Pregnancy

I know that this blog is mostly for our adventures of each of the crazy places we live in, but it's also a journal of the things going on with us during this time. One of which at this time is this pregnancy. It definitely affects how much I can go and explore the city, which it makes me really happy that we had a ton of visitors at the beginning of living here, so I could see lots of things in the city then.

This pregnancy is completely different than what it was like almost 8 years ago with Spencer. I feel a lot of achy feelings, and tendons stretching a bit more. It could be because I did have an emergency c-section with Spencer, so the scar tissue could be doing that, and I don't know what is up with my tendons this time, but they ache. I am nauseous this time, just like with Spencer. Just feeling it all day long, but luckily haven't been losing anything after eating it. I am at 17 weeks 2 days today, and I still have some moments of nauseousness, but it's fading, which I'm happy about. One thing that is completely different from this pregnancy and Spencer's is that even with the aches and pains and not feeling good I'm loving it. I'm so concerned for this baby, and want it to keep growing to be strong and healthy.

I wanted to share our story of why this pregnancy is so thrilling for us. It started about 4 and a half years ago. We were living in Centerville, Virginia and getting ready to move to Africa (Congo to be exact). Things were stressful, and we decided to not start trying to have a child until after we moved and things settled down a bit. Side note: Back in the day I really REALLY did not deal with stress well, I'm much better today, surprisingly because of all the moves we've done I've relaxed A LOT. Anyway, so we thought with Spencer it took us around 4 months to get pregnant which is pretty quick I think. So that's what we thought would happen. Well it didn't...and being in Africa it's not like I have an OB/GYN there or fertility doctor to go to to find out what was going on. So we decided to be patient.

We prayed endlessly about what we should be doing, and it always seem to fall to the wayside (which yes, now I do think that was an answer to our prayer). The years kept going by, and we moved to Zimbabwe and things were not as tense as it was in Congo, so perhaps this would help my body to get pregnant. Um, nope. I started to get frustrated that we were not getting pregnant, and again just kept praying. The answer though that both Tyler and I continued to get was "Don't worry about it". Which is hard to do when you want to add more people to your family, and especially difficult when you have a son who keeps asking when he was going to get a little brother or little sister.

I know that our wait of four years is nothing compared to others who have had been wanting children for a lot longer, and don't even have one child yet. But to us, it was our own little trial that we had to go through. It makes this pregnancy so much sweeter. Spencer is absolutely thrilled to be a big brother, and is already showing how helpful he can be. The other morning he made his lunch for school and got himself ready for the day! We know we have been so blessed, and we are so grateful for this wonderful blessing.

I guess the moral of our story was that we listened to the answers to our prayers, even though we didn't understand it at the time. Now I look back and think, could I have actually been pregnant while in Africa?? And then fly over 30 hours being 34 weeks pregnant with a 6 yr. old?? And then fly back over 30 hours with a newborn and a 6 yr. old??? I'm not so sure that I would have survived with my sanity, so obviously the Lord knew more about me than I did. I'm so grateful that we have Heavenly Father there to guide us through our lives.

So that's our story of why this pregnancy was hard to achieve, and why it's a really special one to us.

Here's our little one!

At 10 weeks, first appointment, and we saw that little flutter of a heartbeat. I could not smile big enough! If you can't understand ultrasounds, the baby is in the black hole area, and it's back is curved on the top.

Here he/she is at 12 weeks. Growing so fast!!! This is a profile of the face. Can you see that little nose???  LOVE IT!

Another 12 week pic of the side profile of the whole baby. The back is at the bottom of the picture. It's legs are at the right.

One last one of a side profile of the face. 

Thanks for reading through this long essay of my feelings on this pregnancy. We are so excited to find out if this little one is a boy or girl and I love feeling it already nudge me here and there. Okay...next post will be about NYC. :)