Stella the Big Sister!

Steve and I have been planning on having two kids ever since we decided to have one.  The minute we got pregnant with Stells, we knew that we were into this process for one additional go around.  Steve and I always said, "Two and through," and that meant that Stella would eventually be getting a playmate.  We wanted the kids to be a year and a half apart, so we decided to start trying early in the summer.














I went to visit my sister in July for her birthday, and when I returned home, I never quite felt right.  I thought that maybe I got dizzy or seasick from the boat to Catalina, but I couldn't believe that the feeling would linger for a whole week after I got off the boat!  I got that funny feeling, so I decided to take a pregnancy test to see if I was right.  Surprise, surprise... we were pregnant again!  We always think it will take us months to get pregnant, but apparently we have no problems in that department!  We found out we were due with Stella's sibling-to-be on 4/4/13.









The tricky part now was deciding what to do with this information.  Steve and I wanted to tell the immediate family, but we did want to wait to share with anyone else until we cleared the first trimester.  We cleared our little goal, but then we were approaching Stella's birthday.  We wanted the day to be all about her, especially because it was her first birthday, so we decided to wait a little longer.  At this point, all we had to wait for was to find out if Stella was having a little brother or little sister, so we decided to hold out for this last big piece of news. 

Of course, I could NEVER be patient enough to not know the sex of the baby!  I am far too OCD to not be able to plan.  Besides, I needed to clean out Stella's closet, and it would be nice to see if I could simply shift all of her clothes over to the closet across the hallway.  Steve and I scheduled our 20 week appointment for the ultrasound, and we both patiently waited to see what the news would be.  I think that we were both split on what we wanted.  Neither of us said it, but I had a feeling that we had our desires.  I think that Steve was hoping to get his son, and I loved the idea of having sisters.  The picture came up, and there SHE was!  I was lucky enough to grow up with a sister, so I was thrilled to think that I could give Stella the same experience.  Steve had a moment to get his head around the idea of a house full of girls (Gwen included) but he ultimately came around to loving the idea.







Now, all we had to do was wait!  We already had the majority of what we needed from Stells, so we actually had the nursery pretty well set by the time Christmas break ended.  The fun part was trying to get Stella ready.  She definitely noticed that Mommy looked a little different, and she became a huge fan of my belly!  She wanted to see it, kiss it, and share her food with it.  Soon, she became interested in everyone's belly and wanted to see if theirs looked like Mommy's.  I can't say for certain that she knew what was going on, but there really was nothing sweeter than having her ask me to lift my shirt so she could kiss my belly :).






The months quickly progressed, and before we knew it, we were a month away from having another baby in the house!  In a short months from Stella's 1st birthday, she had grown up even more and really had become the big girl in the house.  As we got closer and closer to our due date, it became more apparent that there was a big sister in the house.