Big News

It is with great excitement that I finally get to write this post!  We are expecting a baby in February!!!!  I sure am glad that God intervened on our plan of being done having more kids.  As I was sad and struggling with whether we should be done having kids, I got rid of ALL of my baby stuff, including maternity clothes!  But God knew my heart.  And I am sure thankful for that:) 

I am finally feeling better and the excitement is growing around here.....along with my belly!  I am 14 weeks along and everything is going well.  At 9 weeks we got to see the baby for the first time on ultrasound, but I held my excitement until after I got past the dreaded 12 week mark.  Last week we went in for our 14 week appointment and heard the most beautiful heartbeat at a fast 160 beats/minute.  And I confess, I just cried with joy and thanked God for another great gift. 

I've grown up over the last several years and am really loving being pregnant this time, especially since I'm over the sick part. (OK, I didn't love being sick, but did try to appreciate that this time.  Sheldon thinks I'm a terrible sick person and tells me I'm entirely too loud at 5am when I'm puking:) I guess I am just appreciating the miracle more this time.  I find myself being amazed at a baby growing inside of me instead of just taking that miracle for granted.  I truly am in love with this gift already! 

Like with any season of our life, it's forcing me to grow. Its making me look at my fears on earth and turning that into a healthy fear of the Lord.  It makes me look at my spiritual walk and the areas that need lots of work.  Kids make me take life more seriously.  So there are more things stretching around here than just my belly! 

I could hardly wait to get home last week from our appointment to tell the kids.  They are thrilled and wish February would hurry up and get here.  Mya understands better than I thought she would and Nathan is full of questions and excitement.  I can't wait to see their faces when they actually get to meet their baby brother or sister.

Which leads me to my next thought.....should we let the sex of this baby be a surprise?  You all know me well enough to know that I am not a spontaneous person and am such a planner.  But this time I'm thinking it might be fun to have it be a surprise!  I just have to convince Sheldon.  I think he wants to find out so he knows how many women will be in his house.  He adores the two he already has, but lets face it, we both have big personalities:)  Although he would love another little girl wrapped around his little finger, I think he might breath a sigh of relief if he knew it was a boy. We'll see if I can get him convinced for the surprise idea.  I figure we already have a boy room and a girl room and we plan to keep the baby operation very simple around here....so why do we need to know?!

Thanks for sharing in our excitement!!!!  And thanks to all of you who have been praying! And if you have any baby name ideas, we really could use your help:)

 Every good and perfect gift is from above!