(written March 3rd)

Baby’s size: 10.5 inches long (the same as a carrot or a baseball cap) and almost 3/4 of a pound!

Maternity clothes?: I finally switched to maternity pants this week, and as always, I’m asking myself why I waited so long to do it! I’m really happy beacause I found some maternity jeans for cheap (under $10!) that actually fit me well. If you are petite or just need an extra-small size (which seems hard to find in maternity), check these out. The belly panel seems stretchy enough that it could fit me up until the end, but by then I guess I’ll mostly be wearing shorts anyway.

Gender: Sweet baby girl!!! I’ve been obsessing over names lately, because although I thought I had a name picked out weeks ago, I started questioning if it really is “the one”. So, I’ve scoured about a thousand name lists and websites to see if there’s anything better, but I have a feeling it’s all going to come back to that same name.

It’s hard naming a fourth girl without having something that sounds too close to our current girls’ names. I don’t want to repeat any more first initials, and the name has to be feminine with a good meaning/history. Basically, I’m very picky.

Sleep: One bad nightmare this week, but other than that, I’ve been tired enough that I just pass out and stay asleep until morning. I’m still napping for a couple of hours most afternoons. The fatigue is especially real this time around!

Movement: I’m enjoying feeling her a whole lot more now (she is almost always moving when I’m sitting or lying down)! She still doesn’t do anything too crazy other than kick, push her tiny feet into my right side, and punch way down low.

I thought I must have put her to sleep on my long run last weekend, because after I got home and washed up, she moved the entire rest of the day! She’s kicking her sisters when they lean up against my belly for story time (although no one has felt her from the outside yet), and one morning, I sneezed and she immediately kicked me in response. Funny, funny baby.

Cravings: Chocolate-chip cookies and those Cheetos. Seriously with the Cheetos… I really hate that I crave unhealthy snacks like that in pregnancy. I guess there are worse things, right?

What I miss: Actually cooking for my family. I feel like I make one big batch of something (shredded chicken, spaghetti, etc.), and then they eat it all week long. Food just isn’t appealing to me in general so there is nothing I am excited about cooking.

Anything making you queasy or sick?: I’m in that “eat to live”, not “live to eat” category right now. I look through my recipes and everything just seems gross to me. Chicken and salad dressing are on my bad list right now, and I still gag sometimes, but I am doing okay.

Belly Button in or out?: In.

Exercising?: Ran 26.3 miles (longest run was 7.1 miles); walked 2.1 miles. Best average pace this week was 9:33 min/mile. Fitbit total steps: 80,011. I’m feeling good, but definitely starting to feel my lower abs get sore, especially on those longer runs. I really should start using the belt! I also want to get out for more walks with the girls, but the weather just hasn’t been cooperating.

Mood: Excited, but to be honest, I am still a worrier, just in general. I want her to stay safe in there.

Best moment this week: Feeling her kick more! It’s my favorite.

Looking forward to: Seeing my in-laws next week!

Big sisters: Name suggestions from them this week include: Rainbow, Bowie, and Flower. Kaelyn cannot stop talking about how the baby is coming after her birthday, although usually, she says she wants us to have the baby, and then have her party afterward. Hopefully she isn’t too early, but I guess we’ll see. I think we might be pretty close to having a shared birthday.

Comparison: 21 weeks with Kaya; 21 weeks with Kaelyn; 21 weeks with Nella.

Baby’s size: 10 inches long from head to toe and weighing about 10.5 ounces! This is about the length of a paper airplane. Her little heartbeat was 170 bpm at our ultrasound and 160 bpm at our general 20-week appointment.

Maternity clothes?: No, but the tight jeans are officially retired for now. I’m still just wearing regular pants I had that were a size up from those. There’s still plenty of room in the waist, but otherwise, the fit is kind of baggy, so I’m really hoping to get maternity pants that are the right size this week. All my tops still fit, but my running pants/shorts are all starting to get a little awkward and ride up on me constantly- and it’s so hard to find maternity running clothes, so I’m just going to size up for those, too.

