If you're already following me on social media, then you know that Shep and I are expecting another baby, a little girl, in September. My whole family is so excited and we're all looking forward to welcoming a new tiny human into our lives. I cannot believe I get the chance to be a mama all over again. I know that there is a baby actively growing inside my belly (it's getting harder to miss every day lol) but truly, it's a surreal thing to wrap my head around, even though this isn't my first time at the rodeo.

Last year, I wrote about how my husband and I were gearing up to start prepping for baby #2. I started taking prenatal vitamins again, got more serious about my fitness routine and started to cut back on my alcohol intake. Heading into the holidays, I was feeling pretty good. Shep and I knew we weren't going to start "trying" until around Jan/Feb because we (okay, okay mostly me) wanted an October baby. However, I'd purchased a Clearblue Ovulation kit because I wanted to make sure that I was ovulating and to get a sense of when so that when it was time to try, I had a good understanding of which time frame gave us the best chance of conceiving.

Shep and I always spend Christmas with my family and, to beat the holiday rush, Nola and I usually fly out a few days ahead of him. I used the ovulation kit during this time and it let me know that I was most fertile during the period that Shep and I were going to be apart. He was still in Atlanta seeing a few last patients before joining us in Los Angeles. I didn't sweat it because again, I wasn't trying to get pregnant just yet.

Without getting too graphic lol, Shep and I "reunited" after he landed in California, but according to the test kit and my app, I was past my fertile window so the odds of me getting pregnant were really low. We happily went on with the rest of the holidays as usual including taking our annual trip to Paso Robles for wine tasting. When we flew back to Atlanta, I'd already decided that I was going to participate in dry January for completely separate reasons and obviously, I'm thankful that I did.

A few days into the new year and I just started feeling off. The first thing I noticed was that I could smell everything and everyday scents around the house started to drive me nuts. The scent of Shep's deodorant for one, smelled like a rotting corpse to me even though it was the same old Old Spice stick he's used ever since I've known him. But other than that I felt completely normal. No sore boobs, I wasn't overly tired, and zero food aversions so I kept going about my life. Then one day, I was taking a nap and the smell of Shep's deodorant literally woke me up from my sleep because it smelled so strong.

I knew then that I should probably go pick up a pregnancy test. I bought a box of three, used one and it said negative. It was the day before my period and I figured whatever was going on, it certainly wasn't because I was knocked up. Except that my period didn't come on the day it was due either which is odd because it's never late. Tested again...negative. I knew something was up but didn't know what. Thankfully I had my annual OB appointment scheduled for the next day, Friday, January 6th.

I went to my appointment and my doctor confirmed that the pregnancy test she had me take in her office was also negative. I went home that day confused because at this point I was two days late and felt zero symptoms of an upcoming period. My doctor told me to try not to focus too much on it (easy for her to say lol) and that either my period would start in the next day or so, or my pregnancy test would come out positive.

I came back home and tried to do some work but I just couldn't get it together. I remembered that I had a pregnancy test left and decided to just try it out one more time even though the other ones were all negative. I peed in a cup, dipped the stick, and turned the test upside down. I set a five-minute timer and walked out of the room. When I came back and turned the test over, a solid smiley face was looking back at me and I started hysterically laughing.

Just then my phone rang, it was my doctor. "Hey Ryan, it's Dr. Simmons. Just wanted to let you know that your pregnancy test turned positive on us."

I was still holding the test in my hand when she told me this but I said "huh? Do tests normally turn positive in your office?" to which she said no but that the nurse had read my results too early. I was definitely pregnant.

I wanted to plan a cute way to tell Shep but honestly, since I found out such a weird way, I just called him and blurted it out.

We kept the news to ourselves for about a week until we told our immediately family and then waited a few more weeks until we told friends. I'm currently 15 weeks pregnant and finally past the brutal first trimester.

Baby girl has quite the appetite and is making me eat constantly though all she seems to really want is ice cold fruit (mostly mangoes), french fries, caesar salads and tacos. My belly is just starting to poke out and I can feel her moving a bit here and there.

All in all I'm feeling  good, very blessed and incredibly tired (being a mama a second time around is tough omg).

I'm looking forward to sharing this beautiful time in our lives with y'all. Thanks for following along!

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