FOLLOW UP

Sorry for the absence since our last (oh-so-exciting!) post. The new little butterbean baby has not been very kind to Momma so far - the exhaustion and never-ending-nausea is unfortunately still hanging around. But Miss Evie keeps us too busy to stay on the sidelines for long, so we're pushing through.

We received quite a few questions after our announcement, so below are some answers to the more popular questions that y'all's inquiring minds wanted to know:

(1)  Was this a planned pregnancy?
Seriously? You guys really want to know if we planned on getting busy or not? You perverts! We're married, we're allowed to do that!... =o)

Well, the answer is "kind of."  We weren't really trying, but we weren't really not trying.... if ya know what I mean. We wanted a sibling for Evie, and wanted them 2-3 years apart, so we aren't upset or concerned at all. We're just surprised that it happened so soon.  

(2) Are you hoping for a boy or girl?
This is a hard question to answer. The correct response would be "we don't care as long as it's healthy." And that's very much the truth for both of us. It would be nice to have a girl again, since we know what we're in for and we have LOTS of hand-me-downs. 

On a completely superficial note:  the room that has been designated to be the nursery for Baby #2 is already set up for a boy. The walls are blue, we have a fun nautical theme going already, and he could just move right in!

If we learn we're having another girl, then there's a pretty serious paint job in the Yankee & Peach future. If we're having a boy, then we're going to have to do some serious shopping and thrifting, because the only hand-me-downs he's getting from his sister are a few white onesies - the rest of her stuff is PINK!
Either way, we're excited for whatever we get - and how the dynamic of our family will change with another child.  We just hope Evie is willing to like her new sibling too!

(3)  Did you try to aim for the neat 11/11/11 due date? 
I didn't even realize that people were 'trying' for this date. A few friends have mentioned to me after the fact that recent news articles were even written about 'when' to conceive this year, so you get cool due dates. To be perfectly honest, based on my own calculations, and by checking the BabyCenter due date projector,  I was thinking the due date would be 11/09.   It was my doctor who said the baby was measuring for 11/11/11!

(4) Will you try a VBAC or do a C-section again?
I'm still not 100% decided on my answer on this. My doctor is one of the last few OB/GYN practices that allows for VBACs at Northside Hospital. He knows my #1 priority is having a healthy baby - even if it means (a little or a lot of) discomfort for me.

With Evie, I managed the 30 hours of active labor pretty well, had a failed attempt at prying her out with forceps, and then got to experience all the fun stuff that goes along with a "stuck" natural birthing process - because her big ol' noggin completely refused to drop down into the birth canal.  My doctor explained to me that the typical circumference of a newborn's head is 13 to 13.5 inches around. Evie's head was almost 14.5 inches and her sibling is likely to be roughly the same.  She had a nice dent in her forehead where she kept hitting my tailbone and bouncing back.
I'm leaning towards C-section, based on my history, and some of my doctor's suggestions based on what's safest for the baby.  I'm just still undecided because there's a piece of me that still feels like a c-section is a cop-out and I'm skipping out on the birthing process by electing for surgery. 

However, the c-section wasn't exactly a horrible process. The recovery for me was tough the first week or two, but Evie handled the C-section like a champ and even came out ready to nurse right away!

So, as long as I'm allowed to have a full-term pregnancy and this baby is ready to come out... I'm fine with a c-section, especially now that I know the best ways to recover from it.
And why not, if it means we get a cool due date of 11/11/11. (ha!)

So, there are the answers I'm sure you really wanted to know!

On to other fun stuff...  it was a very busy weekend around our house. With both parents at home and ready to play, Evie didn't know what to do with herself!

We finished a lot of yardwork and landscaping projects that have been in the works for a while now.  Little Miss Priss was a big help in installing our new outdoor shower in the corner of the yard we cleaned up!

Safety first! You always gotta wear the safety glasses, dadda!

I wish I had taken "before" pictures of this process.  We cleaned and did some landscaping in a rough corner area that the previous owner had used as his burn pile location:

Just imagine a rubbish heap that was about 4 feet tall  - and full of branches, yard waste, rocks, trash, dog poop, computer motherboards (?), shoes, and a toy or two from the 1980's era.  Plus, a layer of rocks about 6 inches deep. Sounds like a good place for a flower garden, right?!

After planting lots of perennials and a few ground cover plants to hopefully cover the area, we also put a shower in there! It's still a work in progress and I'm hoping to have the "stall walls" covered in vines soon.

We're still debating whether to add another piece of lattice to cover the shower spicket -- or to use an old piece of cedar tree trunk to cover it and could make it seem like the shower head is coming out the top of a piece of wood.  

Even more fun:  the Yankee & Peach can  now add "hop farmers" to our list of gardening attempts as well.  The two pots you seen in the picture both have hop rhizomes planted in them, and they'll hopefully sprout soon and will be placed next to the lattice to make their way up the sides for some added privacy. I still don't think anyone will be bathing nude anytime soon, so don't worry - we hopefully won't be scaring the neighbors any more than we usually do.

I like it dad! Can I use it to shower in tonight?!

These adults are so silly!
But they know as soon as I hit puberty, there will be a line for the bathroom, so an outdoor shower is a perfect option if the bathroom is occupied!

We also made it to the Georgia Aquarium with Evie for the first time this weekend. To say she loved it would be an understatement. 

I still need to sort through a ton of pictures from the adventure, but here's a teaser for our next post: