Finding Out the Gender?! 💜 Starting Over, Age Gap & Future Plans | Honest Pregnancy Q&A

Well, hey friends, it's Natalie. So glad you stopped by to hang out with me today for a chatty video. Grab something to drink or a snack and settle in. We're going to have a cozy time together. I like to do Q&As every season or so, and this time around. Happy autumn but also I just made the announcement on my channel that we are expecting our triple rainbow baby here in the early spring and since then we have gotten Tons of support and love, and thank you so much for all of that. Along with the support and love, we've also gotten a lot of questions, so I thought it would be time to sit down and get caught up and do a Q&A. I noticed that a lot of these questions ask the same sort of topic, so I'm going to kind of lump these together FAQ style and start with one that I think I got the most questions about age gap and starting over essentially with Baby number four, like this question says, how are you feeling about starting over in the sense that your other kids are older and out of the newborn littles stage? And she said, coming from someone who just started over and definitely recommend. I've gotten other questions. What is the age gap between your kiddos? How do you feel about that age gap? Do you have concerns? Are you a little bit scared to have to go through it all over again? The boys just turned 12. Haley turned nine earlier this year. So by the time this baby is born, she will be almost 10 and the boys will be nearing their 13th birthday. And yeah, that is a larger age gap than what's typical of millennial parents. I see this age gap as being a beautiful opportunity for my kids to To learn at an age where they can really retain this. information and this experience and they can see through the eyes of someone quite a bit younger than they are. I have experience with a large age gap because I am 11 years older than my younger brother. I'm eight years older than my youngest sister and I loved the experience and I think that I've heard from my younger brother and sister that they too enjoyed having an older sibling in kind of just a different stage of life. I'm in a different... Actually, birth generation than they are. They're Gen Zers. I'm a millennial. There was a lot that kind of separated us society-wise, age-wise, but we're actually really, really close and always have been. I'm not even remotely concerned for the new baby. Nor the three older kids that I have. I think one of the benefits for me personally, if we're talking about my experience of starting over, is that I have the perspective now of a more seasoned mom. I haven't experienced everything by a long shot, but I've experienced a lot in the nearly 13 years that I've had babies with me. And... That experience has taught me that the newborn baby stage, even getting up into those toddler years, the potty training, the late nights, the postpartum time, it's all such a short fleeting time, not just for me, but for every household member. I have a perspective on the baby stage now that gives me, I think, a lot of bravery and I can anticipate it with excitement rather than dread. I've talked a lot on my channel over the years about simple living and minimalism. And I actually got several questions about like, do you regret? decluttering things out that you could be using for this baby or for your maternity time or postpartum time? The answer to that question is a resounding no. I don't regret a single thing I've ever decluttered and I've said that several times before and now that I'm kind of in this new phase I can still say that wholeheartedly. I think the real estate that would have been taken up in any storage area would have cost me more to maintain it, organize it, keep inventory, even if it's that like kind of silent inventory in my head, than what it costs to acquire it again, especially since there have been updates to safety standards, there have been recalls, and Before any of those recalls or stuff happened, People have been using those items that I passed on to them whether it was if it was a sister of mine having a baby and I passed some gear and stuff for clothing or whatever onto them or I donated things or I gave it to like a women's ministry or whatever they have served a much better purpose actually being utilized than sitting in my garage collecting dust. Something that I am very much lacking right now and do have to purchase is maternity clothing. Nothing fits. The bump is bumping. And this has been the only piece that I have been able to wear. This is a maternity and nursing dress. It's the comfiest. I live in this dress. This is a dupe for a dress that a friend gave me from a very popular, very expensive maternity brand that rhymes with scratch. And I loved it. I didn't love that it didn't have pockets. Come to find out, Quince made a dupe. Not only is it way cheaper, but they also added pockets to the design. So thank you so much, Quince. I will be ordering one in every color, and thanks to them for sponsoring the next couple of minutes of this video. I made my first purchase with Quince in 2021, and ever since then, I cannot stop raving about their high-quality, beautiful, timeless pieces made with premium materials like organic cotton, Cashmere washable silk. Especially now with my changing body I'm really appreciating comfortable versatile clothing that I can reach for again and again. But Quince isn't just clothing. They have everything from beautiful jewelry and accessories to hotel quality bedding, bath essentials, kitchenware, and even furniture at a fraction of the price that you would pay at big name brands. Because they work directly with top manufacturers and cut out the middlemen, they offer these elevated everyday essentials at prices 50 to 80% less. than similar brands. The fact that Quince has just followed me through my journey and they have something for every occasion, whether it's gifting for the holidays, which are coming up or stuff for my kids or stuff for my home now stuff