Our Team is Growing: New Player Joining the Roster in July

I've been pretty nervous about sharing this news with all of you; I'm obviously over the moon to be pregnant again (and out of the First Trimester!), but after my recent pregnancy loss, telling "the world" about this pregnancy felt really scary.

Every time I imagined "announcing" that I was pregnant again, I then imagined suffering another loss right afterward and having to face the sadness of that loss "publicly" when I wasn't yet ready to do so. 

I also thought about all of the incredibly strong women who reached out to me to share their pregnancy loss stories when I shared mine. I thought of the women who are still trying to get pregnant again and I couldn't help but worry that my sharing this news wouldn't help, but instead, would hurt, or re-open old (or still very fresh) wounds. 

If you're one of those women and you're reading this, I sincerely hope that this post doesn't make you feel worse, but that it gives you hope instead. After losing our baby I wanted to jump back into the saddle (haha) and try again as soon as possible because I knew that getting pregnant would help me heal--and it has. But I know that not everyone feels this same way and that it can also take a while to get pregnant again, so it's not always such a simple decision.

I feel very grateful that we were able to get pregnant again quickly and am sending SO much love to those of you who are currently trying or who've had to wait longer than you'd hoped. It's a very intense process to re-enter no matter how much time has passed since your loss and can obviously be way more intense if it's harder for you to conceive. 

There are no words, really. I just hope this post doesn't do more harm than good. 

And despite all of my worries about putting this news out into the world, the fact is that we're really excited about growing our family and want to share this joy with others. I'm trying to move past all of my anxieties about something going wrong and instead of dwelling on my fears about all of the the worst case scenarios, live in the moment and experience the excitement of being pregnant again. Especially after such a devastating loss. 

So, all of that being said, YES, I'm pregnant again!!! I'm a little over 14 weeks and I finally felt ready to share this news for a few reasons:

1. Ben is HORRIBLE at secrets and asks me every. single. day. if we can "announce" yet. He finally wore me down (haha).
   
   
2. Charlie Mae has been telling people that she has a baby in her belly so it's getting awkward not being able to explain where that came from...
   
   
3. This being my second (well, third) pregnancy, I'm showing much earlier than I did the first time and by the end of the day (read: when I'm teaching yoga at night) my core muscles have relaxed, my belly is full, my uterus is relaxed, and I look like I either ate WAYYY too many Christmas cookies (which I did) or I'm pregnant, and I'm starting to feel self-conscious about it. I only have so many baggy yoga tops, ya know!?!?

Thus, here we are. I'm due July 14th and we can't wait (but actually we can because we have a lot to do before then + two kids = OMG!). 

We *are* going to find out what we're having and should know around 18-19 weeks. We haven't decided if we're going to share that publicly yet or not, but if Ben and Charlie Mae have anything to do with it, we probably will ;) 

Thanks for all of your support over the past 6 months of loss and now, excitement.

On two separate occasions at the end of 2018 I saw big, bold, gorgeous double-rainbows that made me feel very hopeful about this pregnancy and this year. Let's hope that those rainbows were signs that 2019 is going to be full of rainbow babies for all of us who suffered a loss in 2018. 

[Oh, and a note about the pic above: I'm *sure* you know this by now but in case you don't, Ben is OBSESSED with basketball. He has a bball training side-hustle and basically eats, sleeps, + dreams basketball. He's had a "vision" for this picture since the day we found out I was pregnant again and although I am not as into basketball as he is (understatement of the year, haha), I couldn't take that vision away from him. So yay for you, Ben!]