Gender: It’s a girl; it’s a girl; it’s a girl! I’m so happy to not have to wonder who the little person growing in there is anymore, and I am loving saying “SHE” instead of “he/she”, “the baby”, or even the awful “it”. I have odd moments still when I imagine having a new baby around and subconsciously try to picture it both ways, with either a girl or a boy, as if I forget that we already know. Oops! I look at my belly in the mirror each morning and just can’t believe we have another sweet little princess growing in there!

It’s been so fun to hear people’s reactions to the news of our fourth girl, which usually consist of something like, “Aw, you guys have the cutest/sweetest girls!” Of course I’d have to agree! 😉

It was also really interesting to hear people’s logic behind guessing girl or boy before we knew. Some people were sure the “girl streak” had to end, and others straight out told us that it had to be a girl because “that’s all we make”. Ha! So funny.

Sleep: Sleep is so much better than it was, although I still have the weirdest dreams when I’m pregnant. One recent dream had me taking a test at school that I didn’t study for, and then running a 10k that felt impossibly hard. Why do I have to dream I’m struggling when I’m supposed to be resting?!

Movement: She’s kicking a whole lot more now and I am just loving it. She’s still got her feet on my right side, but I’ve felt little hands in my midsection/left lately as well. It still seems like she’s just in her little curled-up ball on my right, so she doesn’t do any crazy acrobatics or anything like Kaya and Nella did. So far, she acts more like Kaelyn!

Cravings: Chocolate-chip cookies and Cheetos. Seriously, I don’t even care about Cheetos when I’m not pregnant, but I had some this week and they tasted like heaven.

What I miss: Nothing right now. I’m feeling so good!

Anything making you queasy or sick?: I’m still brushing my teeth after every meal, and salad dressing is a sensitive thing for me… but I’m making myself eat my salad every day. I’ve had my nauseous moments, but lately I’m really doing great overall. I’m 3 pounds above my pre-pregnancy weight now and feeling so much healthier.

Belly Button in or out?: In.

Exercising?: Ran 24.2 miles (longest run was 7.5 miles); walked 3.2 miles. Best pace this week was 9:34 min/mile. Fitbit total steps: 78,287. I’m hoping to get more steps in each week, but I’m honestly just so grateful that I can still run these longer runs and keep up my pace. I don’t know what is making me faster as the weeks go on, because I’ve never had that happen with my other pregnancies, but I feel so good and I’m loving it.

I also tried to use my support belt on one of my runs this week, but I think I’m kind of still in that awkward stage where my belly is bigger, but maybe not quite big enough for the belt. I ended up having to take two bathroom breaks during my regular run because it just added so much pressure to my stomach.

Mood: Now that we’ve seen the baby and know the gender, I feel like I’ve really been able to bond with her a lot more this week. I mean, of course I loved her before, but just knowing a little more about who is coming to our family (and seeing that cute, cute face!) has me feeling smitten.

Best moment this week: Hearing from my doctor that everything on our ultrasound looked great. That is really all I could ever hope for.

Looking forward to: Gosh, there’s so much to look forward to at this point… finalizing her name, making her a blanket, planning out the room she’s going to share with Nella (that’s the current plan, anyway). I’m also excited to pull out those teeny tiny baby girl clothes again!

Big sisters: Kaelyn just still loves to ask me what the baby is doing, and usually she hypothesizes, “I think the baby is getting a drink!” They are both still thrilled to have another sister coming. Nella has been practicing pushing her baby doll around in the toy stroller and putting her in the high chair. Hopefully she’ll be a big helper for me, too!

Comparison: 20 weeks with Kaya; 20 weeks with Kaelyn; 20 weeks with Nella.

…GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!It seems like an infinite number of exclamation points after that sentence still wouldn’t be enough! We are so excited (and a little shocked) that we’ll be welcoming a FOURTH tiny princess into our family! Kaya and Kaelyn were right- they’re getting another sister, which is exactly what they were hoping for.

I barely slept the night before our scan due to anxious excitement. It was a long time to wait between this ultrasound and our last one, and I was just praying for a healthy little baby. I was also ready to end the suspense of not knowing the gender!

The ultrasound technician started out right under the baby’s bottom, measuring the femurs. In the midst of those measurements, I saw those three little lines that signify a baby girl, so when the tech asked me if I wanted to know, I said yes, even though I was already sure of what I’d seen. She said the word “girl”, and it was official!

The first thing I said was, “Oh my gosh. FOUR girls in a row! I can’t believe it’s a girl!”

Her little profile just melts me. She was moving her mouth the whole time and had her thumb pretty much right there, so we might have another thumb-sucker. And yes, that is her foot up by her face! She sat in a ball on my right side the entire time, so curled up that the technician couldn’t get a measurement of her spine.
I want there to be absolutely no doubt that we are so in love with this little baby girl, and when we decided to add another baby to our family, it wasn’t because we were hoping for one gender over the other. We are thrilled to have another sweet princess, and although I never, ever, could have guessed that we would literally have a house full of girls, I am loving every second of it.We love you, Littlest Princess, and can’t wait to meet you in about 4.5 months!

Gosh. Wasn’t I just writing one of these posts for Nella? Since we had our anatomy scan today, I thought it’d be fun to post the same old wives’ tales I’ve done for my previous pregnancies- before we reveal the gender tomorrow!Baby’s heart rate: 171 bpm at our 16-week appointment! Over 140 bpm – GIRL
Morning sickness: The most extreme I’ve had so far with all my pregnancies. Yes – GIRL
Chinese gender predictor: GIRL
Sweet or salty cravings? Sweet – GIRL
Are you more emotional? Let’s be real, I’m always kind of emotional, but maybe a little more than usual. Yes – GIRL
More or fewer face breakouts? More – GIRL
Carrying high or low? Low – BOY
Dry hands or soft? Dry – BOY
Dreams: The dreams I’ve had about the baby have been very few and far between this pregnancy. That being said, I had one dream that felt meaningful, and it was about a baby GIRL.
Mother’s guess: If pressured to guess, I’d have gone with BOY, although really I imagined it going either way.
Big sisters’ guesses: Kaya and Kaelyn started out saying it was a boy, but over the past month or so, they’ve become adamant that it just has to be a GIRL! They both just keep saying, “I want more sisters!”

This is crazy, but if this baby comes as early as Nella did, we are already halfway there. It’s unbelievable how those early weeks drag on, and then the middle of pregnancy just flies on by.

Baby’s size: 6 inches long (CRL), weighing about 8.5 ounces- roughly the same size as a zucchini, a hedgehog, or the original Gameboy!

Maternity clothes?: No, but if I’m wearing my regular jeans, I’m using the hair tie trick (even though they still button, they aren’t really comfortable). I’m guessing those pants won’t fit soon, but I’m really putting off switching to maternity jeans because the ones I have are all kind of baggy and not my favorite. With Kaya and Nella, I mostly wore shorts when my belly was big enough for maternity pants, and I like my shorts so much more. I guess I just wore the baggy pants with Kaelyn, but there’s something about wearing clothes that are too big that make you feel frumpy and even bigger than you really are.

Gender: Hopefully we’ll know next week, although I did toss around the idea of us not finding out until the birth. Michael told me it would drive me absolutely crazy, which is probably true. Not to mention, we’d have absolutely nothing prepared if it’s a boy!

Symptoms: I’ve been feeling my belly stretching!

Sleep: Thankfully, I’m having fewer nightmares, just weird dreams. Still napping just about every afternoon, though.

