That's right, baby number two due June 2022. I feel like if you're a regular follower, this has been a long time coming!
The last couple of years have been quite the journey and if you'd asked me two years ago where I expected to be in two years time, this is a world apart from what I would have imagined. At the start of 2020, when Ru was 3, I made the decision to start trying for a second baby by going down the donor route via a fertility clinic. This is something that definitely isn't spoken about enough (despite the fact that there are thousands of women who have done it/are currently on the journey), for me, I just wasn't interested in meeting anyone or settling down with anyone and I loved my life as a single mum. However, I really wanted to give Ru a sibling to grow up with, and have another baby myself whilst I was still young (ish). I shared a lot of this journey on my Instagram and it became a huge part of my life. After spending a lot of money and having no success, I decided to try going down the known donor route trying without the help of a fertility clinic as it was a whole lot less costly. I had no success with that either and at the end of 2020, I decided to have a break for the sake of my sanity and mental health. It all just became incredibly draining, finding a decent donor wasn't easy, and as you can imagine, the disappointment month after month became all too much.
*trigger warning: mentions miscarriage.
Shortly after taking a break from trying, I ended up coming across my current partner, Jake who I have now been with over a year - no idea where that's gone! We actually met via Tinder, I had no intention of settling down with someone really, I think I just felt lonely one night and wasn't really sure what I was doing with my life. Anyway, to cut a long story short, we clicked instantly and that was that. He also has two kids of his own so I think the fact that we were both single parents made us bond a lot. Fast forward a year, and we had a little surprise pregnancy back in September. That baby wasn't planned in the slightest, but we were both so happy and planning our future together - and then heartbreakingly I miscarried not long after. It was such a horrible time for the both of us, and then a few weeks went by and I started really struggling as I felt my first period coming on post-miscarriage. Well, that period turned out to be another pregnancy much to our shock. Of course we hadn't been 'careful' as by that point, we had fallen in love with the idea of having a baby together, but I don't think either of us expected it to happen that soon. I remember ringing Jake up whilst he was at work freaking out as I couldn't really believe it and wasn't sure it was real. Pregnancy after loss is so hard, I didn't want to hope and get excited after having a loss just a month before. I will maybe speak more on pregnancy after loss in a separate post to avoid waffling on too much, but after an ectopic scare at around 6 weeks pregnant, we had a scan and saw our baby on ultrasound for the first time. Hope. ♥
As of today, we have had four scans. The first one was at the early pregnancy unit with an ectopic scare, we then paid for a private scan at 8 weeks to check all was going well. My third scan was another one up at the early pregnancy unit at around 10/11 weeks after getting some urine test results back showing a bladder infection and having lots of abdominal pain. Then, our fourth scan was the usual 12 week dating scan which you can see in the photos above! So, safe to say it's been quite the journey so far.
I am currently 16 weeks along and this week we are finding out the gender of our baby, a few people on Instagram keep asking me if I'll share, but I'm not sure if we will or if we'll just keep that to ourselves until the baby is born. Our gender scan is booked for tomorrow afternoon and I'm super excited. Reuben wants a brother of course, Jakes little girl wants a sister, so either way one of them is going to be upset.
I'm in the second trimester now which feels like it's flown by, yet gone so slow at the same time?! My first trimester wasn't the easiest but not the hardest either. I was mostly just tired 24/7, had a fair bit of nausea and a few other minor things like headaches and constant thirst. And before anyone else tries to tell me that I have gestational diabetes, my urine has been checked by my midwife & doctor multiple times for sugar in it and it's clear! I get people are just trying to look out for me, but I fully trust my midwife to take care of me and check for anything that needs checking for. I did have a lot of abdominal cramping too which hasn't helped my anxiety one bit, but I feel like I'm a lot more relaxed now I'm further along.
So that's all I have to say for now really, I am now in a family of five, soon to be six which is crazy isn't it? We are all extremely happy though and that's all that really matters in life!
Gender guesses below - boy or girl? ♥
