Second Pregnancy Lowdown: Small Age Gaps

I’ve definitely been experiencing some ups and downs my second pregnancy. The upside is that I have been down this road before and I am very familiar with what is to come my way -- doctor visits, testing and a weak bladder to name a few things. The downside, however: I don’t really have too much time to focus on this pregnancy as a whole. Why is that? Well, I have a 21-month-old running my life!

When I was pregnant with my first son, Cameron, it was amazing, exciting and the pregnancy consumed my life (in a positive way of course). My husband and I were so happy to welcome a baby into our lives. I constantly took photos of my growing belly, kept a pregnancy journal and took videos each month to document every stage. I also had the luxury of never having to experience morning sickness. I was glowing and even my delivery went pretty perfectly!

My second pregnancy: I barely have time to take photos, let alone keep a journal, and guess what, no video in sight! A part of me feels guilty, but I have a baby on my hands this time around -- life is so different once a child is in your life.  

For our second baby, we’ve decided to find out the gender, we didn’t with our first. Knowing the gender didn’t matter at all the first time, we were just excited we had a bundle on the way! This time however, I know I have to prepare. If it’s going to be another boy, I wouldn’t need to get all new clothes, he could use Cameron’s hand me downs. If it’s going to be a girl, we’ll need to tweak the room they’ll share to be more gender neutral.  Also, letting Cameron knows he has a little sister on the way seems to be making the idea of a second child in the house more real to him.

I know that there will be some challenges to having two babies so close in age. Some folks believe it’s easier to just have them close in age so they can play together and grow up together (I’m a believer in that). I’ve also heard that it’s not the best thing, because you may focus most of your attention on the second baby and forget about the older child. All I can say is that I’m very happy with the decision my husband and I made to have the second child soon after our first. After all, he is my prince and there is more than enough room in this world to love both my prince and my soon to arrive princess.

Photo by ???????? Janko Ferlič on Unsplash