My Fourth Pregnancy

Renee Canham:  Hi everyone this is Renee from www.monkeybums.com.  A monkey bum is a baby sling business that I started about two years ago. It’s a business that I do out of my house and I started it to really help other people get attached to their babies and help them discover natural parenting.  I also started monkey bums so I could stay home with my kids and so that I could home school my kids, that’s a really important thing to me in my life.  I have three kids; I have a seven year old, a five year old and a three year old - my baby who is hardly a baby anymore. 

Then also, I’m 27 weeks pregnant with our fourth and we just found out that it’s a girl so we are going to have our two boys and our two girls and that’s really exciting for us.  Our boys are together in the lineup and then our girls will be together in the lineup so that’s really exciting for us.  I’m here to give information about being pregnant, what goes on during pregnancy and I happen to be one of those moms that absolutely loves being pregnant.  I have a little rough time during the first 12 weeks or so when I have a little bit of morning sickness, not too bad though so I’m lucky.  I think it was the worst with the first and after that I think it kind of evened out. 

Some things that I like about being pregnant is that it really encourages you to take care of yourself. It really encourages me to eat well because I know I m growing a baby inside of me that needs good nutrition.  While you are pregnant your hair grows really well for most people, your skin glows and not only that but you are more prone to take good care of yourself.  Like I said,  when you are pregnant you are more likely to take it a little bit easier and take care of you body and take care of yourself because you know your body is doing a lot of good work.  One of my favorite parts of being pregnant is feeling the baby move – I just love that.  It happens at different times for every mom.  I’ve heard of some moms feeling their baby move as early as eight or 12 weeks which didn’t happen for me. 

I didn’t feel them move until closer to 16 weeks or so.  That first time when you feel your baby move is so exciting!  It’s a little bump and it feels different from anything, I can’t even describe it actually!  It’s definitely like something is in there moving around and then the further along you get in your pregnancy the more the baby moves.  At 27 weeks we have quite an acrobat.  Our baby moves so much.  Some of the downfalls of being pregnant are definitely for me is the tired feeling – I get tired a little bit easier while I’m pregnant.  I have to make sure that I get extra rest and this is actually my first time being pregnant through the summer.  I’ve been lucky before – I have a February, April and then a June baby so it wasn’t too hot when my third was born in June. 

We’re not due until September; I’m going to be pregnant through the nice hot summer, which is a little bit more challenging.  I get hot really easy – the weather has already started getting really hot.  My feet swell the hotter it gets so it makes it harder for me to run around after my other three kids and work on my business because you get tired, hot and swollen and yucky.  But for the most part, being pregnant is such an amazing experience and I really love being pregnant. 

Obviously, it’s our fourth time.  I feel like I’m becoming somewhat of a pregnancy expert now that we are on our fourth time around.  I’m going to be here to keep you posted on the in’s and out’s of pregnancy. Next time I’m going to focus on what it’s like to be pregnant with other kids – we have three little ones running around. 

I’ll be here to give you some input and advice on what you can do with your other kids and how you can get some rest and relaxation and still be a great mom for those other kids that are running around.  It’s actually great – I love being pregnant with my little kids, I love seeing them interact with the baby in my belly and kiss the baby and talk to the baby.  So I’ll talk more about that next time.  If you would like to get more information about me, you can check out my bio – it’s on www.babytalkradio.com  Thanks very much – bye.