Baby number two

We are having another baby!

It took 13 months but we got there and our second little miracle is on its way.

I had almost given up hope that it was going to happen again.

We started trying when Arlo was 10 months old as I knew it might take a while, but month after month I felt that pang of disappointment when it didn’t happen.

Couple that with friends announcing that they were pregnant for a second time and it just compounded my feelings of failure.

There were times when I felt I was being selfish and ungrateful because I already have a healthy, happy, beautiful little boy.

But the urge to have another child was overwhelming; exactly as it had been before I found out I was pregnant with Arlo.

So when my period was a couple of days late towards the end of August I tried to not hold on to that tiny bit of hope that the unobtainable might actually have happened.

Three days after that I bit the bullet and decided to buy a pregnancy test.

We had been away at my dad’s for the weekend and stopped at the supermarket on the way home. 

I put two bottles of beer and a bottle of rose into my shopping basket and when I got to the till I asked the cashier for two pregnancy tests.
My unusual shopping combo got me a bit of a strange look.

When we arrived home I told Johnny that if the test was negative I would be drinking all the booze.

The test took less than a minute to tell me I was pregnant – between four and five weeks pregnant – and although I still wanted to drink all the booze to celebrate, I couldn’t.

But I didn’t care and it didn’t matter because we had formed a new little life.

I did the second pregnancy test four days later, just to make sure.

Pregnancy so far has been very different this time round. To start with I’ve actually known about it from the start!

I have felt so rough. I have had nausea, I’ve had sickness and I have been so incredibly tired.

Not sleep deprivation tired, that’s the sort of tired which makes you a bit mad.

Just physically feeling like I’ve got nothing left to give, which you can’t let get the better of you when you’re working three days a week and entertaining a toddler for the rest of that time.

Arlo also gave me a cold which turned into something flu-like when I was about nine weeks pregnant which put me in bed for four days.

The sickness seemed to peak at about 10/11 weeks and I had a few mornings leading up to that where I had to pull over on the A27 several times, while driving to jobs, and puke at the roadside.

Carrying a sick bag around in your car for emergencies is not particularly glamorous.

I am now just over 13 weeks pregnant and feeling better than I was.

We had our scan last week and everything was fine, which was a relief.

As daft as it sounds I was worried I’d turn up and there wouldn’t be a baby in there at all!

But there it was, a tiny human being measuring 5.1cm from crown to rump, wriggling all over the place, its little heart beating.

It’s just got a fair bit of growing to do before we meet him or her at the end of April.