baby king #3!

so, the secret is out: we are preparing for our third little king set to arrive this year!  

we are technically due in june, but i keep warning everyone that it will likely be in may since my other two kiddos were ready before the allotted 40 weeks was up (noah was 36 weeks, sam was 38).  so we'll see what kind of time frame this sweet little one has in mind :)

those are the key points, so you can skip to the pictures if you want.  otherwise, read on for more details...

i actually found out allllll the way back in september and informed matt the night after i found out.  with our crazy schedules it's hard for us to get a few minutes where we are not chasing kids, running errands, working on something around the house, or just being completely exhausted and/or sleeping.  september 25th, i had a positive pregnancy test (after a week of *knowing* i was pregnant, but seeing tests come up negative).  i told the second pink line, "THERE you are!"  

i tried to figure out some creative way to inform my husband, who would be coming home from a long day at work.  i ended up telling him the next night (september 26), after i had cleaned the house and put this little hint in place.  he came home to find me reading in the living room and it only took him about 3 seconds to get the message.

(this is sparkling, cider, by the way!)

matt was very excited about the news and we spent the rest of the evening talking about the future of our family, this sweet little baby now starting it's life in my womb, and potential baby names, which is always a very long discussion.  we also tried to plan out when we would tell family, friends, work, etc.  we decided to tell our families first (as we always do) and that the upcoming trip to the arboretum (october 18th) would be a great time to spring the news on our parents.  we were lucky enough to be able to tell my parents in person, but had to settle for an email message to matt's family.  we notified siblings soon after, informing my brother and sisters at the end of jonah's birthday party on october 20th. at that point we were about 8 weeks along.

we were taking pictures of the kids and my parents when we sprung the news on them -- here was their reaction caught on camera.  sam was not so pleased, noah was not very interested ;)

the email message to matt's parents included a message along the lines of "trick question: how many people are in this picture? call for more info on baby #3 due in june!"  

the phone calls were wonderful, and i'm just sad we don't get to tell everyone in person each time.

after that we kept the secret for a while, waiting until the end of the first trimester to inform the rest of the family (cousins, great grandparents, aunts, uncles).  we notified extended family on thanksgiving day and got a wonderful reaction all around.

i finally told my work when i hit 18 weeks, they are always the last to know, but i was starting to model a small baby bump and knew some people might be wondering by now why i never drank caffeine, was very tired a lot of the time, and had problems with certain foods.  to be fair, i didn't tell anyone at work directly, instead i posted a fb message (to make it "official," right?) on new year's day modeling my new year's resolution: to have a healthy baby!

here's a pic of the 18 week bump

and 19 weeks

 and 20 weeks! (already "half" way there!)

and a 21 week pic, no denying that sweet little bump!

our first OB appointment was at the wonderful allen birthing center on matt's birthday (november 21).  unfortunately, he wasn't able to join us because of his work schedule but i was able to relay to him that everything looked great, baby has a strong heartbeat, and i even got to bring home a little video on my phone of an unofficial sono!  the midwife was having a hard time capturing the heart rate with the doppler, so she pulled out a tiny little sono machine -- a handheld!  it was smaller than most tablets and showed a great pic of our newest little king.  it also made the pregnancy seem so "real" all of the sudden, as seeing a little person kicking around inside you can (especially when you can't even fell them move, yet).  

our next two appointments also went well, with everything checking out healthy for both me and baby.

we had our 20 week sono on january 17th.  our family loaded up into the car on a very blustery day and headed to the imaging place to make sure baby king #3 is healthy, active, and will be ready to chase after two older siblings.  of course, my concerns are always medical: are the kidneys, heart, bladder, stomach, limbs, brain, spinal cord, etc. okay? is the baby's heart rate still strong? is the baby moving well? where's the placenta? (oh, the joys of having *too* much knowledge of this miracle growing!)

while matt is concerned about all of those things, he also has one burning question: what's the gender?!  he likes to hold off on really deciding on names until we know a gender.  what can i say? we are both planners :)

fortunately everything looked great on the sono.  baby was active and healthy and even gave us what looked like a little smile during the photo session:

(for those who don't read sonos all the time, baby's head is to the left, looking towards the top of the picture.  you can see the chest/abdomen to the right and the spinal cord running along the bottom right of the picture)

after everything checked out okay medically, the sono tech showed us the not-so-discrete evidence that we needed to inform us of gender:

(there's an arrow just to the left of the...parts)

that's right, baby # 3 will be a boy!

and unlike with sam, who was always so modest during her sono pics and kept us guessing all the way until the end, this kiddo has no problems displaying his...stuff.  there was even a glimpse i caught during an earlier part of the sono, but i kept my mouth shut because i wasn't completely sure.  my suspicions were confirmed when the sono tech mentioned she had seen the same thing and realized that our newest son had already given us a sneak peek at the gender reveal.  

so that's where we are at, this pregnancy has been healthy and i can't complain too much.  i will say i am much more tired this time around, but everyone tells me that's not surprising considering our wacky schedules (still working full-time nights in the ER, and matt is still working off-hours at his full-time job, too), and the fact that we have two kids currently under the age of 3.  my prayers are that this newest king baby is resilient to the fact that i have probably been the least healthy during this pregnancy so far -- exhaustion makes it hard to cook and prepare healthy meals, and chasing two other kids means that i'm limited in my ability to actually "work out" or do dedicated physical activity.  my hope is that as the weather gets better -- it's been *extremely* cold this winter -- we can start making use of the new 2-passenger jogging stroller we got from my father-in-law for christmas.  just being able to enjoy some time outside would be wonderful!  i'd also like to apologize for the lack of effort put into the blog.  when the exhaustion from this pregnancy hit back in october (about the time the kids both ended up with croup!) the blog ended up getting shuffled to the back of the priority list.  now that we are "caught up" i hope to be able to do a better job maintaining it to keep up with our three little kings :)