Woah baby.

Is it just me, or do you pop out SO much faster with your second pregnancy?! IF I were a celebrity (so glad that's not true!), my poochy little belly would have been all over the tabloids weeks ago! I remember waiting until I was at the end of my first trimester with Chase before I told my boss and coworkers... and I was able to do that because I wasn't "showing" until then. But this time... baby Ries #2 made his or her appearance much, much earlier! I'm on week 12 now and although I don't have a picture, if you look back at my October 2006 posts with my 20-something week picture of the bump back then, that's pretty much what I look like right now! Eric and Dennis have been teasing me about the "twins" that will soon be joining our family, but I can't really blame it on that... I don't think. I heard the baby's heartbeat for the first time at my midwife appointment this week and it sounded to me as if there was only ONE baby in there! I'm so glad to have found a great midwife group here in Tampa! They are similar to the practice I went to in Maryland... about 6 midwives and 1 OB (only used in case of emergency). They are all so motherly and nice, and best of all they are all for minimal medical intervention, both before and during labor. The downside is that I will only get 1 ultrasound around 18-20 weeks, which is really okay with me but of course, selfishly I would love to see the baby now! Although the midwives don't push a lot of extra prenatal testing, I will have to go through a few extra things based on my previous experience with Chase: 1) I have to take the gestational diabetes screening test several times, the first one at 16 weeks! Usually you only have to take it once around 28 weeks, but since I had GD last time, there's an increased risk. I'm hoping and praying for a clear test this time! That diet and the 4 times-a-day finger pricking was not fun. 2) Since Chase had a few VSD's (he still has at least one), they will do a fetal echocardiogram during my ultrasound. Siblings of children with any type of heart defect are at a slightly increased risk, and I guess it will be nice to know if there are any problems ahead of time.

The good news is that I'm feeling SO much better now at 12 weeks than I have in the past few months! No more daily naps, much less nausea, no headaches, and I think (I hope) I'm not as moody and emotional! I'm still running 3-4 miles, several times a week and I'm looking forward to our neighborhood 5K race next weekend!