My pregnancy with Bradford

We tried for nearly a year to get pregnant the second time around. Bradford was conceived her around my birthday (November 8) and found out we were pregnant the day before Thanksgiving. Wyatt and I had gone to the Birmingham Zoo on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I just wasn't feeling all that well, and that feeling was capitalized when we entered the Predator Exhibit. I just thought it was the raunchy smell of the bobcats and vultures. When I got home, I was convinced that my montly friend was about to arrive (I was about 2 days late), but it still hadn't come my way, so I decided to take a pregnancy test. It was negative, so I thought, "that's strange but I'll pack for Montgomery." About an hour had passed...I had enough time to finish watching Days of our Lives while I packed my bags for the Thanksgiving holiday in Montgomery. As I passed by the bathroom, I had a weird feeling and decided to just check the pregnancy test one more time. What was once negative, was now POSITIVE! After looking at it numerous times, I walked downstairs and showed it to Chris who had an armful of clothes he was loading into the car. Needless to say we were both extremely happy!

My pregnancy with Bradford was overall a really great pregnancy with zero complications. A lot to be thankful for! It was a little different from my pregnancy with Wyatt though. Comparing the two, I think my first pregnancy was easier. Overall I looked the same, gained the same amount of weight (25 pounds) and for the most part felt the same, but I was a little bit more nauseated with Bradford and definitely more tired. Perhaps it was keeping up with an active two-year-old that amplified the fatigue. I felt Bradford's very first and faint movements when I was almost 15 weeks along. With Wyatt, the first flutters came around 16 1/2 weeks. I craved the mess out of cookie cake...really any sweet in general, but primarily cookie cake...regular cake...brownies, etc. With Wyatt I wanted a lot of red meat. Carbs were a big hit the first trimester. I can recall many evenings just eating packaged macaroni and cheese, cereal, white bread with Land-o-Lakes butter, etc. Coffee sounded disgusting the first trimester as well, but Dr. Pepper was my saving grace! I took Zofran a couple of times to rid the nausea. After the first trimester was over, I resumed my normal eating patterns. Then I developed an upper respiratory infection that lasted about 2 months. For someone who is very rarely sick, this was pretty annoying. I tried to enjoy the 2nd trimester, and did for the most part, but was so bugged by so much coughing. One scary moment of the pregnancy was falling down the basement stairs with Wyatt in hand, trying to dodge potential trees from falling on the house. In the middle of straight-line winds, I was trying to get all animals and myself and Wyatt into the basement when my footing slepped and we went a tumbling. For weeks afterward, Wyatt would tell me, "This is where mommy fell. I hurt my foot right here" and would point to the last stair. That little incident landed me in the triage room at St. Vincent's for a check-up. Thankfully everything was fine with me and the baby. The third trimester brought on some more contractions (mine started around 18 weeks this time). Two weeks before she was born, my contractions were so strong that I was convinced I was in labor. My neighbor Kristen Bailey drove me to the hospital where I stayed for about 5 hours. Was told everything was OK, contractions were not productive, but that I was already about 1cm dilated. That was further than I got with Wyatt before I was induced so I thought that the baby would arrive any day.

It truly is amazing to be pregnant, and I am so thankful that I have been able to experience it twice! When the babies would move, my world would stop. I was able to see them move from very early on, and knowing that you're carrying a human being in your body is a wonderful thing. It's hard to put into words how neat it was to be pregnant. Even with nausea, fatige, headaches and contractions, it is the most amazing thing in the whole world. I have two healthy children and am thankful to God every single day.