I am 36 weeks pregnant with my second child. It feels like this baby will come earlier than his/her due date of November 15, 2009. But I hope s/he is born in November. Alexei was Troy’s birthday present, born just one day before Troy’s birthday. And so I would like this baby to be my birthday present, born at least in my birthday month, no matter how many days before.

I am also working part time now. And I love it! I don’t get as bored at work and when I come home we all have lunch together. Then I put Alexei to nap and have some time for myself. I already finished all I could in my first baby’s scrapbook. This Saturday night I am going to Robyn’s to finish it up with stickers. I catch up on my reading, get ready for the second baby and the new house.

Yes, hopefully by October 30 we’ll get the keys to our new home. We already started packing. But, I won’t get too excited until I know for sure that the house is ours. Surely, Debbie, our agent is doing a great job in making sure everything goes as planned. We all like the house a lot. Even Alexei feels like at home there already. I will write more about him and his accomplishments in my next blog entry.

The weather now is beautiful. It is fall. It rained a lot last week and Alexei and I got to go outside for a little bit. We walked around a block only. This week it is sunny, worm, almost 70 F and beautiful. The sky is blue, the trees are changing color. Life is good!

What makes my life even better is my family here. Troy’s relatives are very nice, his parents are always so helpful and supportive and my husband himself makes my life so much more interesting, easier and enjoyable. And of course our little boy makes our family a very happy one!

Today is Sabbath, June 27, 2009. It is 7am and I am well rested and can’t stay in bed any longer. I took a good two-hour nap yesterday while Alexei napped. I try to let myself rest on the weekends because I can; my husband lets me and it’s good for me (and for the little one inside me).

Yes, I am pregnant! And this time we did not announce it to everybody right away like we did last time. In fact, some of my friends still don’t know it. We just decided to wait for people to ask the direct question, “Are you pregnant?” instead of telling them that I am. I think it’s exciting to see the surprised faces of our friends when all of a sudden they see that I have a big belly. However, I’ve been pregnant for 20 weeks now and only one person noticed and dared to ask me the question. Most of the people who know asked me the question when I was not showing yet and they figured it out over the course of our conversation.

It was not very hard to keep it a secret from everybody. However, I think it would have been much easier for me if I could have shared the news and talked with someone about how I felt. This pregnancy is quite different from the previous one in that I did not feel good in the first trimester. During the first pregnancy I felt great, normal and energetic all throughout, whereas this time I experienced all the typical ‘joys’ of the first trimester (except the throwing up part). Not being able to talk to someone about it, other than my husband, did not make it better.

Talking about my husband, I should say that he’s been such a great support to me! Before I started working and got pregnant, my responsibilities included: cooking, washing the dishes, laundry, cleaning the apartment, plus taking care of Alexei most of the time. After the two above mentioned events changed my life, it all fell on the shoulders of my husband. And he has been doing marvelously great! Every time I came home from work feeling nauseous and tired, there was a delicious dinner ready. And after dinner I often laid down on the couch and that was it for me for the day. Troy took care of the kitchen, our son and anything else that needed to be done, got my lunch and breakfast ready for the next day and tucked me into my bed. Then he worked until late at night. Isn’t he the most wonderful, caring and loving husband – I am so lucky!!!

Thank goodness, the first trimester is over and I am back to my responsibilities. However, once in a while, Troy still helps me. I think he spoiled me a little. Sometimes I just feel lazy and ask him to do things for me and he happily does it, because he understands that I am pregnant and simply because he loves me.

The first person to find out that we are expecting was my sister. I broke the rule, which happened more than once, and told her. It was her birthday and giving her the honor to be the first one to know the news seemed like a nice present. Next to find out were my mom, my grandma and my aunt. They are overseas, so it is a little hard for them to guess about my pregnancy, so I had to tell them myself. Then Troy sent a lovely e-mail to his mom on Mother’s day with the same “present” as my sister got, and this is how Troy’s family found out, and, as a result, the whole Atholton church. The rest of our friends who know asked us the direct question. But there is still a bunch of our other close friends who see us periodically and still have not asked! Maybe they are too polite and don’t want to ask this delicate question? We’ll find out…