For those of you who follow me on social media and already know the news, thank you for your kind words and excitement! For those of you who follow me here, surprise! We are having another baby! Rob, Lilly, and I could not be more excited to welcome baby boy Solt in July!

First off, we are absolutely elated!  I love hearing about other moms-to-be experiences during their pregnancies so I thought I would share a little bit about how things have been the past 16 weeks.  

We opted to do the 10 week genetic testing with this baby, something we were adamantly opposed to when we were pregnant with Lilly. I don’t know why we decided to do it this time and why we were so much more open to it this time around, but we felt we wanted to make sure everything was okay with baby. We also wanted to find out the gender, which is how we know so early that baby is a boy! We were convinced the baby would be a girl. But about a week or two before we found out, I kept having this feeling that the baby would be a boy. And it turns it out, he is!

First Trimester Recap: I am not going to write about at length how challenging the first trimester was for me, but I do want to be real. I experienced a very tough couple of weeks. The biggest reason I took a step back from blogging and Instagram over the holidays was because I didn’t have the energy or creativity. Not only did I have extreme exhaustion (sleeping 8-10 hours a night, taking an hour nap in the morning, and a 2.5 hour nap in the afternoon almost every day I wasn’t working), but I also had pretty terrible morning sickness. I never actually was physically ill, but I was nauseated from the moment I woke up until after dinner every day. I’m incredibly thankful that I’ve been able to work from home during this time. That has been a lifesaver in allowing me to rest.

Mentally I also struggled.  My mood swings have been so much more extreme with this pregnancy than with Lilly.  I think the combination of winter, COVID, not being able to see people or really leave the house, and keeping it a secret for so long all contributed to these feelings of loneliness, grumpiness, and all around just not feeling myself.

Cravings and Aversions: I always find women’s cravings and food aversions so fascinating. For me, I’ve been craving all things citrus, pasta, and dairy. I cannot get enough oranges, red apples, mac and cheese, orange juice, pizza, and egg sandwiches. Early on the only thing that would help my nausea was Costco’s Kettle Cooked potato chips – so I ate a LOT of those. In terms of aversions, almost everything else was revolting to me haha. Poor Rob had a challenging time finding food for me to eat. I think the worst aversions have been the smell of coffee, alcohol, vegetables of any kind, and meat.

All that aside, I’m feeling 10x better. I’m slowly beginning to feel like my normal energized self again. I now have “bad moments” instead of bad days. I’m feeling excited and motivated to start on all the baby projects. I think most of all though, I’m grateful to be spending quality time with Lilly again. I think the hardest part of all of this has been the fact that I haven’t been able to give my all to my family. They’ve been wonderful through all this and incredibly supportive and I’m so grateful for my saint of a hubby and my sweet baby girl.

If you are thinking of getting pregnant or are a new mom-to-be or just loving talking pregnancy and babies, please feel free to reach out! I love to share experiences of motherhood and pregnancy.

And before I sign off, I want to give a huge THANK YOU to my friend Kelly from Photography by Kelly and Kelly for braving the cold winter weather to capture these beautiful photos of my family. Not only do they photograph portraits and family photos, but they also specialize in fine art photography. I personally adore their captures of Lake Erie and Marblehead Lighthouse! Much of their work can be purchased on their website, so be sure to check them out and follow them on social media (Facebook, Instagram)!

Slainte,

Shannon