cute.

At 19 weeks (June 1, 2009), we found out that he was a he.  My parents, Lydia and Wes were all there to make sure the technician got it right.  There was really no question- the little guy was completely spread-eagle (I'll leave that picture out of respect for the future adult-Liam, who I'm sure values his dignity.)  I had a feeling he was a boy pretty early on (I have proof in my journal) and I know Wes was hoping for a he, so we couldn't have been more excited when we got confirmation.  One of my favorites below is his little foot.  Is it just me, or are his toes RIDICULOUSLY cute?

Our first family photos (Note that my mom brought one pair of girl shoes and one pair of boy shoes to the ultrasound):

I agreed to let Weston complete a list of his top five boy names and I would choose the final name from that list.  I should've known he would come up with this (June 16, 2009):

OK,  I've put a lot of thought into this, and here's our final 5 names from which you can choose:

1)  William Wallace Charles, "What will you do with that freedom?!!  Will you fight?"

2)  Aragorn - we can also call him "Stryder" from time to time.  He will be one of the last of the Dunadain, the rangers from the north, descended from the ancient kings.

3)  Maximus Decimus Meridus - "Death smiles at us all.  All a man can do is smile back."

4)  Starscream - evil cohort fighter jet of Megatron.  Has a really cool voice.

5)  Any of the names Bronco Mendenhall used to name his three boys - "Breaker, Cutter, or Raider".

Good luck in slimming it down, and I love you!

Wes

A few minutes later, I received this:

OK, the serious list (just because I know you wouldn't go for the others):

1)  My favorite is Liam.  It's not just because of Liam Neeson, or even because of Braveheart, I just love the name.

2)  Tristan - Love this name, although it can be a girl's name too.  Hard to make fun of, I like the sound of it, and of course, Tristan was a knight of the Round Table.  Hey, at least I didn't pick Galahad!

3)  Nathan - We would call him "Nate", probably - I love the name and he was my best friend in HS and part of college.

4)  Jasper - nothing to do with "Twilight", just think it's a great guy name.

5)  Still not in love with "Cole", but I'll include it since you like it so much.

Tell me what you think...

And so, Liam Rawson Charles came to be.  It just felt right, and I think our son will appreciate that we didn't end up with "Jasper."  (No offense to all the Jaspers out there- that's just not my boy's name.)

My first pregnancy has been...interesting.  I hear stories of women who were sick for nine months straight, and I thank the heavens that I wasn't.  I got "evening sickness" for about three weeks in my first trimester, and it went away in the second- but that was replaced by almost daily headaches.  I've never felt more tired and slow in my life.  I lasted about five months being preggo at work, and then threw in the towel.  Now, I go in and "consult" occasionally.  Much better.  Sitting in a cubicle nine hours a day is exactly NOT what preggo-women are supposed to be doing.  My hat is off to all of the women who stick with it or are forced to and am so grateful that I had a choice. 

I'm now well into my third trimester and am just at the point where I'm becoming permanently miserable.  I won't get into the specifics, because some are just, well…gross.  I take comfort in the fact that most women tell me it’s all worth it.  But now I understand what my mom was talking about when she said "I would have rather gone through natural childbirth every day for a week than go through nine months of pregnancy."  

Of course, it hasn't all been miserable.  There are times when I feel Liam playing in his little home, and I feel SO connected to him.  It's crazy- he has a sleep and play schedule already and he seems to have very little regard for day versus night.  I love to feel him react when Wes and I sing together or when I play piano- I think he wants to join in!  I’ve had extremely vivid dreams about him.  I remember one where he was lying on his back on the floor sporting a tiny mohawk, and I was on all fours above him giving him Eskimo kisses and nuzzling his face.  I remember feeling a kind of love for him that was SO powerful, it’s hard to even put into words. Wes had a similar dream involving Liam and a little girl (next in line?) playing at our bedside.  He told me that they knew he was their daddy and it was totally different than the way our nieces and nephews look at him.  I think that’s how it’s going to be, actually.

So, I apologize that I haven’t been more resolute in keeping up with the preggo-blogging, but there are definitely more to come before Liam arrives.  Look for one soon on why I’ve decided to try my very hardest to have an unmedicated, natural birth…

And since these seem to be in high-demand, enjoy some preggo-pics!