Baby Hancock #2

We were beyond thrilled to be able to share the news of BABY HANCOCK #2 with our family and friends over the last week! :) 

We found out we were expecting on July 27th, and when I say "we", I mean "me." Alan was at the firestation, and I'd been feeling rather symptomatic for several days. When I picked up the pregnancy test off of the shelf at Walmart, it was simply a matter of formality at that point.

This pregnancy was not our plan, but clearly it was a God thing. To be on the opposite side of the spectrum this time, meaning that we were totally caught off guard, has been SO fun! :) I feel so blessed to be able to experience this side of pregnancy too!

Prior to this revelation, by about a week or so, we'd had a clarification conversation that we were indeed going to wait until winter(ish) to start trying for another baby. I didn't feel like my momma heart was ready to take on another baby just yet, and I didn't feel like my body was quite strong enough to give another baby a healthy home for nine months.  I'd like to see God's smiling face while He was listening to His children have this conversation. You'd think we'd learned our lesson the first time around about God's way being the best way and God's will prevailing over anything we could dream up for ourselves. My heart is and always will be a work in progress!

For the TMI of our baby story, I'd like to chalk this surprise up to my good ol' PCOS. My cycles had not been regular in the slightest since having Cale, so I should've known that having another baby was always a possibility. From the timing of things (last cycle, marriage "activities," and symptoms), I would have had to have ovulated within the first seven days of my cycle. We were about five and a half weeks into this pregnancy when I took my positive test.

After seeing two pink lines, it took me a good two minutes of "oh my goodness, I'm pregnant" before my heart was 100% into this and 100% in love with this little life! I haven't looked back since :)

As of right now, I'm 12 weeks along. Baby Hancock #2 will be here in late March.

This pregnancy has already vastly differed from my pregnancy with Cale. I wasn't throwing-my-guts-up-sick, but I did have intense nausea and awful fatigue. At my appointment last weekend I was down -1 pound from my initial weight at my initial appointment. During my nauseous days, I could get down one 'good' meal per day, so I attribute that to the weight loss. Poor baby in my belly :(  My main complaint was the fatigue, though. I'm sure it has something to do with growing a baby, taking care of a nine-month-old, working, being a wife, etc., etc. But MAN, I felt like such an awful wife. I don't think I cooked a meal for Alan for weeks. I felt like the most unproductive, lazy sap in the entire world. I beat myself up quite a bit about it, but then I'd take a step back and remember my responsibilty to this baby (by taking an extra nap!). I'm on the up-and-up these days, feeling great! It's nice to feel like a normal, productive human again!

Emotionally, I'd be lying if I said this pregnancy hasn't been a little bitter sweet to me. I am so thrilled, blessed, humbled, astonished....that God would allow be to be a mother to another sweet blessing, BUT my heart has been aching more so than usual for the handful of friends still waiting on their miracle babies. With Cale I didn't think as much about it, because I had been deemed one of those "infertile girls." Obviously, I got pregnant this time around without doctor's visits, surgery, shots, medicines, and rigorously scheduled events. So, I've been doing all I know to do: pray, pray, pray!! I hope that God can use my story as one of hope to momma's-in-waiting. He's still in the miracle business, girls! Just hold tight.

Enough pregnancy technicalities! Just wanted to do some documenting so we can remember this precious time in our lives :) Thanks for hanging on and rejoicing with us!