Friends, I’m delighted to announce we will be adding another member to our family later this fall!
And as predicted, as you may have guessed from those bright boy-blue cake pops, we’re continuing our Bosse tradition with the news that this sweet baby is a boy! Andrew and I had a good chuckle over it during our little reveal a couple weeks ago because we had a very strong inkling this next chapter was a part of our story.
We had been wanting to grow our family since last summer so we’re beyond grateful to be able to make this a reality in 2018. As a result there have been many questions that have come up with friends and family who have known our exciting news these first 15 weeks. I’d love to share some more below with you.
How are you feeling? Well friends, finally a bit better thank goodness because man, this pregnancy has kicked my butt. Mostly, I think it’s been hard because I made so many fruitful changes with my health and wellness last year, which had me operating at my full potential. I was eating very healthy, my energy levels were sky high, and I felt really good and well almost every day of the week. Then the week before I found out I was expecting I started noticing a strong distaste for most of my go to meals and foods like this beloved dish. My friend sent me a text the day I found out I was pregnant, asking me if I was alright because I had seemed really ‘off’ that day. I also started feeling more tired than normal but chalked it up to demanding work responsibilities and perpetual cold weather. But then the morning (all day?) sickness came fast and furiously, along with an exciting positive test, and before I knew it I was back on a diet of saltines, ginger ale, and buttered noodles.
I’ve slowly started to feel a bit more like myself now that I’m about four months along and can hold down vegetables again, but my body is changing like clockwork in a lot of apparent (to me) ways. Being about 20 pounds lighter at this point then I was when pregnant with Lachlan has been an adjustment but instead of feeling like I’m erasing all of the progress I made in the health department over the last year, I’m choosing to give myself grace.
Another boy! Were you surprised? I had thought perhaps this baby would be a girl given how awful my first trimester was and the gender predictions based on old wive’s tales but I told Andrew I would not be surprised one bit if this baby is a boy. I’ve been publicly stating my prayers and desires for a home full of sons and well, here we are, halfway to my desired four boys (full disclosure: we’ll see how two goes). So while it’s always a surprise to find out the gender of your baby, for the most part this feels like it’s been the plan for our family all along.
I’d love to write a post about expecting one gender when your heart may have expected another because I think sometimes there’s always a bit of an emotional reaction to the baby you’re NOT getting but for now I wanted to shared this pin. This is a pin on my vision board called Building A Legacy and was added there at the beginning of the year when I was mapping out what I wanted this year and ideally, the rest of my life, to look like. I was scrolling through my pins the day after we found out baby two is a boy and I had chills coming across that image.
How has this experience been different than with Lachlan? When I was pregnant with Lachlan I was in a different season. My business looked different, our marriage was in a different place, there were hard things happening with my family, and I had no way to know what pregnancy and motherhood would be like. So I tried my best to over prepare (which usually ends up back firing right?) and a lot of things threw me for loops. I don’t regret anything about my first pregnancy but I wish I would have relaxed a little more and enjoyed the ride.
Hindsight is twenty twenty right?
What will work and business look like with two kiddos? This is a great (and frequently asked) question, and one I’m taking more time to think, pray and strategize on. Andrew and I have been having a lot of conversations about what we want our family, home, and future to look like so we can best prepare to structure my business around that. I want a business that compliments my life not a life that compliments my business. And while that’s been a hard and uncomfortable approach to take because it feels so opposite from what a lot of goal-centered and successful women my age and in my season do, I know it’s best for us.
We have a full wedding season ahead with clients we adore so the team and I are eager to make magic happen this year. As I mentioned here in this post, the lifestyle facet of Rhiannon Bosse has grown over the last year in an effort to work towards new goals, so I plan on continuing that well into my role as a mama to two. I also plan to take a three month maternity break like I did with Lachlan, from late September following our final event through to the middle of January. My maternity leave with Lachlan was right before wedding season and that made it tricky for my caring heart to be always fully in one place at home versus being in many at once so this slight shift in due date this time around is welcomed. As for the rest of the pieces and where we want them to fall, we’re going to take some more time to intentionally plan for what the next chapter and season will look like!
Names? Nursery? Baby gear?! Will you share more? I’d love to talk about baby gear in a separate post because as current Financial Peace University students we, and more so I, have a really fresh perspective on what babies and moms need and what they do not. In my opinion, there’s a big bold line between the two, and it’s one of the reasons I’d love to tackle that in a separate post. I think having a boy again is so good for my heart’s contentment otherwise I would feel a strong desire and even a ‘need’ to buy all of the sweet but admittedly unnecessary things for a baby girl (the gender stereotypes illustrated in the separation of commercial goods like 30 different varieties of little girl shoes at Target versus 5 mediocre types of shoes for little boys is astounding!)
And yes, we have picked a name for our second sweet son! It will remain a surprise until this fall once he arrives. We are working on converting one of our spare bedrooms into a nursery for him using a lot of the items currently in Lachlan’s room but with some updated decor pieces (I plan to share both room designs once they are complete later this summer; exciting!). Lachlan has been due for some furniture and room upgrades anyway so the timing works out nicely. And baby gear? Well I’ve saved almost everything over the last 3 years because my strong mama intuition told me that one day we’d be here expecting another little boy . . .
While I’ve been deemed high risk with this pregnancy and am required to go in for biweekly check ins at the hospital’s fetal monitoring specialist (I have a genetic blood condition the doctors want to track which at this point is not thankfully causing any issues), I’m forever grateful we get to do this all over again. Andrew and I have been frequently reminiscing about the joys we experienced with Lachlan, and how it will be fulfilling to do this all over again but with an older brother in the mix. It’s not lost on us that the gift of parenthood is a blessing, and I especially feel grateful and humbled I get to share parts of it here publicly with you.
If you came here by way of my Instagram post today from the beaches of Seaside, Florida I’m sending sunshine and warmth your way! I look forward to sharing more when I’m home but for now a work-free vacation with my favorite boys is calling my name.
Xo
P.S. The photos throughout this post are from our incredible friend and family photographer Kelly Sweet. She has documented many of our cherished moments like my pregnancy with Lachlan, his first three weeks of life, and so much more. We loved having her with us for a quick ten minute cake pop reveal at our favorite coffee shop, even though we totally could have done without the cake pops and trusted this baby was a a boy!
Andrew’s pink shirt was just for good measure. You know, just in case.