REAL Woman/ Expecting Mom Talk; Baby #4 💙

WRITTEN 2/20

Many have DMd’ me sharing their congratulations and I sincerely thank you for every single one! Many have also had questions about our journey thus far on baby number four.

I feel so fortunate that I can share this new Baby #4 segment of our life’s journey with you in a judgement-free, open and honest manner and I truly appreciate all the love and support and new friendships I have made through my blog along the way. Back when we were expecting baby number three with Saylor, I was not in a place where I was ready to share as openly as I had so much healing to do after Bryce’s passing but this time around, I’m feeling more open about my sharing this pregnancy journey.

We as women need to unite on this mom journey as we all are on our own journey but each of our journeys has a story and each has hardships and difficulties and no one else should ever have to stand alone, be compared or feel judged or alienated. As many of you know, that have followed along or know us personally, the most tragic event of our lives happened back in June of 2019 where our son passed after a sudden tragic accident despite all efforts to try and save him, just shy of his third birthday. At this time I am not ready to openly disclose these details.

The last thing I ever want is for people to feel sorry for our family. What happened to us is incredibly sad and tragic but it’s part of our journey. I have found that the most alienating feeling in the world is when people say things like, “I don’t know how you do it?” or “ I can’t even imagine.” People mean well and it’s truly appreciated but more than anything, I don’t want to feel alienated. We all have our hardships and our sadness and some of course, much harder than others but I am here to help you feel you are not alone and I too know I am not alone. By my helping others not feel alone, this in turn helps me to see the light and work toward it on my darkest days. As many of you know, I am working on a book. It’s a work in progress and I will get there. My main goals with my book are to in time share our story a bit more, raise awareness and of course help others. For now, in this blog post, I want to mainly focus on open, honest real feelings on baby number four and this part of our journey but I felt it was important before doing so that I at least share a little background for those that didn’t know first.

Since Bryce’s accident, we have done our very best we can to pick up the broken pieces of our hearts and our lives, hold our family together and keep going . We have worked hard through the tears, the pain and the sorrow to rebuild and move forward and honor our son with great events and donations. We have hopes, goals and dreams that still need to be fulfilled and we will make them happen. Our son is our guiding light and vibrant rainbow with each step and with each day and keeps us strong.

Shortly after Bryce’s passing, we had baby #3, our rainbow baby; Saylor Maeve. She has been such an amazing blessing to our family in countless ways and given us more happiness than we ever thought possible. We always knew we wanted to have a third child and when we got pregnant with her, is was a terribly difficult time for us in our grieving process but somehow the pregnancy brought us closer together than we ever thought possible during our healing and Saylor was just what we needed. I will be honest and share that we had deep down hoped to have a boy again so as not ever to replace Bryce of course but naturally we wanted so badly to have a son again as I’m sure you can understand this. Now, we would never change anything for the world. Looking back, we feel it just wasn’t the right time for Bryce and God to give us another son and Saylor was the right blessing that was supposed to happen at that point in time for us.

After Saylor was born, we knew for certain we wanted to try again for another in hopes to have another son however another challenge came into play and that being there is obviously no guarantee we would have a son and therefore we honestly weren’t sure we wanted to try again for this very obvious reason. Rich and I spent countless hours exploring IVF gender selection. I went through several tests and emotionally draining consultations and appointments only for us to decide that it just wasn’t the right route for us at this time. I will be honest and tell you Rich and I have never had a problem with fertility and for that we count our blessings and that being said, we felt we could do this on our own and that no matter what, once again God would give us what we were supposed to have and we would leave it in his hands. Our family is solid as can be and has been through hell and back and we knew there was nothing we couldn’t get through together. It was in God’s hands. It was time to DO THIS! We were fully aware of gender disappointment and we prepared ourselves for what could be but that no matter what, we would love our new addition just the same,BOY OR GIRL one million percent!!!!! No matter what this baby would be a blessing!

After making the decision to try for #4 naturally on our own, we decided to explore different methods and theories that may help increase our chances to have a boy. Why not right?! It couldn’t hurt! We decided to research the “shettles method” and decided to follow it closely and give it a try. Heck, why not?! I did my research and at this point I was going to do anything and everything I could on my end to make this happen for us. I researched some more that evening premorse oil helped increase chances of conceiving a boy and also that potassium helped. I can remember eating so many bananas that I felt like they were coming out of my ears, literally! Rich at one point said to me, “Babe, I think you can relax with the bananas,” as I was shoving yet another in my mouth. We just stood in the kitchen belly laughing for a good 5 minutes straight. After all, laughter is so great for the soul and a good laugh was much needed at this point.

I must say, I was a little nervous to go through with this method as I was afraid it might take longer to conceive and as many know, with the “shettles method,” basically you wait to have intercourse until your peak fertility but sure enough, it happened thankfully right away and this past November, we learned the news we were expecting once again and that baby #4 would be arriving in August. We were so thrilled and so overjoyed with emotion and happiness.

Thus far, this pregnancy has been smooth like my last three (knock on wood) and I am feeling great despite the nausea, headaches and fatigue in the beginning and it certainly feels good to be over the first trimester hump. Recently we took the gender blood test and NOW we hope, pray, cross fingers and toes and WE WAIT! Stay tuned friends and I will be sure to update you along the way.

UPDATE 2/23

We have a BABY BOY on the way and couldn’t feel more thankful and blessed! We knew Bryce and God would give us what we were supposed to have. Thank you Bryce and Thank you God for this hand-picked blessing! ❤️🙏🏼