The TRUTH About Where I've Been...😊
Plus, vote on this month's book club selection!
Help Me Choose This Month's Book Club Selection!
This month we are reading non-fiction (we switch up month-to-month) and we are going to do a poll to choose our selection! The first book is Conservatism: A Rediscovery by Yoram Hazony - I’ve been wanting to read this book for MONTHS, so I kind of hope you all agree! I think it will offer us a great insight into our own beliefs and political views. The second option is Sickening by John Abramson - this was recommended by one of YOU, a premium subscriber, and is all about how big pharma is corrupting American healthcare. Choose the book you’d be more interested in reading this month, and I’ll announce our selection next week!
What You Might Have Missed At Classically Abby…
Sign Up For Personal Coaching!
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If you’re interested, leave a comment down below. Once you’ve booked a session, I’ll send you a questionnaire so we can determine what you want to work on. Then we’ll schedule a time that works for you! I’m so looking forward to chatting with you all and getting to know you even better.
Quote of the Week:
“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” – Herman Melville
Classic Style Inspo
I just got a new haircut for summer and I’m so happy with it! The ends of my hair were starting to feel thin and scraggly, so I was excited to chop off some length and get my hair back to being healthy. I asked for something low maintenance, cut straight across, and with a few layers. My hair feels so much thicker now - in a good way - and I’m chuffed! If you are looking for summer hair inspo, try this.
Things I Want To Try: Cable Organizer For Travel
I don’t travel a ton, but when I do, packing my chargers, cables, and headphones is always a mess. I would love a way to organize my cords and wires when I’m traveling, and this product has great reviews!
Welcome to Classically Abby!
I'm a wife, mama, opera singer, entrepreneur, YouTuber, and your guide to becoming the classic woman you've always wanted to be! Follow me on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter to see how! And together, let's be classic.
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The TRUTH About Where I've Been...😊
Hello wonderful friends! Welcome to another edition of the Classically Abby newsletter. I hope you are all doing amazing. It’s time for our weekend catchup - make sure to leave a comment below sharing what you did, too! I love to hear what you all have been up to. Even if I don’t always respond to every message, you should know that I read every single one!
Jacob and I had such a nice weekend. We enjoy reading aloud to one another on Friday evenings and we started reading a new book that I am thoroughly enjoying! It’s called The Not So Big House and my friend sent it to me. It has really helped me put into perspective how to embrace our “smaller” home and learn to utilize the space we have to make it work for our family.
On Saturday, we went to synagogue, then had two families over for lunch. A typical Sabbath includes a large meal shared with friends from your community, and we just had the loveliest time. I made couscous, minestrone soup, chicken with orange sauce and French fried onion rings, empanadas, and pasta with onions and peas. It was delicious and everyone loved it! As well, all the kids played outside in the waterplay tables we have set up while the adults talked and supervised. As our friends were about to leave, another friend stopped by to chat and the day ended with Jacob and me reminiscing about how happy we are here.
Sunday started off with breakfast with my parents and siblings, a typical activity for us! Mr. Baby took a nap at his Nana and Papa’s house and Jacob and I went to Costco to pick some things up. When we lived in Omaha, we used to go to Costco for date night. We’d explore and see if we could find anything fun. It was like a treasure hunt! This felt like a throwback to old times. When we got home, the three of us picked up and went to a local garden and Mr. Baby had the best time wandering the paths and playing in the dirt. When we got home, we took a dip in the pool, put Mr. Baby to sleep, and ended up going on our first date night in TWO MONTHS! It had been far too long, and it was absolutely lovely to enjoy one another’s company.
It was a weekend chock full of time spent with family and friends, and Jacob and I got some one-on-one time for the first time in a while which really meant a lot to us both. I gave you the full rundown, but it was the kind of weekend that is lowkey but so memorable in its own way.
But now it’s time for me to address what you all really want to know…where was I for three months? Why did I disappear from YouTube and Instagram and social media generally?
You guessed it! We are expecting Baby #2 this December!
We can’t wait to welcome another baby to the Roth family. We always wanted our children to be close in age, so we feel really blessed that we are able to make that dream come true. Mr. Baby and our new baby will be 21 months apart, and we can’t wait to see them become best friends. Mr. Baby is the most extroverted little boy, and he would love a sibling to play with. We are so happy to be able to provide that for him.
The truth is, I can’t believe how quickly this pregnancy has gone by compared to my first. Taking care of a toddler while suffering with morning sickness is a very different experience, and you don’t have nearly as much time to sit and worry as you did the first time around. It was nice to be distracted in that way, even though I was also exhausted and at times unsure if I could function. Thank God my family is close by so they could come over on those really dire days I needed help.
