Saturday:

It’s another chill day here at the Bradley residence. Parker is still under the weather so we didn’t take a train ride up to Baltimore as planned. It’s okay though. That gives me a little more time to recover as well. My coughing has gotten better with the continued use of Zyrtec and it only bothers me when I laugh hard. Beau has been pretty chill the past couple of days. I hope he’s alright. Thursday was a rough day for him because I went so long without eating. He’s used to me being a grazer. I’m going to eat more healthy foods today and that should be just what he needs to be back to his normal self. The rain has let up so once Brian is done with his workout, I’ll slip outside for a quick walk. Only 119 more days to go!

Tuesday:

It’s 4:30 am and I’ve been up for an hour. So has Beau haha I’m sipping hot tea and surfing the web. I accidentally woke myself up too early and couldn’t get back to sleep so I popped in a load of laundry (Parker’s P.E. uniform needed to be washed anyways) and painted my nails 🙂 All last week I said I wanted to paint my nails and I never got around to it.

Beau is back to his active self, yay! I think maybe I was a bit dehydrated but he’s back to normal now. I was counting out the weeks and I have less than four months to go now. That’s exciting and I’m starting to feel like “oh my gosh, we’re going to have another baby here soon!” There is so much that needs to be done before he gets here and I need to get focused. I’ve been working hard on my blog but our house is a wreck. For real. Not even kidding. I’m probably going to start slowing down soon so I should plan some time for the boys to stay away for a day or so to allow myself time to catch up on cleaning and reorganizing. I’ve been trying to shift clothes from Parker’s drawers to Lincoln’s drawers but in a few months, that’s going to need to change because Lincoln’s drawers will be used to hold Beau’s clothes. Maybe. I have plastic drawers in both boys’ closet that holds clothes that haven’t been packed away and I could actually use those for Beau’s clothes so I don’t change up Parker and Lincoln’s routine too much. By the time Beau is old enough to pick out his own clothes, I pray that we’ll be in a bigger house where each child can have their own room and dresser. I think I like that idea better. As much as I don’t want to, I may have to pause my blog, unless I’m able to get a few months’ worth of content scheduled in advance. I feel like it has a lot of potential and I don’t want to just let it go. I’ve worked really hard on it for the past couple of years. (Sigh) It can all be done. It will be. I can do it.

Friday:

We had a doctor’s appointment yesterday to check my fundal height (a vertical measurement of your belly) and to answer/ask questions etc. I measured exactly 23 centimeters and I’m 23 weeks pregnant. That’s good. It’s expected that you don’t put on more than 10 lbs in the first half of your pregnancy and I’ve put on 8 so I’m doing alright in the weight gain department. Up until then, I wasn’t sure if I’d put on enough weight but looking at my reflection in the mirror today, I can see the weight gain. I’m also starting to FEEL the weight gain as well. My usual exercises seem to tire me much quicker. At 152 lbs, this is the heaviest I’ve been in my life and I’m feeling the stress of it. I delivered Lincoln weighing about 145 which was pretty much my starting weight this pregnancy. Whew! If anything, it encourages me to keep active and maintain some sort of exercise regimen. Not so much that I don’t want to get “fat” but this extra weight is HEAVY! Like no joke, its work carrying around this extra weight and the only way to keep up with it is to exercise. Lift more weights so my body handles it’s extra weight. If that makes sense….speaking of my body and it’s abilities, I’ve started producing colostrum ( early form of milk). A pretty good amount. That’s not good or bad. It happens. But what’s annoying is that nipple stimulation can cause contractions and my Obstetrician suggested I avoid any nipple stimulation. So hot water beating down on my chest can stimulate colostrum production and of course, no hand-expressing which we have been guilty of as of late. I kind of feel like having some of it squeezed out actually makes them feel better. Maybe it’s all in my head. I don’t know. There have been studies to show that nipple stimulation is a natural way to induce labor and is only recommended after 37 weeks of pregnancy. 

References:
https://www.healthline.com/health/pregnancy/fundal-height#how-its-measured-and-why
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322326#when-to-see-a-doctor
https://www.romper.com/pregnancy/is-it-safe-to-pump-while-pregnant 

#BeauBrad