Well, we’ve been keeping a big secret over the last three months… we’re pregnant! Baby Bigelow Number 2 is due this winter, with an expected date of January 29th. I shared a little background on Instagram to go along with our announcement (watch the reel here), but to continue on with my motherhood diary on this blog as I did with my first pregnancy, here’s the story on it all.

@thegreyedit

we have some news! baby bigelow number two will be joining the fam january 2023 // #pregnancyannouncement #pregnancytiktok #babynumber2 #pregnant

♬ This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) [2005 Remaster] – Talking Heads

It’s interesting looking back on the post I did to announce our first pregnancy. Since meeting Trevor, in 2010, we were fortunate enough to have year after year of excitement take place during our relationship. Moving in together, getting engaged, getting a dog, getting married, buying our first home, traveling, making career moves, getting pregnant. You know… the whole “natural progression” of things that seems to occur as much as you strive to be different. And it was wonderful. Fond memories and major milestones. But then, in 2019 and 2020, the world fell apart. There was uncertainty, unknown and a whole lot of worry. 2021 really felt like a year where we’d get back on track, but these last three ended up being the most challenging we’d encounter yet.

JUST TO NOTE :: By now I think we all know this, but it’s important to point out that most of what we see shared online –across social media, blogs/vlogs — is in fact, very much a highlight reel. I love how vulnerable we’ve become as a society as of late, but we do have much further to go. So when it comes to what I share with you all, I aim to keep an honest approach. I’ve cut back a bit on extreme detail via stories day and night, but I do still love to share. Partly as a continued digital journal and also, in the case you can relate and perhaps, not feel alone. Because at the end of the day, we really are all going through something.

“Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.”

Jim Rohn

When Boden was born in 2019, it was such an exciting, messy, beautiful and chaotic time. Navigating the new life as a mother and as parents, mostly at home. I ended up having some pretty tough postpartum anxiety and depression — concepts I really hadn’t experienced before. Therapy, self care, giving myself grace, getting childcare and launching my photography business at the start of 2020, helped greatly.

Around this time, Trevor was experiencing frustration with his company and we were brainstorming ways to get through it. After all, I went through this a few years before and he encouraged me. The hard part here was he had been the breadwinner, so to speak, for the majority of our relationship. Owning his own company since we met had its ups and downs, but had set us up comfortably. Taking a leap would definitely impact us. Especially with my business being so new, but we were aligned that we wanted to both be happy and fulfilled in our careers. So he inevitably made the very hard decision to maintain his ownership in the company he started, but leave to try his hand at something new. And though it felt like the right move at the time, it was incredibly challenging. Especially considering right after, the pandemic hit.

I know many experienced hardships during 2020 with COVID and work, and we were in that bracket. I with a new business as an entrepreneur, Trevor without a paycheck, trying to figure out something new as an entrepreneur as well. I luckily had steady growth with photography, and owe that to the amazing, local community I had built over the years. He, being the smart man that he was and is, found his way involved in a new business. It was exciting, but definitely a high risk/high reward situation, that ended up unfortunately not working out in the end. Which after over a year’s time, resulted in him going back to his company. This time, with an entirely new outlook and a more mature relationship with his partners.

It all ended up working out in the end, as things usually do. But the impact this transition period with both of our careers had on us, was really challenging. Egos were crushed, emotions ran high, trouble with family happening alongside. All resulting in hurting us as a family together at home. Our marriage therapist we’d been seeing for a couple of years was there with us through it all… and we honestly don’t know if we could have made it through without her. Coupled with that and our little Boden Grey — who was the true light that held us together.

These hard times impacted our “plan” to have a second child. We intended to try and get pregnant a little earlier on but instead decided to do the work on us so we could be better equipped for what more would come our way. And that’s what we did and have done since. We carried on and have been growing individually and together — and now feel stronger than ever.

After the dust settled last fall, we decided a change in our environment was definitely what we needed. So we listed our beloved craftsman, our first home, and set out to find something new where we could start the next chapter fresh. We sold our home in November 2021, put all of our things in storage and decided to rent while we hunted, being picky and trying to stay flexible. Another transitional period that we knew would have challenged us. However because of the endurance we’d built up, we kept our heads up and were solid throughout the ride.

Come May, while in our second rental, a quaint Airbnb, I grew a little nervous as I was over a week late with my period. We had just decided we’d start trying at the end of the year, and though I hadn’t been on birth control since having Boden, we’d been careful, so we thought. The nerves I had were around the fact that maybe we weren’t ready yet. Maybe there was still a bit more work to do. Oh, and the fact that we didn’t even have a home! But when we found out the news on yet another Monday night, it was true… we were pregnant. Baby number 2 was coming a tad later, but then a tad earlier too than expected. And we were so excited.

That’s just life in a nutshell, isn’t it? You can’t plan all aspects of it. It happens. There’s a reason for it (I believe), and you continue living. So we moved on with trying to rebuild our life while keeping this big secret. I tried to keep calm as the weeks went on, but the nervousness of making it through the first trimester without complications lingered. On top of that, I had a pretty rough first trimester: extreme fatigue, lack of motivation, a whole lot of acne and just an overall “funk” of a mood. I powered through, and we tried to crank up the gears with our house hunt. This time in Seattle for real estate was nuts — low inventory, houses going for an insane amount over. We felt discouraged so many times but tried to stay positive.

Then, not very long after finding out we were pregnant, things just started to fall into place. Trevor’s company reached an incredible goal and we found a house that was everything we wanted. We took a month to close and found out Boden got accepted into the only other daycare/nursery school I got us on a waiting list over two years ago, that happened to be near our new neighborhood within that time. We got the keys last month, moved our entire life out of storage, learned Baby B Number 2 was healthy as can be, and are just still in disbelief with how it all happened so fast. Finally, after a handful of hard years, all feels right in our world again.

So here we go again… baby number two! I’m feeling like myself again now at 15 weeks/3 months, sitting with a bump that’s popped a lot sooner than before. We have a home I can’t wait to nest in. Trevor and I couldn’t be more humbled by the experience. We told Boden he was going to be a big brother during a recent family getaway to celebrate in Seabrook. We also did a little gender reveal, which I’ll be sharing in another post soon.

Until then, I’m so excited to continue connecting with this community of women. We’ve exchanged stories via DMs about shifting gears with our careers, getting pregnant, navigating relationships as new parents, figuring out life as new moms and of course, our favorite elevated basics ;). You’ve been there without even knowing and I just am grateful for you all. Thanks for reading if you’ve made it to the end. Please continue to drop me a note anytime.

Much love,