Movement: FINALLY! This little baby gave me the best present on my birthday- lots and lots of kicks!!! It’s so nice to finally feel him/her more regularly. It’s pretty much always on my right side, and I’ve noticed that the later I stay up, the more active the baby seems to be. We might have a serious night owl! If I’m wearing jeans, he/she kicks right at my waistband, as if it annoys him/her that it pushes on my stomach. So funny.

Cravings: Nutella and chocolate-chip cookie bars. Michael indulged my Nutella craving on my birthday, and I did bake some cookie bars this week, so life is good!

What I miss: Clothes fitting properly, I guess. I’m just in that weird in-between stage! Apparently how I stand also makes a huge difference in how big the belly looks.

Anything making you queasy or sick?: I still have my moments of nausea, including another day/night when I mostly just rested and stayed in bed as much as I could. I’m still brushing my teeth after nearly every meal because I can’t stand the taste of anything in my mouth for too long, but overall, I’m eating again and it feels good.

Belly Button in or out?: In.

Exercising?: Ran 23.7 miles (longest run was 5.3 miles); walked 1.4 miles. I’m really excited that I’m actually running significantly faster than I was during my last pregnancy, too. Best pace this week was 9:31 min/mile. Fitbit total steps: 69,236.

I’m starting to notice that little basketball belly when I’m running, and I love looking down and seeing it there, reminding me why I’m trying so hard to stay healthy and keep moving.

Mood: Feeling happy and excited! In a way, it still doesn’t seem completely real that we’re adding another family member so soon.

Best moment this week: Celebrating my birthday!!! And visiting with Lelia and Bryce! They came up for the weekend, and we’ve been having the best time.

Looking forward to: Seeing this little baby next week!

Big sisters: They’ve decided that if it’s a girl, her name will be Butterfly or Pinky, and if it’s a boy, his name will be Stripey. I have no idea where they come up with this stuff, but it is pretty adorable and funny. They are both still really hoping for another sister.

Comparison: 19 weeks with Kaya; 19 weeks with Kaelyn; 19 weeks with Nella.

Here we go… the weekly posts! I don’t know how many people actually want to read these the fourth time around, but I love doing them (and especially looking back on them)! I also realize that I did similar chalkboards during my pregnancy with Nella, but I had so much fun making them that I wanted to do it again!Baby’s size: About 5.5 inches long from crown to rump, and weighing in at around 7 ounces. The Ovia app (which makes the craziest comparisons) says this is the size of a croissant (does that come with Nutella?)!

Maternity clothes?: Not yet. My smallest jeans still fit (and button!), but let’s be real, I don’t really like wearing them for extended lengths of time. I’ve just been wearing looser jeans. This is the stage when there’s a belly, but not a completely obvious bump, which is a little awkward. I basically feel huge, but I know I’m going to look back at this and laugh in a few weeks/months.

Gender: We don’t know!!! I honestly keep flip-flopping on what my guess is, too. I’ve had some feelings that maybe it’s another girl, but then mentally I’ve kind of already assumed it’s a boy. Maybe that doesn’t sound like it makes any sense!

Sleep: I didn’t mention this in my big pregnancy recap post, but I have had crazy numbers of nightmares this time around, which makes it really hard to sleep (or stay asleep) sometimes. I’ve been using frankincense oil at night, which seems to help me at least feel calm, so there’s that. In the afternoon, I pass out for a couple of solid hours, every single day. Thankfully, Nella still takes a 3-hour nap everyday, and Kaya and Kaelyn will nap for about 1.5 hours. If they wake up before me, they just play quietly in their room.

Movement: It has still seemed to me like I’ve felt less movement this time, but in the past few days, it’s picked up a little! I had one “big” kick that surprised me yesterday afternoon, and a few other times when I’ve been busy doing something and then I randomly feel some flutters.

Cravings: I finally had my first real craving- a chocolate chip cookie! I’ve also been wanting French toast and scrambled eggs, so we made that for dinner last night.

