We were so excited (and very impatient) to tell the boys but decided early on to wait until after our first ultrasound to tell them with a very special photo shoot with one of my besties and favorite photographers ever, the very talented Jenn Parkin Photography! I love these photos and couldn't be happier with how this moment was captured. Side note: I know I rave about Jenn quite a bit but she is really that wonderful, and I'm not just saying that because she's my friend. Case in point, once I got these photos from her on Monday afternoon I bugged her that night for close to an hour to make little tweaks to a few things so they were just perfect. I am a terrible friend and even worse photo client but she was an absolute champ as both a friend and photographer this weekend and just totally stepped up to help me out to be able to share this awesome news with our friends on this blog and on FB.
I struggled to decide which picture to use as the first one, but this close cropped one of the boys and their bears and big brother books just won out in the end!
The boys were hungry and tired and not super into taking more photos but these ones still turned out cute I think! In fact when we first asked James to sit down beside us so we could tell him about the baby and he spotted Jenn get her camera out he started whining and saying "more photos, I thought we were done with photos already!"
They really were such good sports about all of this!
Loved these signs so much!
This was an idea I had seen so many times but still really wanted to do it anyways! These were the ones I was being very OCD about and Jenn changed them all for me a few times and now I love them! I originally just wanted the years below our feet but she added the names and I think it's cute!
Here are photos from when and how we told the boys. We all sat together and had them watch the ultrasound videos of the baby and asked them if they knew what it was.
Me: Guess what it is?
James: A baby.
Me: Guess where that baby is?
James: A baby.
Me: Guess where that baby is?
James: Where?
Me: That baby is in mommy's belly.
James: That's me?
Me: That baby is in mommy's belly.
James: That's me?
Me: No, that's a new baby! We're having another baby!
Jordie: Oh holy heck
James: Yay!
This is the moment when James got it
And you can see just how excited he was when he realized it was really true. Jordie is still looking at the picture of the baby on the screen and this is probably right when he's saying his awesome "oh holy heck" line.
Asking me when the baby is going to come out and declaring that it was "another brother" and that he wanted it to be a boy.
I was expecting hugs and kisses, but I did get an excited arm grab. Jordie really didn't understand quite what was happening.
Asking Jordie what he thought of it all
James stood up and was excited to realize he's going to be a "double" big brother
No idea what is actually happening here but it's totally random and casual and I love it. Watch the video below and maybe you can figure it out from there!
Here's the video of how it all went down! I'm so thankful that my brother Ben was able to come and video this moment for us because I really wanted to always have it.
And here's the video my brother Chris took of Nana and Papa finding out by watching the video of the boys finding out. It was a cute moment for sure and we were so glad to finally be telling everyone, especially my mom and dad! I really wanted to video tape their reaction but got super frazzled when Jordie just about ruined it when he ran into the house and told Olivia "my mommy is having a baby" but thankfully Nana was asleep in her chair and Papa was in his den and didn't hear him. Then we had them crowd into Nana's chair and watch it. The moment she realized I said the baby was in mommy's belly you can tell my mom totally got it! PS; If you had any doubts about whether my mom and I would cry...we totally did.
Here is a photo and two videos from our ultrasound on October 7 (baby is just over 10 weeks old)
Beautiful flowers from Chris & Teresa and the kids.
Now here's the back story of how we got here. It started way back on May 26, 2013 and Jordie was not yet even 3 days old. I sent this FB message to Jim...and then see our responses to each other. Notice it took him a whole day to respond to me and clearly another 30 hours later had me questioning myself after a disastrous night of no sleep in the hospital with a newborn!!
Kim Barrows - May 26, 2013 - 12:03am
I don't think I'm done having babies yet! I tried going to sleep an hour ago but all I could think about was how we could make it work a few years down the road to have just 1 more! I know I'm crazy but so so so in love with this little guy, and my other two J's at home!
love you
Jim Barrows - May 27, 2013 - 8:45am
WE'LL SEE
Kim Barrows - May 27, 2013 - 8:46am
Hahahahahahaha I take it back after last night.
We didn't really talk about this again until Jordie was around a year old and the conversations started about whether we would or wouldn't try to have another baby. We were drowning in baby toys, gear and clothing and we needed to make a decision about what we wanted to do, sell it all or reorganize to keep for the future. It was a conversation that we had over and over again over several months. During this time Jim was away working in camp and we both had many thoughts about what was the best for our whole family.
