Well, wouldn't you know?

Well, I guess it's about time for us to spill the beans here. As many of you already know, Baby #2 is on it's way to Hall Manor! "Wildcat" is due to make its appearance sometime about Independence Day. I'm about 22 weeks along now and finally feeling human again (well most of the time).

I was seriously ill when I was pregnant with Jilly for the first trimester, needing medication every 8 hours in order to tolerate moving out of my bed, never really felt good. We were anticipating a repeat performance of that and it has mostly happened. I had about 3 weeks (between 8 and 11 weeks) that were pure hell. I was so sick, some days it was all I could do to lift Jilly out of her crib and maybe hand her a cup of juice. There were a few days where I couldn't even change her diaper until later in the day, because I was too sick to move. Luckily, I have some awesome family and friends who gladly came over and helped get us through. Not to mention an AMAZING husband who picked up all the slack and more, while I was feeling crappy. Since then some things have gotten better, but nausea still lingers if I don't eat every couple hours. So I have to express some bottom-of-my-heart gratitude to Michelle, Stacey, Jeanne, Nikiy, Heidi, and my mom and family for all the astounding help they were in either taking care of Jilly, bringing me something to help me feel better, bringing us dinner or kidnapping Jilly and me and nursing me back to health. Not to mention everyone at work and church who picked up the slack when I couldn't be there, and did it cheerfully. :-)

Now, things are getting fun. For a few weeks now (since around 15 weeks) I've been able to feel Wildcat fluttering and moving around. That's about 2 1/2 weeks earlier than I felt Jilly. But I know what to feel for now. It's such a funny feeling, because it's still in the butterflies-tickling-me stage of feeling. Of course, along with the baby being big enough to feel, means there is more pressure on my other organs. There has been more than one night lately, where I've woken up to immense pain from a very full and compressed bladder. Yep, already starting that. ;-)

My belly started popping out almost as soon as the "+" showed up on the test, which necessitated maternity clothes right away. It grew fast, then slowed down a little, so it's more in line with how much I was showing this far along with Jilly. We'll see if I get that big again, and whether I carry super low again or higher. Not sure what I would prefer...

We're not sure if this will be a boy or a girl. I was convinced it was a boy since before we got pregnant. But as Steve's mom pointed out, it's the pattern on both sides of the family (his and mine) for it to go Girl, Girl, then Boy. Then my mom started talking about how it would make things easier to have a second girl (getting to re-use most of the stuff, etc). So I started thinking, yeah, maybe a girl. Steve has no inkling either. Jilly however has said "Baby Sis-uh" on several occasions, but never Brother. But now I'm back to vacillating between thinking it's a boy or having no clue. So there you go. ;-) We are planning on finding out the gender through ultrasound, probably in the next couple months. We'll let you know.

So that's our news. Everyone get why I've been a little off my blogging game the past few months? ;-) I am trying to come back to the real world now and will hopefully be keeping things up to date a little better. But if not, just blame it on Wildcat. :-D

P.S. We're pretty darn excited, in case you couldn't tell!!!

Here is the belly shot at 8 1/2 weeks:


And here we are today at 22 weeks: