Summer Is In The Air & We Have Big News To Share!

If you asked me a year ago if I wanted to have a second baby, I would have laughed and immediately said, “no way!” But, after watching some of our friends have their seconds and announce theirs too, the fever caught my husband and I (well, mostly me). And here we are…

Baby boy Mack #2 is joining our pack in November!

It was a little bit of a journey to get here. On and off we would try with no success. It was heartbreaking to me, because, I thought, “it was so easy the first time, why isn’t it the same this time? Why am I failing?”

Because I felt like a failure.

Turns out, I’m not a failure. The human body is a complicated thing. And even after two years, my body just simply had not gotten back to a point where I personally could conceive.

So, after all of that, we put trying on pause. I resumed counseling. Made some dietary and lifestyle changes. And with those improvements, came those two little lines on a pregnancy test.

Of course, Ryan was the first person I told. I ran into the kitchen with the stick in hand! We did it! We were going to have another baby! Trying to explain that to an almost-two-year-old however, he didn’t fully grasp it then. But I think he’s starting to get it now!

We’ve since picked out a name, Chase Taylor (the Taylor middle name is Ryan’s family middle name, so we had to keep that trend going!). Jackson loves to come up to my now popped belly, rub it & say, “Chase!” in his sweet officially two-year-old voice. My heart bursts and I cannot wait to see the big brother he’s going to be!

I’m into my second trimester now, THANK GOODNESS. The first was a whirlwind. Completely different than my first trimester with Jackson.

Morning sickness. Every. Single. DAY. And the exhaustion? Forget it. My world, and Jackson’s, was rocked. I’m a stay-at-home-mom, so not being able to always play with Jackson and go do things with him made me feel awful. He rebelled: tantrums were extreme & some behaviors were extremely difficult to stop. The days just dragged on and on and on. I thought, “how on Earth am I going to get through this? How am I going to be able to balance TWO children?”

It was no walk in the park, and let me tell you Ryan and Jackson are both saints. Because we made it through. I don’t blame Jackson’s behavior. In fact, I expected it to be worse! But, sometimes you never really know what you’re getting into until you’re in the thick of it.

Little baby Chase is growing wonderfully and I am finally felling better most days and am in much better spirits. Jackson just moved into his big boy room (cue the tears) with his new toddler bed, and he has adjusted wonderfully to that! He is learning more independence without losing his childlike spirit (he’s only two for crying out loud!) But just watching him grow in that way is amazing to witness.

I cannot wait to watch these two boys grow up together and to see what kind of men they’ll turn out to be!