I felt really strongly that I wanted another child, whereas Jim felt really strongly that he was good with being done and was happy with just our two healthy and very busy little boys. I had a friend tell me something once and it seemed to haunt me. She said "you will never regret the kids you do have, but you may regret the ones you don't have." It was exactly how I felt...and I was scared to wake up 5 years down the road to this crushing feeling of regret at not having more kids. I didn't want to live with that regret and I didn't want to resent Jim for not understanding my dream. Jim understood where I was coming from and after hearing my thoughts and feelings about it he agreed that we would try for another baby around the time that Jordie turned 2. He knew that he would never have the financial burden of our family all on his shoulders because we would always work as a team to financially support our family. I have never intended to be a stay at home mother and I know that with both of our incomes together we will always make it work, although we are also realistic enough to acknowledge that there is no way that we could financially give as much to three kids as we could have to just two. And as much as some days that makes me sad to realize that our boys could miss out on something, I also personally know the love and joy of having two siblings and I think it will be a wonderful life experience for the boys and I don't think they will suffer because of our decision to give them another sibling.
Shortly after we decided that we were going to expand our family we were hit with a major curve ball. Jim got laid off from his job and I thought my hopes and dreams of another baby were over. But then the opportunity came up for him to go back to school and start a new career. I was so damn proud of him and even more excited when he said he was still willing to try for another baby. Jim loves being a dad more than anything and I know that even though he was probably scared about the future, he was also confident that together as a team we would be okay with adding another one to our crazy crew.
In September 2015 right when Jim started his carpentry course at VIU we started trying to get pregnant. And surprisingly to both of us, it just didn't happen like it had before. That first month I did feel like I was pregnant and then was heartbroken to discover I wasn't. When we tried with the boys it happened the first month both times so when it didn't this time I was shocked and sad. My plans to have my babies all 3 years apart just wasn't going to happen, so I adjusted my thoughts and just kept hoping for the best. A few months later in January I was sure I was finally pregnant and although my period was late I again discovered that it hadn't happened. I guess being 6 years older than when I first got pregnant had impacted my fertility at least to some degree. We talked to our family doctor about it but we also knew that we weren't prepared to do any testing or take extreme measures to have another baby. To us, that just wasn't in our plans and we were both really confident in that decision.
It was around April that we really started talking seriously about how much longer we were willing to try for. James was about to turn 6 and a month later Jordie would be 3. It weighed heavily on me that when James was turning 3 I was hugely pregnant and Jordie was about to be born...and here we were still not pregnant. If I had gotten pregnant in September when we first started trying I would have been only 2 months away from meeting our newest little love.
During one particularly hard conversation Jim said something that made me feel better and ready to move forward. He said "it's okay sweetie, because at least we tried, so you don't have to regret anything." I can truly say that I was definitely coming around to the idea that we had done the best we could and it just hadn't happened so it was time to move on with our life. The more time that passed and the more frustrated I became (and the more independent that Jordie got) I started to feel like that saying that had haunted me before just didn't anymore. I knew I would always be able to tell myself that we had really tried and it just hadn't been meant to be for us. I started to focus on what our life would be like and all the fun things we could do as a little happy family of four, but still had a small ache in my heart when I pictured our family photos without another little one in them with us.
A week after deciding that we were good if it didn't happen I traveled to Alberta to meet my best friend's twin boys and that whole weekend I felt super queasy. I told her and her husband that I thought maybe I was pregnant. I came home feeling a little bit excited...and absolutely terrified because I had just talked myself into being good with being done so to be faced with this now seemed really overwhelming and scary to me. I rushed home to take a pregnancy test as soon as I got off the ferry. It came back positive and I was shocked and couldn't wait to tell Jimmy. With only a few minutes to spare before t-ball I quickly got Jordie involved so I could send this picture to Jim via text message that night after the boys were in bed. When he got the picture I could tell he was shocked and wasn't really sure what to think but was doing his best to put a happy and brave face on for me because I was clearly upset and scared.
Isn't he just the cutest? (And he has absolutely no idea what his shirt or his sign says!) I would NEVER have attempted this with James! :)
The very next morning after getting a very clear positive pregnancy test the night before I started bleeding. I had no idea what I felt in that moment. I was so sad, but also relieved too which made me feel like worst person/mother in the whole world. I was in the middle of a stupidly busy month full of t-ball, work, strata and house sitting so thankfully I didn't have a lot of time to think about it and just moved on with our plan that we were done and ready to move forward. In mid-July we bought our new trailer because we were "moving into the next phase of our lives" and were planning to enjoy it in the years to come with our two very happy and active outdoorsy boys. We told everyone who asked that we were happy to be done and were ready to start selling off our stuff, even selling a ton of our toys to our daycare center!
Fast forward to the end of August and we were going camping with our friends and I just didn't feel good and wasn't sure why. I counted back the days to my last period and I realized "holy shit...what if I'm pregnant?" I woke up on Saturday morning and just burst into tears. Jim held me and said "it is what it is and we'll wait to take a test to be sure." We talked with Sean and Ash that weekend about it because I just needed to vent and to hear that it was all going to be okay. Luckily they are the kind of friends that were wonderful about it. They were excited enough for us that it helped me get passed my absolute terror at the idea. I had envisioned our years of camping with them and our perfect little mix of kids at the same ages and the thought of now throwing a baby into that made me so sad.
