16 weeks (as of last Sunday)

I haven't come out on Facebook yet. I haven't officially come out at work, either. The boss and one colleague knows.
But it's getting a bit harder to conceal. I went back at old blog entries trying to figure out if I'm tracking about the same as last time. But I must have been self-conscious of my weight gain because I hardly wrote about it and I certainly didn't track it. Let me tell you, though. I am rockin' a pooch. I can't remember for the life of me if I had one at this point back in 2009 but it's getting harder to conceal. Unfortunately, it's not so much a pregnancy look as it is like I've been hitting the candy bars a bit hard lately. Funny since I had done a cleanse twice in the past six months and had lost 15 lbs. No one has had the nerve (or balls) to say anything yet, though. I don't blame them. When I have a suspicion, I keep that sucker to myself. There isn't much worse in terms of a faux pas than asking someone if or congratulating someone on her pregnancy only to find out that she is not pregnant. I saved my husband once from that awful experience and he is forever grateful.
Anyway.
As of last week, the doctor said I gained six pounds. I think that's a bit much for 16 weeks since I gained 30 lbs w/ my daughter. Clearly I am not holding back and I really need to rein it in. The Man keeps telling me not to worry about it which is sweet. But here's the thing, it was one mother effer of a process getting off the baby weight. The last 10 lbs never came off and increased by 5 before I finally did the cleanse and got it all off. FOUR YEARS LATER. Yes, of course I want a healthy baby. Of course! But I can certainly eat more vegetables and fruits and lay off the bad stuff. Which is exactly what I need to do but really haven't. I'm putting it out in cyber space! This mama has got to get some self-control and stop inhaling everything that lands on my plate.
 Hubby is pretty excited since 16 weeks is the farthest we've gotten since The Bun. He's feeling good and decided to post our DIY-announcement photo. I've got to post the rejected photos when I have time. We took so many horrible photos! One of the pups would wiggle wildly so she looked like a blur in the photo. The Man didn't rush fast enough to sit down so he would be in motion when the camera went off. I would blink, The Bun wasn't smiling ... it was 45 minutes of continuous bloopers.
We finally got one usable photo. This isn't perfect but it's the best one, good enough, and we were all getting tired -

Can you see the pups' eyes? Piko (left) is has crazy-eyes while Pili (right) looks uneasy. I'd say, knowing how their world was turned upside down the first time, their expressions are appropriate.

I decided I'm going to come out at work next week. It so happens that I'm hosting a meet up for work at a bar so I figured that there will be situations that will naturally lead to me telling folks I'm pregnant. It won't be anything formal but if I tell a few people it will eventually spread like wildfire. That will probably be also the day I post this photo on FB.
My boss wanted to talk to me today about when I was going to let the general public know because there is an individual she already has in mind to take my position while I'm on leave. Am I nervous that she already has someone picked out? Well, my paranoia tendencies don't help much but I'm hoping for the best. When I told her that I anticipated letting everyone know next week, she said, "I feel like you're excited but very reserved. You don't want to talk about it much and you're happy but you don't want to show it." I thought about it for a minute and replied, "Yes, you're right. If this ends terribly, no matter what, it's heartbreaking. But I'd rather deal with it all by myself than have a bunch of people commiserating with me." And she told me she completely understood.
It's dark, I know. Believe me, I hesitated writing it because it sounds so negative. But it's how I feel and it's not all negative. I'm just trying to protect myself as much as I can even if it's futile. Every day I hope and pray for a healthy pregnancy and baby so I'm definitely hoping for the best. And every day, a little bit of me lets myself get a tiny bit more excited. For instance, I went ahead and bought this:

That is the Happy Baby wrap. I was won over when part of its description was that it was lightweight and good for hot weather. I'm due at the end of July! I don't own anything in bamboo fabric but that's what is supposed to make it different and better. It's also in my favorite color - not a deciding factor but does't hurt.
( Side note: Back in The Bun's early days, the big thing was the Moby Wrap. I was tempted to get it but didn't think I could master it. I ended up with this:

This is the Ergobaby. I just looked it up and it's still expensive. I thought it would go down in price since four years ago. I have to find where the heck this is because it was pretty handy. But I went ahead and bought the wrap because the Ergo, while very comfortable once on, is a little hard to get on by myself and it's huge. I look like I'm going camping whenever I used it.)
Even though I'm still cautious to announce and don't talk about my pregnancy much at all with the people that do know, me buying the wrap was a very subdued way of me showing my excitement for The Bean. Even though I want to protect myself, I can't help love this baby as soon as I knew he existed. Bean, if you ever end up reading this, you were a complete surprise but wanted and loved from Day One.