Well hello everyone! It's been a few weeks since I've been around these parts but for very good reason! We finally had our 2nd beautiful baby boy just before Thanksgiving! These last 2 weeks with our new bundle of joy have been filled with so much happiness and I've just been wanting to soak it all in as much as I possibly can. Today though, I want to share our birth story with all of you! So here we go...

Finn Joseph Cabrera joined us November 23, 2019 at 4:31pm weighing 8 lbs 12 oz and 19.5 in long.

The previous day I had my weekly check up for being 39 weeks. For the past 2 appointments I was only 1 cm dilated but I had been having so many false contractions I had high hopes that I had progressed a little bit more. Unfortunately though my doctor told me I was still only 1 cm! I was starting to get so frustrated because I was incredibly uncomfortable at this point. Caleb came with me to this appointment and we started to have the discussion about inducing. We had decided that if he hadn't come over that weekend, I would be induced on Monday the 25th. We wanted to be home for Thanksgiving and baby boy wasn't getting any smaller. My due date was Tuesday the 26th, so we would be almost right on target. This gave me such a sense of calm. I felt more in control and a lot of the anxiety of "when is it finally going to happen?!" melted away. My doctor also did a membrane sweep at this appointment with the hopes that it would get things moving. Well it certainly did! I could literally feel the relaxin releasing in my body the rest of the day.

I woke up the next morning tired and achy but no contractions. I decided to still go to my lash fill appointment that I had made for that Saturday morning. I wanted them to look good for photos on Monday, ha! Well about 30 minutes in to my appointment I started to feel some contractions. I had 3 that I believed were about 5 minutes apart. No big deal right? Well after those 3 contractions, my water broke! That's right...my water broke right on the lash bed. I had to tell my esthetician that I thought my water broke. Right away she took all the stuff off and had me go check and oh boy it had definitely broke! I was gushing water so I high tailed it out of there (thankfully I only live 5 minutes away so I didn't have any contractions while driving). When I got home, Caleb was already packing up the rest of our stuff. While we waited for my mom to get to our house to stay with Kai, I had a peanut butter sandwich with Kai for lunch. I was also chugging water in hopes of not being super dehydrated this time around like I was with Kai's birth. My mom got to our house really quick, we said our tear filled goodbyes to Kai and were off to the hospital!

When we got to the hospital they set me up in triage to get all checked in then moved me over to a labor and delivery room right away. I was at 3 cm when I got to the hospital and hadn't really progressed at all from the time I was in triage to the time I got to the labor and delivery room. This discouraged me a bit because I was having pretty steady contractions that were as close as 2 minutes apart and they were starting to get painful. Pretty much right away when we got to the labor and delivery room I asked for an epidural. They administered it and I started to feel a lot better. However though, I could still feel a lot of pain on my left side and after a little bit of time I started to feel faint and sick. My blood pressure was starting to drop but my nurse worked her magic by turning me on my left side and administering some medication to bring my blood pressure back up. I felt better within minutes. We then decided to try using the peanut ball to help move things along as well as started Pitocin. I also needed to get 2 doses of antibiotics 4 hours apart from each other because I had tested positive for Group B Strep. We figured we had some time to kill so Caleb and I put Friends on and tried closing our eyes for a little bit to get some rest.

After about an hour I started to notice a lot of pressure down low to the point where I felt like I needed to poop. I mentioned this to my nurse and she decided to check me just in case. While she was checking she all of a sudden had this shocked look on her face and said, "I can't feel anything. I think you're at a 10!" She called in another nurse to double check for her and she said the same thing. It was go time! I couldn't believe how fast I had progressed.

We started doing some practice pushes while we waited for my doctor to come. After only about 20 minutes they started prepping everything for delivery. I was honestly shocked by this. I had to push for so long with Kai that I was in disbelief at how fast this was moving along. After only 40 minutes of pushing, Finn was born!

They placed him on my chest right away and it was instant love. INSTANT. I felt this amazing connection with him right away and it all just felt right. Caleb cut the cord, we did skin to skin, and it was all so perfect.

I did have another 2nd degree tear in the same spot I tore the first time around and had to receive some stitches for it. I didn't even care this time though. I barely noticed any of what was going on except for how perfect Finn was. I also got the opportunity to see my placenta this time. One of the techs brought it over to us and explained the different parts of it, which both Caleb and I found so fascinating. They took Finn for a few minutes to do their routine check on him and thankfully all was great.

After the medical staff had left and it was just us and my nurse, we tried to breastfeed. Finn latched only after a couple of minutes and it truly brought me tears of joy. My hormones immediately started to level and I truly felt like I was on Cloud 9. 

We spent the next 2 days in the hospital because Finn had to be on a 48 hour observation to make sure he didn't get an infection from me being positive for Group B Strep. Since he was born so quick, I wasn't able to receive the 2nd dose of antibiotics I needed for it. While we were anxious to go home to Kai, it all turned out ok and it was nice to take advantage of the nurses help and peace and quiet of the hospital room. Finn was also testing a little high for jaundice, so it gave us peace of mind to still be at the hospital for a little extra time. We came home Monday the 25th and our journey as a family of 5 finally began!