We went home on Sunday afternoon and immediately took a test and before I could even finish washing my hands I looked down and saw the second pink line appear...bright pink! There was no denying that it was positive. I had hoped to let Jim read the test and then tell me the results and was super surprised to see it turn so quickly. He came in and looked at it and then we just laid on our bed and talked for almost an hour while the boys were downstairs watching a movie. I sobbed and Jim was, as he usually is, my absolute rock. He said we were going to be okay and that we were going to make the best of it. He cheerily said that our next phase was just going to look a little differently than we first thought. I'm really happy now that we bought a little bit bigger of a trailer because we are definitely going to need it next summer with a baby and all the shit that they come with and in the many years to come with 3 kids in it!
For anyone out there asking...how did you not suspect you were pregnant if you weren't preventing it from happening? Well, my answer is that we were stupid and just kept telling ourselves that it hadn't happened in the 9 months we had tried so it certainly wasn't going to happen by random chance once we stopped trying. Everyone that I told that I was done trying said "it will probably happen now that you are done trying" and I would just giggle and say "nope, I doubt it." Just the week before we found out we were expecting again Jim and I had talked about getting an appointment booked for a referral to the doctor for Jim's vasectomy so clearly we really had no idea that possibly we were actually pregnant. Of course I knew it was a possibility because we all know how babies are made but I really and truly just didn't think it was in the cards for us :)
We found out we were expecting at just around 5 weeks and went to the doctor for a confirmation just a few days later. He did nothing because my regular doctor is an idiot but he did refer me to a wonderful local OB-GYN at our clinic and I couldn't wait to meet her. My appointment wasn't until just over 8 weeks but as soon as I met her I knew everything would be okay and I was in good hands. As I will be having a repeat c-section she won't actually be delivering the baby but she will follow me through my pregnancy and will be there to take care of baby at the birth.
I've never been very good at keeping secrets like this one. Both times I was pregnant before I think we told our families and friends within a few days of finding out. This was a whole different ball game this time. Jim and I both felt very strongly that we didn't want to tell very many people until after we had told the boys, and we didn't want to tell them until we were close to the 12 week mark, just in case. Luckily they do a dating ultrasound between 10-13 weeks so we hoped it would happen closer to the 10 weeks so after we knew everything was okay we could finally spill the beans to everyone. Plus, my mom was going to Europe and I really wanted to tell her before she left!
The only people that knew before the boys were our friends Sean and Ash who we were camping with, and one of my closest girlfriends in Ontario as she was going through some stuff and I thought she could use a smile one day. I found it so hard every day to not tell everyone else. I found myself avoiding my parents and other family members and spent almost no time with my friends because I was just dying to share our news! Every time I would go home and whine to Jim that I just really wanted to tell someone, he would remind me of our decision and wanting to wait. I was really regretting our decision but I also really wanted that moment to be special when we did tell James and Jordie and I knew that by waiting and telling our family and friends after that was what felt right to both of us so I stuck with it even though it was really hard.
We had our ultrasound on Friday, October 7 and saw a healthy, growing, kicking little baby and at that point things felt so much more real and we really couldn't wait to tell the boys. I literally felt like I was bursting at the seams waiting for our photo shoot on Saturday (which ended up being pushed to Sunday because it poured rain all day on Saturday!) As soon as the photo shoot was done we rushed to McDonalds to treat the boys for lunch and then straight to Nana and Papa's to tell them. Once they knew, we went crazy telling everyone else so many of our friends and all of our family will already know before this blog post goes live!
The first trimester has been a bit rough, but mainly because keeping the secret has been killing me. SO many times I wanted to just tell someone, anyone, to get it off my chest, but I kept firm in wanting our boys to know first (or as close to first as possible). We told Jenn and Bill the night before the ultrasound so I could make plans with Jenn for the photo reveal for that weekend and I told Ash back on Labour Day weekend because she outright asked me a few days before and I had lied to her via text and I felt bad. And I wanted to have one person in on it that I could whine to in the coming 6 weeks. Poor girl had to endure more than a few whiny text messages and phone calls! Oh, and I also told my brother Ben when I was in Vancouver a few weeks back because I was miserable and just wanted to barf and was so tired of not telling anyone, so I told him too! Thankfully he knew so was able to come and take the video for us on the reveal day!
So, there you have it...another Barrows baby is on the way. Do you think it's another crazy little boy or will we finally have a little girl to even out the numbers a little bit in our household? We are pretty sure that this time we want to find out baby's gender but instead of finding out in the ultrasound we will have the tech write it on a paper and will give to our friends who will help us plan a big gender reveal party to be held hopefully in January. If I'm not going to find out privately in the delivery room with just Jim then I want to find out surrounded by all those that love us and our kids. I think it will be a really special moment for all of us and definitely one that we'll remember forever.
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