What I miss: Cookie dough… 🙁

Anything making you queasy or sick?: I had one day this week when I was back to being stuck in bed, nauseous and not able to do much. The rest of the week has been mostly okay. I’m back to taking the B-6 three times a day.

Belly Button in or out?: In.

Exercising?: Ran 20.8 miles (longest run was 7 miles). Fitbit total steps: 59,822.

Mood: I want to cry over Luke Bryan songs, but really I’m feeling good emotionally. Now that I’m less sick, I’m starting to get more excited about having a new baby.

Best moment this week: Starting to feel more of those baby kicks!

Looking forward to: My birthday!!!

Big sisters: I love how much they already love this baby! They talk about him/her all the time, (although they insist it’s a her). Kaelyn even asked me one night this week as we were cuddled up on my bed, “What’s the baby doing right now?” She thought it was so funny when I told her that maybe the baby was sleeping! Then she asked me if she used to sleep in my tummy, and she loved it when I said yes.

My pregnancy app said that it might be possible to hear the baby’s heartbeat with a stethoscope this week, so of course, the girls wanted to both try it with the ones Uncle Jeff and Auntie Lelia gave them for Christmas. We didn’t have any luck (which I kind of suspected), but they still had a great time “playing doctor”.

Comparison:18 weeks with Kaya; 18 weeks with Kaelyn; 18 weeks with Nella.

Baby #4… number four! Typing that out seems almost unreal to me. I feel like we were just starting our family yesterday, when in reality, we were pregnant with Kaya 6 years ago! I look back on the first-time parents that we once were and see youngsters with so much energy (and so little experience)! We may be a little older (and a lot more tired) these days, but we are just as excited for this precious new baby to join our family!

Have you felt any differently this time around?

All my pregnancies can be summed up with two words: nausea and exhaustion. However, it does seem like I’ve only gotten progressively sicker with each baby… so after Nella, I (naively) thought it wouldn’t (couldn’t) get any worse than that. This little baby is out to make him/herself known, because as it turns out, the sickness could get worse… and it did.

I don’t like to sound like I’m complaining, looking for sympathy, or not acting grateful for being able to have this experience, but I do like to write how things truthfully are. I hardly left the couch or my bed for most of weeks 7-14, and I struggled so much to eat and drink that I actually lost about 5 pounds. I’m still under my pre-pregnancy “happy” weight, but I am at least able to eat more regular meals now.

I couldn’t get in to see my doctor for the first time until I was already 11 weeks, so I went without any kind of nausea medication until then. He prescribed me some B-6 and Unisom, and I took the B-6 consistently until this week (17.5 weeks), but I’ve avoided the Unisom because I just can’t afford to be drowsy.

Aversions? Cravings?
I’ve had so many aversions this time, pretty consistent with my girls’ pregnancies: certain Italian salad dressings, actual salad in general, yogurt, peanut butter, some forms of chicken, and WATER… I feel like almost any food was turning my stomach at some point and nothing sounded edible to me.

I wouldn’t really say I’ve had cravings this time around, more just “safe” foods that I knew I could keep down, which included my homemade pumpkin bread (I pretty much lived on nearly that alone for at least a month), a couple of Subway chicken subs, a Wendy’s chicken sandwich or two, and these dark chocolate raisins that Michael brings home for me just about every time he’s at the store. At one point I joked with him that he was just trying to keep me alive with those raisins, and he said, “Yeah, pretty much!”

If you know me well, you’d be shocked to hear that I generally just couldn’t stomach any kind of ice cream or other dessert until about 15 weeks. It’s weird because in my mind I would want some ice cream, but then my stomach was not willing to cooperate.

How’s running going?

I am still running! But with the lack of nutrition for so many weeks, it has not been easy.