We celebrated our 4 year anniversary a little over a month ago, so yes I'm very late on this one, but I will never let a year go by without doing this special anniversary post. Every year since Caleb and I have been married, I've done a "look back at the past year" post to celebrate each year of our marriage. This last year has brought so many trials for us, but we are more in love and stronger than ever. Caleb has been there for me to pick me up every time I'm down about losing my dad, through all the pregnancy hormones, and fatigue of having to take care of a one year old. He keeps our house running while I grow our second bundle of joy. Not every day is sunshine and roses but even on the hardest days, I wouldn't want anyone else by my side living this life. That is exactly what marriage should be and I've got to say, we're still rockin' it!

Cheers to this incredible year of love and strength and many many more!

My Mother's Day gift this year was a mini photoshoot with Kai. It was such a special way to remember this Mother's Day...my 2nd one as a mother and last one as a mother of 1. We are so excited to welcome another baby in our a family and this is also where we shot our announcement photos!

I've always wanted to be a mother but since actually becoming one, I truly know that is why I was put on this earth. To be Kai's mother. The bond I have with Kai is honestly unfathomable to me and I've actually struggled a little bit emotionally with this pregnancy at the thought of loving another human as much as I love Kai. I know I will when the baby comes, that's a given, but right now, I honestly just can't imagine it. It makes me feel guilty in many ways sometimes. I feel guilty that I won't be able to give 100% of my attention to Kai, and I feel guilty that I even have these feelings with Peanut. But deep down inside I know, growing our family is one of the most wonderful things that God has blessed us with and it is all just going to fall in to place as time goes by. There is not a love in this life that is remotely comparable to the love you feel for your children, and it is pure magic.

*Photos courtesy of Hallie Duesenberg.

Wow guys it's been quite awhile since I've been on here and not only am I sorry for that but I really miss writing on here and connecting with all of you! Life has been so crazy lately that it has forced me to slow down in some areas, which includes Tiny Dapper Fox and social media. But that's life right!? I feel like I'm finally entering that second trimester bliss where I'm getting some energy and motivation back so I plan to take full advantage of it while it lasts! So my plan is to start posting a whole lot more. This is my creative outlet and you all are truly my family. So in the spirit of getting things going again, I thought I'd just do a little post on what we've been up to the last few couple of months since we obviously have had some big changes happen!

New Jobs
Caleb and I both have started new jobs in the last few months. We're both with our same companies we've always been with but have taken steps further in our careers, and couldn't be more excited about it. Caleb is working in a more analytics based field now, which is so great for him because he is a numbers guy and loves that kind of stuff. As for me, I am now a Project Manager! This role is where I've been wanting to end up for about 2 years now. I applied for the job back in December and after a long interview process, was offered the job back in April. I had to split my time with my old job until May, and for the last couple of months, I've just dived in to my new role. I'm loving it so much and while it can be really tiring at times, it's been wonderful. I get to travel a little bit for this job now, too. I was in Phoenix, AZ for most of last week for some training/work. I'm currently running 3 projects right now and every day I'm so excited for the challenge that this new opportunity is presenting me with.

Pregnancy #2
So if you didn't see my last blog post from a couple of weeks ago, I'm pregnant again! We're expecting baby #2 around Thanksgiving, which puts me at 18 weeks right now. This pregnancy hasn't really been a cake walk, especially with having a 1 year old to take care of + starting a new job. All good things, all good things, but it can be exhausting at times. I was very sick during my first trimester and actually had to be on progesterone for about 6 weeks, which I believe made me even sicker. I'll be doing a full recap of my first trimester soon with all the deets. But it hasn't been all bad! I started feeling tiny little baby kicks around 15 weeks, I'm healthy, the baby is healthy, and Kai is fascinated by my growing belly. We're so excited to be growing our family and are really looking forward to the holidays this year!

Adventures
So we haven't been going on too many adventures with me not feeling so great the last few months, but once in awhile I try my hardest to muster up some energy and get out of the house. We went to the Chicago Botanic Garden for Mother's Day, we've been to a few Cubs games, Kai started swim lessons, and we've taken a couple of day trips up to Milwaukee. It's been really cold for summer here in Chicago with lots of rain, so honestly we've just been trying to have as much fun at home as possible with movie marathons, gardening, and letting Kai just use his imagination. Speaking of movies though, last weekend we took Kai to see his first movie in theaters...Toy Story 4! We were brave and tried it out with him and he did surprisingly well!

House Projects
Caleb has been amazing and has kept our house running these last few months, so I don't have too much to report on house stuff. The office is still coming along (the built-ins are done but not decorated...fail on me), we're re-doing some things for our deck, and I still haven't really transitioned the house from spring to summer yet. That's kind of my goal for this weekend if I'm feeling up to it though! We have gotten outside as much as we can to do yard stuff and gardening, so our outside is really coming along. 

I think that about sums it up! Just lots of resting and trying to survive is really the name of the game these last few months, but that's ok. That's the season of life we're in and we're trying to embrace it the best we can. What have you all been up to lately? Share with me some exciting things in the comments below!

We're so excited to announce that baby #2 will be joining our little family this November! I am about 16 weeks along and due just before Thanksgiving. We found about our newest addition back at the end of March and are so excited to grow our family. Kai is going to be the best big brother and we can already tell that he's excited. We've nicknamed this little one, Peanut!

I'm so excited to back track and share all about my first trimester with all of you as well as take you along on the journey through this pregnancy and becoming a family of 5. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all the love and support you continue to give our family!