Baby Yates #2 Coming in April!

Yep...you read that right! I was probably just as shocked when I found out a couple of weeks ago that we'd become a family of 4 way before I thought we would. But we are so excited!I've been breastfeeding Graham still and never got my period back since being pregnant with him. Then, a couple of weeks ago I didn't feel 100% percent. It wasn't terrible...I, honestly, felt like I had a hangover with a stomach ache, headache, some muscle aches (funky symptom) and just extremely tired. But I still had an appetite...in fact, my appetite was crazy! I felt like I could never satisfy my hunger. That was the first time the thought crossed my mind that I could be pregnant. But it was more of, "nahh, couldn't be true...could it", kinda thing.Then, all of a sudden I woke up and didn't want coffee anymore, something that's really strange for this coffee-lover but happened when I was pregnant with Graham. Another thing along those lines, I didn't want alcohol...the thought of a glass of wine, another thing I love, made me feel sick.Then came the cravings. I was downing pickles, drooling over sour gummies at Trader Joes in the checkout line, dreaming of sub sandwiches, and wanting all the carbs! All the exact same cravings I had with Graham. "That's interesting", I thought. So the next time I was at the grocery store I decided to pick up a pregnancy test, really just to put my mind to rest. I didn't really think it'd be positive.I took it as soon as I got home, again, just to put my mind to rest. And not even a minute later the plus sign showed up. POSITIVE.I did a little nervous laugh, and could feel so many emotions start to build. I went into the living room where Paul was playing with Graham."Honey, check this out." He looked at the positive test and said, "You're kidding!"Suddenly all of the emotions cascaded out of me. I was crying, laughing, all the things. Suddenly all of the thoughts of, "I just did this" and "I finally feel more like myself again, and now to do it all again so soon". I felt tired already thinking about the third trimester, which is lovely and all but anyone who's bee through it knows it's also exhausting.Paul was so good, though, to me. He immediately took me in his arms and told me everything was going to be ok. That we were going to do this again, together. He reassured me that I had what it takes to do this again. And also just held me, knowing that this news was not what I had planned, and that that's tough for me.As we kept talking about this surprising news for the next few days, laughing about needing to already get another carseat, crib, joking about getting a minivan, I started to get more and more excited. And then, as I began to tell close friends and family and have their excitement surround me, talking about how amazing this is that Graham is going to have a sibling so close in age (just 14 months apart we later realized), the excitement grew and grew.Yes, surprising. Yes, unplanned and that feels scary. Yes, exciting.The next big question I had was, how far along am I? I went to my first midwife appointment...I'm so glad to have found a similar practice to the one I was with with Graham up in New York, a midwife practice that was associated with and delivered at the hospital...and there on the ultrasound monitor was "the little peanut" as the midwife called him/her. The little one was moving around so much already.I'm getting an official dating ultrasound to give me a more accurate due date based on measurements, but from what the midwife was able to see I'm around 11-13 weeks now. So baby number 2 will be with us sometime around April...we think.Well, this has been my recent life lesson/reminder, that nothing in life is completely under our control. But when we are thrown something unexpected or surprising, we have everything we need to get through it.I will say, this experience has given me so much compassion for my friends and others who are having a hard time getting pregnant. I am so grateful for this little one, but I know what a blessing it is to get pregnant at any time, even though this is surprising and still is a little scary.So, here's to life's unexpected blessings. :)