If you haven’t heard the news, we’re expecting again! Little baby Sweeney #3 is due early January 2019! Eeks!!

This was totally not planned! In fact, we had scheduled a vasectomy for Patrick because we were done having kids. Crazy though, Pat’s appointment had been scheduled multiple times and then we had to reschedule for various reasons… so when we found out we were pregnant, I wasn’t super excited at first. In fact, I was sitting at work on a Friday and someone was making something in the kitchen. The smell almost made me vomit. Right then, I knew I was pregnant. My period was due to arrive on that day or the next day, but I hadn’t been having my normal cramping, headaches, etc. When you’ve been pregnant as many times as I had… you just know.

That night on the way to the beach, I told Pat that we needed to stop and get a pregnancy test. You should have seen his look of shock! When we got home, I honestly didn’t even want to take the test. I just knew. I finally did and almost instantly the two little pink lines showed up.

This is actually my 5th pregnancy. I’ve had two miscarriages, and two babies. Once I got past the initial shock of actually being pregnant again, things have felt very different. I remember being very worried, anxious throughout my pregnancies before with concern over losing a baby again. This time, maybe it’s my attitude on life now, but I knew that things were going to be okay this time. Any time a negative thought about a potential miscarriage or anything like that happened…. I’d dismiss it and just think about the positive.  Within a few weeks of finding out, I felt like my body was adjusting to pregnancy really quickly. It was telling me — don’t worry, we’re going to let you know you’ve got a baby in here, and it’s growing, don’t you worry.

Things like morning sickness. Morning sickness was more like all day sickness, almost every day for two months. Sore boobs started right away. Around 10 weeks it felt like my belly was growing. And worse, my varicose veins started right away. OMG the veins! They’ve gotten progressively worse with each child, and by the end of my pregnancy with Teagan, at 30 weeks, I almost had surgery. Right now at 12 weeks they are just as bad as they were at that point. I don’t know what’s going to happen. But they hurt. And they’re not pretty.

Anyways, we just had our first ultrasound. Little baby was kicking a ton, moving around, and super active!! I couldn’t believe how big and REAL it felt in that moment seeing it’s profile. Patrick and I both left feeling overjoyed and ecstatic for this next journey. I couldn’t wait to show Bella pictures of the ultrasound and share with her.

Do the girls know?

Teagan (almost 2) is clueless of course. But Bella (almost 4), is so excited! Her teacher at her school is pregnant, and I think that since she’s talked to her a lot about her baby, it has really helped her understanding of what’s happening! Even when Teagan was born, Bella was such a sweet little helper. I can only imagine how good of a helper she’ll be this time around.

The girls both love babies when they see their cousins, friends, babies at school, and they play so sweet & gently with their own baby dolls, I think they are going to love being big sisters to their little brother or sister!

Are we hoping for a boy?

Honestly, I don’t care either way and I don’t have any motherly instinct predicting one over the other. After our ultrasound, we both had a feeling of a boy, but no real reason except that it looked like a big baby. Ha! I think i would like a boy, but Patrick wants another little girl. He says he remembers what trouble he caused as a kid and doesn’t want another little version of him around to deal with. Haha!  We did this funny old wives tale at my brother’s house… it was a needle strung from a pencil that swings a certain direction depending on gender, and long story short, it said boy too. Lol!

We’ll start taking your guesses!