in my maternity era. I love them so much. And I know you will too. So you can follow the link in my description box, quince.com/NatalieB When you follow that link, not only are you helping to directly support my channel, and I'm so very grateful for it, but you also get free shipping, 365 day returns, and Quince is available in Canada and the UK. So it's been wonderful to see them expand. You can click the link in my description box or type in q-u-i-n-c-e.com slash Natalie B for free shipping plus 365 day returns. And don't forget to let Quince know where you heard about them by selecting YouTube and then typing in my channel name after checkout. Thank you all so much for checking out and supporting the brands that I get to work with that helps support videos like these on my channel. And it helps me help support our growing family on the subject of the babies that we lost. I got a lot of questions about those babies, and I have shared the first miscarriage, but I chose to not share the next two. I just needed some time in my private life to go through it. But I've had some people ask if we pick names for those babies as well. I shared with you that the first baby we lost, we named them Shiloh, which means the peaceful one, and there's a whole sweet story around that name. After we lost Shiloh and decided to try again, I was filled with hope. I, even though was heartbroken and grieving and physically recovering, when the time was right, we decided to try again. And so I had that baby just in my heart named Hope from the very beginning. We did lose that baby. We named that baby Hope, and we will always remember that baby. And it took a lot of perseverance to try again for the third time. And so in my mind, in my heart, I named the third baby that we conceived Perseverance, which probably wouldn't end up being the baby's first name. It might have been their middle name if they ended up staying with us and being born. I just lovingly call the third baby Percy, Shiloh, Hope, and Percy. It's just kind of this peace, hope, and perseverance has just kind of been the three signs along the highway. If you will, of this journey that we've had. And I kept peace and hope and perseverance with us when we approached the fourth try. And those babies will always be remembered by us. I have a lot of questions here about my experience with trying to conceive and what might have been different this time around heading into this pregnancy and why things may have worked out with this baby versus the three babies that we lost. And I think I'm just going to keep this answer pretty brief because There really isn't too much of an answer. We were both tested for various things that would contribute to fertility issues. All of our tests came back normal or negative or whatever it was. Thank And in fact, we actually looked pretty healthy on the numbers. It wasn't just baseline. It was like, we're actually on the healthy side of things, both of us. I'm so grateful for that, but Sometimes when you're going through health issues and challenges, you want something to show up on a test to say, oh, this might be the problem. Here's a solution. you. This is something. Here's supplements. Here's a different regimen. Here's a treatment. Here's whatever. Because there didn't seem to be really any actual problem on paper. We didn't feel that there was anything that we could change. We already live quite a healthy lifestyle, have a good diet, we have good habits. So because there wasn't anything that needed to be cut out or really added, we were willing to give it another try and just take it. Cycle by cycle, and I conceived relatively quickly after the last loss, and this baby stayed with us, so we're really, really grateful for that. And unexplained loss, sometimes, like I said, you do want an answer as to why. I don't have an answer why we lost those three babies. They're with the Lord, and this baby right now is with us, and we'll just, we'll see what the future brings. A lot of questions came in in the category of... Our home and rooms, kids' rooms, and where we're going to fit the baby. When we purchased this home or when we were looking to buy this home and we ended up here, it was with the idea kind of in the back of our minds that maybe someday we would have another baby. We always wanted to kind of factor that into what we were looking at and what we were considering purchasing. And when we ended up with this one... This extra room that's off of the main bedroom of our house, I've called it my office. I had my computer set up in there. We've used it as a storage room. It's kind of a disaster now. But... When we went through this journey this year with trying for a baby, it became clear what that room's purpose is now. It will absolutely act as a nursery for this baby. We live in an area where siblings share rooms, even siblings of different ages, even siblings of different genders, sometimes up to a certain age that makes sense and is appropriate. So we'll make those adjustments as we go and we'll consider different things. It's how I grew up. I never resented sharing. a room with any of my siblings. I had my own room for a little bit and then a little sibling moved in. In our community, in our kind of corner of the world, it's super typical for siblings to share rooms. So it's never been a concern of ours. I am looking forward to having this room off of our main bedroom be converted into a space that actually has a very outlined purpose. It's just kind of been this amorphous, frustrating space and I would really like to have a project to work on. I've had some questions about like, are you nesting? Are you working on projects in your home? What are you doing to prepare for the baby? I haven't done a ton of preparation, I will say, with going through the losses. I didn't want to make too much changes in our house before we got to a certain point, and while I know. There's no real safe zone, loss can happen at any stage. Thank you. There statistically is a much better chance of meeting this baby once