Q&A With Gabes and Anna: How Does a Busy Married Couple Prepare for Second Pregnancy?
Nothing went according to plan when we had Jere, our first baby.
So, now that we’re expecting baby number two, how are we preparing when we’re working full-time and caring for a two-year-old son?
Explore with us as we navigate our second pregnancy by answering some of the burning questions sent to us via Instagram.
Was this (second) pregnancy planned for deliberately?
To be honest, we would have wanted to get pregnant sooner.
The age gap between Jere and our new baby will be two and a half years. Ideally, we would have wanted the age gap to be two years or less.
We're about six months from our timeline, but we're okay with it. God's plan is better than our plan.
That process of trying and waiting to get pregnant was definitely difficult emotionally. We knew God would give us another baby, but we didn't know when.
We were like, "What's going on? Why is it not happening?"
But we just fully trusted Him in the process.
We’re now excited to be waiting for our new baby, and we thank God.
How did you feel when you first found out you were pregnant again?
We were excited and ready to go!
We’ve been trying to have baby number two for some time. We were like, "You know what? Life is already chaotic. Why not just add another one to the mix? Let's get them all out."
We also saw that Jere would be a great big brother.
We love being parents. And we've always wanted to grow our family, so we're very excited now knowing we're about to have two kids.
Is pregnancy easier the second time around?
No, definitely not. This second pregnancy is much harder than the first pregnancy.
Anna usually gets all the pregnancy symptoms–– nausea, pregnancy fatigue, name it–– in the first trimester.
With Jere, Anna had the pregnancy symptoms for the first 12 weeks only.
This time, the pregnancy symptoms were worse and lasted longer. Anna was experiencing them, particularly the morning sickness, until the 18th week.
On top of all that, we've got a toddler who doesn't care that we're pregnant.
We thank God now that the second pregnancy symptoms are gone.
This second pregnancy is very different from our first pregnancy, making us think the baby is of a different gender. Who knows?
Do you know the gender of the (new) baby?
No.
Gabes' colleagues didn't find out the gender of their children until they were born. So, he thought it might be a good idea not to find out the gender of our second child until "it" arrives.
He brought the idea to Anna, who was initially reluctant about it.
Eventually, Gabes convinced Anna to find out the baby's gender at birth.
We think it would be a great experience to find out at birth.
We also don't want to do another massive gender reveal party that costs a lot of money.
The gender reveal party we had for Jere was amazing, but we think it's better just to relax this time and prepare in other ways for our newest family member.
But keeping the baby's gender a secret until birth has a little bit of a downside for us.
Gabes doesn't feel that connected with baby number two. Since we don't know the gender, we haven't given the baby a name yet. So, in Gabes' mind, "it" doesn't exist yet.
With our older child, we had been calling him “Jere” for 20 weeks before he was born, which made Gabes feel connected to him.
What gender are you hoping for?
We don't know and honestly, we don't care.
But if we could choose, we'd love another boy.
Gabes gets along really well with his two sisters. But he thinks growing up with a brother of a similar age may have been a more interesting dynamic. They would’ve been up to so much mischief, similar to the relationship between Anna and her sister, who are only two years apart.
Anna has always seen herself as a ‘boy' mom. She doesn't know why but likes imagining being the only woman in the household.
Anna thinks a daughter would be great, especially if she has Gabes as a father figure. But she does want a boy.
We think it would be great to have Jere and another boy. We love imagining them running around the house and causing chaos.
Do you feel mentally and physically ready for another baby?
Yes, we actually do.
During our first pregnancy, nothing went according to plan. You can overprepare and end up preparing in the wrong ways, and that’s how it felt at that time.
So now, with our second pregnancy, we're not overthinking it.
We're going about it with our eyes wide open.
We go together to our midwife appointments. We ask the right questions, and we just keep moving. We listen to what information is presented to us at a given moment and make decisions based on that.
We find out at each given moment what we need to do.
Perhaps we feel calmer now than during our first pregnancy because we already have a young child and know we can be parents.
Also, we think this season is just much nicer in terms of the joy that we're feeling.
Anna is settled into her job. She has a very supportive boss. She's taking a year off after giving birth.
Considering the fact that you had a C-section with your first (child), how do you feel about the birth move for this (second baby)?
We're preparing not to have a C-section again.
We're adamant about having a vaginal delivery for this second pregnancy. The more we think about it and the more research that we do, the more we believe that the C-section wasn't necessary for our first pregnancy.
We have nothing against a C-section. We just want a vaginal delivery this time. We're doing what we can in preparation for that.
We are doing a lot of research. We are going to have a doula, who's going to be in the delivery room with us to help Anna have a natural birth.
What advice would you give to couples thinking about having baby number two?
Don't overthink it.
We live in a world where people have fewer and fewer kids. Statistics show that the average number of kids per family in the UK is 1.7.
If we look into the future and consider the decisions we would've wanted to make when we were younger, having more kids would probably be one of them.
It's easy for parents like us going through a second pregnancy to overthink the costs of having another child. There's also an internal conflict between wanting to pursue other things, such as career growth, and raising more kids.
Our parents and grandparents had far fewer resources than we have now, yet they were able to have many children, on average.
The things we overthink delay us from having the next child or stop us from having more kids.
We can worry so much about provision and capacity, but at the end of the day, we believe we will cope.
With our first child, we've coped and we've coped well.
So, right now, we're trying not to overthink, knowing that every child is a blessing. Children are part of the family, the most important thing in our lives.
So, we encourage you to underthink it and trust that God will provide as you choose to grow your family.
The Bottomline
We're thrilled to have our next baby and can’t wait to share our entire second pregnancy journey with you!
So, follow us online, and subscribe to our YouTube channel and newsletter to get the latest updates.
