Sweet Baby #3

We are excited to welcome baby #3, due 2/3/11. For the first time all summer, my body is starting to feel pregnant. I've been sick since the get-go, but this week marks the first week that I haven't felt so comfortable in my regular clothes. I am officially 16 weeks. This Thursday in yoga class, I felt the baby move for the first time. Earlier that morning, I had my regular ob visit with Dr. Schneider and expressed that I hadn't felt the baby move yet. She reassured me and reminded me that most ladies in their first pregnancy don't feel the baby until week 20. The third time around, we have the hang of it and expect these milestones to come earlier. And then just an hour later in the middle of camel pose, I felt the small stirring of a baby stretching. It is amazing to me that I'm already finished with my first trimester and in 5 months we'll have another sweet baby in our family.

I am already looking forward to the sweet snuggle time and even the middle-of-the-night feedings. Am I crazy? After hearing in my early 20s that conceiving was unlikely for me and struggling to keep a pregnancy through my late 20s, I am so thrilled to witness the growth of our family. It is a miracle. At times I feel overwhelmed by balancing it all, but then one of my girls calls me back to the present. My business coach reminded me this week that having multiple children finds a way to force women into making the hard choices about priorities in life. What is most important to me right now? My family. My husband, who always seems to see the best in me and the best in life and my sweet girls -- Charlotte with her endless dance parties and dreams of being an astronaut and Finley with her contagious, loud laugh and the way she simply lights up a room. I am so eager to embrace this new little addition to our family, to open our hearts to a BIG being in a small body as Carrie Contey would say. Everything else can wait.