we cross into this new trimester. And so I'm starting to set out and do a little bit of planning, doing a little pinning on Pinterest. Also working on a project in our school room. I am finally building our nurse Nursery. Our library shelving and window seat install in there. I'm looking into our kind of dining room, school room area. It's an absolute disaster. Things when you're pregnant, because I didn't work on big projects when I was pregnant before. I am learning that things take a lot longer. I am taking a lot more breaks. The brain work to figure out the assembly, the building, Like I'm not as quick and sharp. As I am when I'm not pregnant, pregnancy changes you. It changes your body and your mind. And so I'm giving myself. weeks to complete this project. I don't know when the video will be posted for you all. It's going up as a house to home episode, a little renovation episode. At this point, it has taken twice as long just to get the first step done. And that's not because anything has gone wrong. It's literally because of me. Here's a one off question that I got. I don't think anyone else asked this. Any plans for a baby moon? It's well earned. That is very sweet. No, we have not put plans together for any sort of trip. Between now and when the baby is expected, it's not a great time of the year to travel and I don't know that we would really want to. We might take a weekend away. We might go do something together, but it would probably be on the more spontaneous side of things rather than like planned months in advance. Since it's been almost 10 years since you last had a baby, have you noticed how much has changed with pregnancy care, baby products and technology? Are you overwhelmed by it all? Is there anything new you're especially excited about? Uh, yes, it is overwhelming. I mean, the most techie thing when my kids were babies, I feel like that was kind of when the Owlette sock came out, but oh my goodness, the breast pumps available right now, the wearable, like you stick the wireless. thing in your bra. I don't know that this will be the same this time around, but with both the boys and with Haley, I was an overproducer. So I ended up doing a lot of pumping just to manage the oversupply and to stay comfortable. I ended up donating a lot of milk and I'm sure I will need a pump this time around for whatever application it is, but there's so many things to choose from. They have Cribs that rock themselves. I don't know. I think babies are pretty simple. I don't think we, I sound like such an old timer when I say it this way. There's a lot of wisdom and kind of the, let's keep things simple. We don't need every gadget and gizmo. Don't need all of the latest and greatest stuff. If it's something you would legitimately benefit from and it would make your your life a lot easier, go for it. But if we're getting it just because it's like the Shiniest, coolest, latest technology, and we feel like we're missing out if we don't have it? Probably not the best reason to have something. I'm definitely going to have to read up on any of the new recommendations and stuff like that, and then also trust my gut with things and keep things simple. One of the newer technologies, like as far as maternal care goes, that I've taken advantage of this time around, because it's now available to me, is the early gender testing. So when I was pregnant with the boys, it was not available, wasn't offered or talked about or anything. And then when I was pregnant with Haley, it was not mainstream. It was not routinely offered. And if you inquired about it. It was super expensive to like get the DNA blood test which tests for fetal sex. It was like thousands of dollars to get this test done. This time around everyone's doing it and the technology has advanced so much that it's much more accessible and much more affordable. And I've gotten that's one of the most asked questions is are you going to find out the gender? Do you know the gender? Are you going to wait for it to be a surprise? So I've always thought that it would just be wonderful to be surprised at the birth. It didn't make sense for me to save the boys as a surprise, just with the whole twins thing, first time mom, we needed to set ourself up. We were on a super tight budget. So I needed to make sure that whatever I purchased was for the right gender, like as far as baby clothing and gear and stuff like that goes. And things back when the boys were born were much more gendered than they are now. There's a lot more gender neutral options. And I think staying surprised is a little bit bit easier in this era. With Haley, I wanted to know. And I was glad to know that she was a girl, and that was really fun and a lot of excitement and anticipation. This time around, if it was up to just me, I would have been content to be surprised at the birth. But we have a little girl who would love to have a little sister. And so we thought it's probably a good idea for us to find out for her sake, if nothing else. because if it is a little girl Hooray. We will go ahead and get excited about it. If it's a boy and she has some level of disappointment, we have time over the next several months to work through that in our hearts together and to get excited about having a little brother. Maybe she and I can go shopping for some things together and we can take this time while I'm pregnant to get used to the idea of another brother rather than waiting for the baby's born. And guess what? It's a boy. And to maybe possibly have that hinder some of her bonding with the baby. The boys, they couldn't care less. They are just happy to have a baby join our family. They are so excited. They know what it's like to have a little sister. So that's no big deal to them. They'd be thrilled to have a little brother too. So whatever works for them. And Weston and I felt the same way. Haley was really the only one of us who had a preference. So our early gender DNA results did. Come back and if it's correct, which it should be, we do know what the gender is and we're