Announcement #1

So, if you follow our family on facebook or twitter you already know that we've got some major changes coming down the pipes for our family in the next little while.  But I decided we'd spread the posts out and give each of our fun announcements their fair time share on our blog rather than trying to cram them all into one huge post.  So here's the first and most important one -

We're going to have another baby in April!  A few months back Eric and I went to the temple while we were pondering some other questions about what direction we should be going as a family.  As I was trying to listen for guidance on something else entirely the one thing that kept jumping out at me was that we needed to get ready to have another baby.  If you've ever seen The Bachelor (it's one of my family's favorite movies) you might remember the scene where Jimmy Shannon's grandpa has his megaphone and yells to him "PROCREATE!"  Yeah, that was basically how I felt walking out of that temple session, like Heavenly Father was yelling at me through His bullhorn - "PROCREATE!"

I'm not going to lie, the idea of having another kid scared me like crazy.  Sam is fantastic and I love him to kibbles and bits, but he is a handful.  He's still not the greatest sleeper (although getting better), and he has a special talent for getting into everything.  I hadn't even really considered having another baby yet because I didn't feel like I'd yet mastered having *one* baby.  So I didn't want to tell Eric about the impression I'd had because I knew he was better than I am and would say we should do it... and I really wasn't ready to start thinking about another baby.

Finally, one night while I was trying to coax Sam into falling asleep I made a plea deal with Heavenly Father.  If He would help Sam fall asleep then I would talk to Eric about the idea of having another baby.  Sam fell asleep within 30 seconds of that prayer.  So there wasn't much I could do at that point but keep up my end of the deal.  As Eric and I were getting ready for bed and I was trying to figure out how to broach the topic, Eric suddenly says "I think it's time for us to have another baby."  Apparently he'd been having similar impressions :P  If nothing else it helped me feel more confident that what I'd been feeling wasn't just hormones or coming from me, so off we went to try to have another baby.

It was a really tender mercy though in that it took a few months for me to get pregnant again.  I was really not excited at the prospect of being in the throes of morning sickness and the first trimester of pregnancy towards the end of July when we were moving and going on vacation.  It was a busy month and a half and I just didn't think I could deal with all that I had on my plate *and* pregnancy.  I found I was pregnant the day after we got back from all of those vacations and had finished moving.  It was just a little affirmation to me that Heavenly Father truly loves me and cares about the things that are important to me, even if they aren't important in the grand scheme of things.

I've been somewhat more lax in my prenatal care this time around than I was with Sam.  It's not that I'm not excited about this baby, but I guess I feel more like I've done this before and so it's not as novel.  Whereas with Sam I called the doctor's office pretty immediately to set up a prenatal appointment, this time around I decided to wait until they'd be able to find a heartbeat to even set the appointment.  Unfortunately this meant that I went in for my first appointment at the early side of when they could find the heartbeat (10 weeks)... and they couldn't.  So they had me come back a week later to check again... and still no heartbeat.  Finally the doctor ordered an ultrasound so we could know for sure that things were ok.  She wasn't super concerned that something was wrong, but I think it was a good move to just make sure everything was ok and put everyone at ease.  Of course, everything was ok (or that probably would have been where I started this post) and I got to see the baby. And one of the main perks is that now I have a picture of the baby to post here in the blog!

 

It was so crazy to me to watch the ultrasound and see that there really is a whole baby in there.  Of course it's super tiny, but I could see the little arms moving around and the head and the bum.  At 11 weeks I more expected to see a little blob, but it was actually a full human, just super mini.  We're excited to meet this mini human in April!

Stay tuned as we post the details on our other exciting announcements coming up soon...