in july we will welcome another sweet schreibman baby into our family.
we feel so blessed by this baby growing inside my belly.
after a battle with fertility issues conceiving asher we were so lucky to get pregnant so very quickly the second time around.
(6 week ultrasound)
(12 week ultrasound and excited mommy)
i know several people read this that have or are battling with fertility issues so i have chosen to share my story. feel free to skip over this part...now that you got the exciting news....
after asher was born i chose to get a Mirena IUD (inner uterine device). i was a little worried about still conceiving with the IUD after hearing so many crazy stories. for me it was the IUD or naturally trying to avoid getting pregnant. we always knew we wanted our children to be at least three years apart so getting pregnant wasnt something i was ready for in the months after delivering asher. so an IUD it was. i liked that i could get it out at any point when i was ready to conceive, i still ovulated with the IUD and i could leave it in up to 5 years. it also helped that my insurance covered it completely. so that was that. several months after getting the IUD i thought i had an appendicitis.... went to urgent care, ended up in the er. after severalappointments it turned out my body was actually ovulating. i had no clue what it felt like, nor did i know my ovulation was that painful because I had been on birth control since i was 17 and you dont ovulate on birth control pills. yes i had to ovulate to get pregnant with asher but the one cycle i got pregnant was the cycle i ovulated courtesy of clomid, not my own doing. my body started "working" again on its very own after i got my iud. this was a great sign for what was to come. not great in the sense that every month the pain was crazy, but i sure knew when i was ovulating!
so after we got back from europe and philip took a new job we decided the stars were aligned. it was time to remove the iud. i called to make an appointment and the receptionist said....you can come in today. GULP. what? today? i thought she would say one week two weeks...but not today. i swallowed my pride and scheduled the appointment for the next day.i can walk there from my office (huge bonus!). so a quick appointment. iud removed and my sweet ob wished me luck. because of my previous fertility issues he gave me 6 weeks to have a normal cycle. if i didnt ovulate or get my period he strongly advised that i go back to clomid again. he however was extremely optimistic and felt almost positive thati wouldnt need to go that route. we kept it from everyone. our little secret. denying the constant second child question. it was so much less stressful. my mom goes to the same OB. she even went to see him days after i had been there for an appointment and said to him " i think renee and philip are going to go for #2 this coming year" ha. she had no clue he already knew.
oh and yeah. i changed ob's after the huge mishap with asher's delivery. i love my new ob. the practice, the midwives, the nurses. everything.
month 1 came and went. completely normal. textbook normal. got my period.
month 2 textbook. i knew within 2-3 days of conceiving i was pregnant.
immediately i noticed the "welt like" acne, painful breasts and constipation all kicked in full force. i waited, waited and waited. i actually waited past when the early response test could pick up a pregnancy. maybe it was 2nd child denial. but i waited.
it was a wednesday evening. philip was at temple for adult education. i took the test. asher was there but he had no clue what was going on. PREGNANT. Boom. I was smiling ear to ear....how in the world was i going to tell philip. i didnt even tell him i was going to test, but i did tell him the past 2-3 weeks i was confident i was pregnant. i decided to bake him fresh chocolate chip cookies (his fave) and i hid the capped positive test under the plate of cookies and put them on his side of the bed. of course he came home and brought me a chocolate chip cookie from temple. he had eaten two at temple. he didnt want to hurt my feelings so he said he would have one and save the rest for later. he took the plate downstairs and as he was tipping it into a plastic baggie the test slipped out.... he ran upstairs with a huge smile on his face...over joyed.
we celebrated together knowing we were going to have to keep this a secret for more than a week or two when we could tell our parents. the next day we were scheduled to leave with his parents to go to nashville for our cousins bat mitzvah. i had been exhausted. i used the stomach issues card the entire weekend resisting glass of wine after glass of wine. somehow we managed to keep it a secret....all the way until thanksgiving....
i had a plan. of course. i made these adorable little turkey placecards to reveal the secret....
i made up a great story about how i got the idea from a craft they did at school.
each kid "wrote" what they were thankful for and put them inside to share.
instead i cut out numbers that made up the due date. (which has since changed by two days) strung them on a string and at the end of the string was a glass pacifier. every year we go around and say what we are thankful for. so we did the same this year. i was sick to my stomach nervous the entire time. praying my idea would work out and they would be surprised. finally it was asher's turn. they began opening their boxes....clueless... "asher is thankful for numbers"....."i got a pacifier"... finally my dad put it together.... "YOU ARE PREGNANT!!!' They were shocked. Papu was in Nashville so when he returned we got to have a very special moment with him to share the news (which we also recorded and you can see below).
Thanksgiving Video Surprise
Papu Surprise (you have to listen carefully but his reaction was precious...over pizza!)
immediately after Thanksgiving i got the stomach virus. it was miserable. i thought it was morning sickness but luckily it was not. the right before christmas i came down with some crud asher brought home...which turned into a two week sinus infection that required antibiotics. what a crazy first trimester with sickness. i have been so lucky that with both pregnancies i did not suffer from any morning sickness on top of all of this. food adversions, yes. sensitivity to smells, yes...but no morning sickness.
over hanukkah/ christmas break i came down with a pretty bad cold that forced me to cave to tylenol and benadryl for 48 hours, but am finally on the up and up.
i looked back through my belly book from my pregnancy with asher.
i can not believe how different i look this pregnancy. i can compare my current stomach to that of my stomach from my pregnancy with asher at 20 weeks... OMG. shoot me now. i didnt start showing with asher till 22 weeks. i feel like i already have a small pooch. everyone warned me.
i started off 1 lb lighter this time than i was with asher and have yet to gain weight. YET. I fear the weight gain this time around as i am not working out 5 days a week like i was the first pregnancy. if i am lucky its 3 days a week. it will be what it will be.
i am so thankful for this 2nd chance at creating another life, nothing else really matters (like weight gain). we could not be more thrilled about baby schreibman #2 and cant wait to share the journey again with our family and friends....