excited about it, but we're just kind of enjoying that news privately as a family until we can confirm visually on the anatomy scan, which is just right around the corner. So I will share with you all once we get to that point. Do you have a name picked out for this baby? Yes, we do. And it came to us very clearly. And we didn't agonize over it. If the gender that we've been told with the early blood work is correct, then we absolutely have the name. And that is something that we will be keeping private until the baby is born. And we've told all of our family and everyone. That's how we did it with the other pregnancies as well. Congratulations to your sweet family. Do you plan to share plans for the nursery? Yes, we do. Later on, probably after the holiday season is when we'll get to work. On that, we have a busy few months ahead of us, especially with this project that I'm working on in the school room. Have you had any cravings this time around or aversions? I have. I was quite nauseous in my first trimester. I'm not someone who throws up very much when I'm pregnant, but I am nauseous around the clock. It's not morning sickness for me. In fact, a lot of it is actually throughout the night. Hit me this time around. Right as I found out that I was pregnant, which I tested early. I was kind of around four weeks pregnant, I think, when I found out when we were on vacation. And I share that story of how we found out, how we told the kids and all of that in the video announcing the pregnancy. If you want to check that out on my channel. It's a really sweet story. But I was on the vacation where we found out that I was pregnant. I was already feeling sick and nauseous and having food aversions and food smell like I couldn't deal with it. So from about week four through week eight or nine, really struggling. Um, I didn't want to eat, but then I was starving, you know, just all of those things. It was really, really miserable. And then, I don't know, maybe my placenta kicked in and it started taking over like the production of the hormones. And all of a sudden I started to feel some relief around week nine or 10. Um, and then the nausea and aversions and stuff like that, um, really just Declined rapidly and it's following the same pattern as what I experienced when I had my pregnancies before when I got to the stage with Haley and with the boys around week 10, 11, 12, I start to get relief and then it's smooth sailing from there as far as those just nasty, uncomfortable. Yeah. nauseating pregnancy symptoms go. I got a few questions in this category. This one says, what pregnancy videos are you planning to share this time? I'd love to see a first trimester recap and how you're preparing for baby number four. Another question says, I know you said you won't turn your channel into full-on pregnancy content, but I loved your weekly updates with Haley. Will Will we get those somewhere? I am not planning weekly updates at all. That is more than my bandwidth. I've really settled into the kind of content that I want to make on this channel, the kind of content that you all enjoy. But a lot of you still do want to see some updates, so I'm going to do something special and specific just for this pregnancy. I think any of like those trimester recaps, maybe a month video here and there. will live over on my Patreon, but those videos will be unlocked and available for any subscriber over there, whether you're paying for the monthly content over there or not. I'm always grateful for the support and I love being able to post videos over on my Patreon. I've done it for over three Three years now? Gosh, I've loved it. It's been so much fun. It's really casual. I share gardening. I share random videos, like lower production. I don't fight an algorithm. I don't take sponsors. I don't run ads on the videos over there. I say it's. Ad free for you. Algorithm free for me. I have a first trimester recap. I sat down and I talked about more of like the nitty gritty, some of the symptoms and some of those like more specific things in that video. I shared some footage, some ultrasound stuff over there. I'm not sharing the gender yet. Don't worry. I'm not putting special news behind a paywall. I am not interested in I'm not going to make things like... mysterious or make you pay to find out news. That probably goes against all of the sage YouTube content creation advice that someone would give me, but I just don't even care. I value you all as a community. So many of you have been with me through thick and thin, through so many different seasons of my life, and I would just love to be able to have a spot to share the things that you want to see without it necessarily having to live here on this channel. So if you'd like to I'd love to go check out my Patreon. You can subscribe for free and some of my pregnancy related videos will be over there for you to watch. And then if you did want to become a paid member, everything else, and it's not just the month that you start paying is unlocked, everything I've ever posted over on Patreon will be unlocked for you at the time that you become a paid member. And I'm very grateful for the support over there. It's been such a fun page. Thank you so much for all the love and support. I think that's all we have time for today. We have been chatting for a while. I think I got to every category of question. I know that there are still some rolling in right now that I'm not going to get to, but this won't be the last you hear from me about this little step of the journey that I'm on right now. Big step of the journey. I'm really excited for what the future holds whatever that is and I'm so so grateful to have you along with me for it. So thank you so much for all the questions that you sent in. I hope that your autumn or your spring if you're in the southern hemisphere is off to a great start. I hope you're having a wonderful day wherever you are. Thank you so much for spending a little part of it here today with me and baby here on my channel and I'll catch you later.