It’s so important to me to stay as healthy and strong as I can, but there were days where running felt like a huge, impossible battle that my body just did not want to fight. It sounds totally crazy, but 4 miles was feeling just as exhausting as my half marathon did. I’ve tried my best, and I know that I have most likely logged fewer miles this pregnancy than with my others, but there’s only so much I can do. I’m getting back into my regular routine now, and it’s feeling better (although I am also really looking forward to winter ending. Something about warm temperatures makes getting out there a little easier)!

What do the big sisters think?

We waited to tell the girls until the morning of my first appointment, which was just a couple of days before Christmas, so we had them open an “early gift” that had all sorts of baby items in it. They were completely surprised and very excited to see the sweet new baby’s ultrasound after that!

With having been so sick, Kaya really was a great helper to me. She drew me pictures to help me feel better, let me rest on the couch, and would come over to snuggle and stroke my hair with her hand. She’s just the sweetest.

Nella will be just 21 months old when this baby comes, so she has no idea what’s going on, but she does love babies right now, so I’m hoping that continues when she meets her new brother/sister.

So, are you hoping for a boy?

Honestly, I am so used to having all girls at this point that I’d be happy to keep the girl trend going, and it’s really hard to imagine having a baby boy. I know that we will love this baby either way, I just want him or her to stay safe and healthy in there.

Kaya had been saying that we were going to have a baby boy for a really long time, and Kaelyn has more consistently said it’s a girl (although she does sometimes just follow whatever Kaya says). In the past couple of weeks, though, Kaya has switched to saying it’s a girl, because, according to her, “Boys are crazy!” They keep telling me that if it is a brother, we’ll have to “teach him to be calm.” Haha. They both just keep telling me that they want more sisters, though.

And a HUGE shoutout to Michael….

…who has done so much for me these past couple of months. I started to get sick right before he went on a business trip, so that week while he was gone was the hardest, but he’s more than made up for it since he returned. He’s done all the jobs that turn my stomach: changing poopy diapers, picking up after the dog, doing the dishes, cleaning the guinea pig cage, and just generally doing chores/taking care of kids.

I honestly have had moments where it’s mentally been really hard to be sick constantly- there’s just not much I could do besides rest, and after a while, it’s easy to feel “useless”, or like you’re no help to your own family. I’m so grateful for his support and love no matter how much I’m able to do around the house.

Other random facts to do with this pregnancy:

-Being in the first trimester around the holidays was really great in a way, because Michael had more time off work and could help me out around the house. We also had a really nice, guilt-free break from homeschool. However, it was also so hard in that I felt like I couldn’t do everything I wanted to for my kids. Making Christmas cookies, taking them to Christmas-themed events, and even just getting their gifts wrapped felt like a huge challenge (and now you know why all my Christmas blog posts were soooo late)!

-I honestly haven’t felt as much movement from this baby so far compared to my other girls, even though I know he/she is going crazy in there. At our first scan, we saw him/her doing full frontal FLIPS, and the heart rate at my 16-week appointment was really high, so there’s definitely some exercising going on in there. For some reason, I just haven’t been able to feel it as much (the bloating has been really bad this time around, so I feel like that might be a factor). I treasure those few kicks that I do feel, which usually come at night when I’m able to sit and rest for a bit.

-My intuition hasn’t been very strong this time around. With Kaelyn and Nella, I just knew they were girls long before the anatomy scans. I felt like I knew all their personalities and had an idea of who they were pretty early on, but this is my mystery baby. Up until a few nights ago, I hadn’t even had any dreams that felt at-all meaningful concerning this one.

-We told our families at Christmas, and the reactions were priceless. My side had a lot of yelling, clapping, and even an “ANOTHER ONE?!” (all in the best, surprised, way). Michael’s family was just as happy, but maybe not as surprised. We put the ultrasound photo inside my mom’s Christmas gift, and this was her reaction…

And Kaya made a special family drawing for Grandma Gina:-Other random note: taking “bump” pictures outside in the winter is tough! Michael gets home after the sun is too far gone, so I attempted to use the tripod for this week!