Hellobee

It feels unreal to be writing this post. And it’s no secret that Mr. Cookie and spent A LOT of time disagreeing and discussing the possibility of expanding our family. In fact there was quite a bit of time where I couldn’t even imagine having another newborn. While I wish it was a romantic and grand conclusion in which Mr. Cookie had a complete 180, the truth is deciding to get pregnant took a lot of honest talks and compromise. It took us both trying on each other’s ideal family size, and it took multiple, empathetic conversations, but we made the decision to grow our family together.  At the time, our youngest had just turned 3 and our oldest was 4.5, both boys were becoming more independent and played together beautifully. Life seemed calm enough that we thought it was the perfect time to shake things up again.

Baby Cookie #3 is due right around Christmas this year!!

We do not take for granted how fortunate we were to conceive quickly when that is not the case for everyone. I have recently watched my sister and her husband go through 3 years of secondary infertility and have seen how emotionally, physically, mentally, and financially draining that journey can be on a couple. I’m overjoyed to share that they are due in October with their second son. My sister and I are really close and telling her that we were pregnant was a difficult conversation, but the nuances of that relationship could have its own blog post. Truly, she and I are thrilled to be having our babies so close together. Our oldest boys are only 6 months apart and all of the cousins in our family are the best of friends.

That said, when Mr. Cookie and I started trying to conceive, my expectations were low and I was shocked to see two lines. It was a Sunday night and the boys were playing in the bathtub when I decided to take a test on a whim while I was stuck in the bathroom. Of course me being me I had to document the moment.

Unfortunately getting pregnant has been the only easy part of this third pregnancy so far. I’ve been more tired than with my previous two, I’ve had very debilitating sciatica in the first trimester, and I’ve dealt with aches and pains and heartburn from pretty early on as well. But the worst news came recently at our 20 week ultrasound. (I have to save that update for another post because I want the focus of this one to be on celebrating.)

Right now I’m just trying to rest more and enjoy the fact that our boys could not be more pumped! They talk about how my belly is growing, how they want to help with the baby, and have even offered a few interesting name suggestions… “Beautiful Peacock” and “Sweet Mommy.” Great contenders, but I have a feeling we’ll be going another way. The best was when they asked me how I was going to get the baby out of my tummy and I said I was going to push it out and now they like to bring that up frequently in conversation.

I suppose I should mention that we’re not going to find out the sex of the baby ahead of time, and it seems like that is a great way to frustrate the rest of the world, haha. This was purely my decision because Mr. Cookie is a big fan of finding out, but after doing it that way the first two times, I’m super excited to wait and be surprised. I can picture a house full of 3 adorable boys and I can picture adding a baby girl to our family. Both sound wonderful, we just want a cuddly, healthy baby.