Finding Out We Were Pregnant
I breastfed Mr. Baby for exactly one year, and the entire time that I breastfed him I did not ovulate or get my period. At about eleven months, I started to get a little stressed because we knew we wanted another child and I didn’t know how long it would take my cycle to get back in the swing of things. I decided to wean Mr. Baby slowly over the course of a month, and on the very last day - I ovulated and we conceived! I’m not a big surprise person when it comes to sharing the news with Jacob I’m pregnant, mostly because I know how uncertain everything is in the first trimester. We are both enormously happy, of course, but we are also trepidatious.
Now, if you’ve ever gone to the doctor when you’re expecting, you may know that they very strongly depend on your last period to date your pregnancy. The fact that I never got a period before we conceived again really stressed my doctors OUT. And every time I go in for another appointment, they ask me when I got my last period. Even though I know the exact date I ovulated! It’s funny. But that meant we went in for an early ultrasound at 6 weeks so they could confirm how far along I was.
The baby looked great even then, and my progesterone (the hormone that thickens your uterine lining so the baby can attach to the uterine wall) was so high the doctor initially thought I might be having twins (I’m not, just so you know)! I saw the doctor again at 11 weeks for a standard appointment, and once again everything looked wonderful.
We had one more ultrasound at 13 weeks and confirmed that everything is looking good. I’m officially 14 weeks along, which puts me right at the beginning of my second trimester!
Symptoms
The way I’ve described this pregnancy to my husband is that it’s sort of like a reversal of my first pregnancy. In my first pregnancy, I was totally laid up with morning sickness all day, but the rest of my symptoms were not really strong. This time around, the morning sickness was there on and off - but my secondary symptoms were SUPER strong. It was crazy!
Morning Sickness. I definitely struggled with morning sickness, which was the main reason I wasn’t online for so long. I just didn’t have the capability to sit down, record videos, edit them, post them, and do all the other work besides. I was proud of myself for getting out my weekly Substack newsletter and running the book club twice! I only threw up once on a day I felt absolutely awful, but for the most part, I don’t really vomit from morning sickness. I just feel nauseous for big chunks of the day and especially in the evenings. I had to go to sleep at 8:30 or 9:00 many nights just so I didn’t have to suffer with my nausea for too long, and I would often wake up in the middle of the night to eat a clementine when my stomach felt particularly terrible.
Dysgeusia. This symptom means having a sour taste in your mouth All. The. Time. It’s really gross and it makes eating most foods untenable. I still can’t drink coffee because I’ll get a sour taste in my mouth for hours afterwards. In my first pregnancy, I had a metallic taste in my mouth for a couple of weeks but it passed quickly. This time, the sour taste has really stuck around and it’s not fun, let me tell you.
Fatigue. Whoa, the fatigue in the first trimester of this pregnancy was in some ways more debilitating than the nausea was. I was taking two hour naps every day at the same time as Mr. Baby and then still going to sleep at 8:30 or 9:00 PM. It was a physical exhaustion I’ve never experienced before, and I just couldn’t hold my head up some days.
Cravings/Aversions. I have had so many cravings and aversions this pregnancy, it’s wild! I craved pickles and then ice cream, back to back. I wanted eggs and toast every single morning. I couldn’t stomach any meat at all. I wanted cheddar cheese all the time. I ate clementines all day every day. Fresh fruits and vegetables were a huge part of my diet. I wanted to eat what I wanted to eat, and anything else I didn’t want at all. And I would gag if I tried to even think about foods I wasn’t interested in! I also had to eat every two hours to make sure I didn’t get sick, so I was eating all day.
But all of these symptoms were just confirmation that the baby growing in my belly was getting big and strong, and that was the biggest comfort to me. There were two or three days in my tenth week when I started feeling better - and as someone who has experienced a miscarriage before, it really scared me. I wanted to feel better but I also…didn’t. It’s an odd feeling but it makes sense if you think about it.
Final Thoughts
I am so excited to finally be able to share our news with you. I love sharing my pregnancy journeys with you all, so make sure to let me know in the comments what you’d like to see on my channel and here as well!
Omg I knew it!! I told my husband weeks ago, "I bet Abby's disappeared because she's pregnant!" 🤣
Congratulations! You must be sooo excited ❤️
I love that you're 14 weeks, too! Husband and I are also expecting an early December baby!
I'm so incredibly happy for you and your beautiful, growing family ❤️❤️❤️
Congratulations Abby! I'm also due with our first December 11th so I totally identify with what's been going on with you! One of my friends from church reached out like 2 weeks ago apologizing for falling off the face of the planet this spring, and I also apologized for that, and then we announced our pregnancies to each other and had a big laugh that our due dates are literally 7 days apart. :D I'm so glad you're feeling better now and I really enjoyed your less formal video this week. It was nice and made me feel better and like everything doesn't have to be perfect for our families to be well and happy. :)