Pregnancy 1 versus 2 (Edition 1)

So even though it has been a few years now since I last found myself in this state I have already identified some definite differences between a first and second pregnancies. Some of these are likely due to inherent differences between the current and former inhabitants of my womb and the others are because the former resident is decidedly a factor in everything I do. The first, and unfortunately most notable, is just how much sicker I have felt this time. Now some of this could be post-delivery amnesia because I'll admit I didn't take very good notes the first time....I am this time... there will be no convincing myself that the whole pregnancy thing is all NA beer and roses after the fact again. But I really do think that this babe is rougher on me than the last. At my appointment with the midwife today I was telling her this and she asked me if it was the same father as last time (which it is Patrick, don't worry) because she had a few moms to be recently swear that this is why they felt more sick with one versus another and she thought that was interesting and has been asking around about it.

The other major difference has to do with dealing with a second pregnancy while parenting your previous one (aka the first born). For the most part Evie is delightfully helpful and understanding but there have certainly been some adjustments and fewer "peaceful" pregnancy moments thus far. The best example is yoga. Just this week I have started to feel better and have decided it was time to get my act together and start doing yoga again. When I was pregnant with Evie I did yoga just about every day at home and went to a class at least once a week. My home practice was this wonderful calming experience, quiet and generally involved nice smelling candles and the like. My yoga practice this week looked something like this:


In case you cannot discern what that is... that is my yoga mat in my office with all the couch pillows piled around it and numerous dolls thrown into the mix. I suggested to Evie that I was going to take a few minutes to do some yoga and she enthusiastically requested to join me. For some reason in her mind the best venue for this exercise was my all too small office and I didn't think it would be too crowded. Little did I know that her version of yoga involved a multitude of pillows and dive-bombing onto those pillows with my yoga mat as the launch pad. So there we were, me trying to do downward facing dog and Evie belly flopping onto her pillows... ahhh peace and serenity. Now I recognize that if I want peace it really needs to be between the hours of 8 pm and 6 am but the problem is I want to be sleeping then too. Oh well, even though it wasn't the most serene yoga experience it did leave my heart feeling light and happy because I was able to stretch, and quite frankly Evie is such a cutup that I laughed more during that 20 minutes of yoga then I did for the whole of the day leading up to it.