Just had my 37-weeks-and-2-days doctor appointment this morning and things are looking good! First of all the scale this week lied to me (in a good way) and said I'm only at 157lbs (less than 40 up from starting weight), but that's about 4lbs less than last week so I know it is lying haha. With Lydia I ended at 169 though, so I do think I'll manage to stay under that this time around. I did not get to see my regular doctor because she is out this week, so I am trying to keep in mind that different doctors may say different things and not to get too caught up in what I was told. But regardless, this doctor said I am currently at "a good 1cm", 80% effaced, baby's head is nice and low, and the cervix is nice and soft. I talked to her some about the possibility of scheduling an induction if he hasn't come by his due date and her response was something along the lines of, "There's no way you are going past your due date." Ha!

Honestly I hate it when doctors say things like that because I know that it still may not be true... and I hate to get my hopes up or anyone else's hopes up! But she said it, so there we go. It's in my head now. She said she was pretty convinced that I will go into labor on my own. But again, can one really know THAT well? As always, only time will tell.

It is exciting, though, to think that Eli's arrival could be a little sooner than later. I'm looking forward to meeting him and experiencing what it is like to have a son. I'm looking forward to hearing those sweet baby cries again, holding a sleeping little one, seeing how Lydia reacts to him, and just getting to know another of these little miracles. I've been busily preparing as much as I can around the house. Most of the baby equipment has been cleaned up and moved into Eli's room until he arrives. I've got the spare freezer stocked up with frozen pizzas and other quick meals so resting and getting to know our boy can take priority over having to cook dinner. And I am *trying* to get the house relatively clean so I don't feel so bad about letting it go for a couple of weeks post-baby. The biggest things that are not done are the little keepsake things I want to have - his baby blanket (which I've already decided will not be finished until after his birth - sorry Eli!), his baby book, some scrapbooks that are in progress, etc. But these are nice-to-haves, not things that I need done before his arrival. However, there are still things to be done so I really should get off the computer and do them. It's much harder to prepare for a new baby with a toddler to tend to, so naptimes are crucial!

I'm so horrible at making myself sit down and write what's going on in our life. Do I say that every time I post? Probably.

As of yesterday I am full-term with the pregnancy (37 weeks). I'm excited for the day of Eli's arrival, but at the same time feel very at peace about when he decides to make his debut. I am enjoying life as it is now, understanding that change is coming, and will be fine if it is another 3 weeks before my son is ready. At the same time, I would be just as thrilled if he wanted to show up tomorrow! I've been bad about posting little details of this pregnancy, but have one I wanted to be sure to write down. A few days ago we were relaxing and watching TV while Eli danced around in my belly. Usually I am not good at differentiating between body parts (his elbow as opposed to his heal, for example), but that night I was poking at him and could very clearly feel his sweet little baby foot. Looking forward to kissing on that tiny foot next month!

At my last OB appointment I was showing no signs of progression towards labor yet. My next appointment is tomorrow (on weekly visits now) so we'll see if anything has changed. I have felt a few Braxton Hicks contractions (I think... I never had them with Lydia), but nothing substantial. I am not at the point of counting on him staying in there until his due date, but also not convinced he will certainly come early. All we do now is wait and try not to schedule anything too important in the coming weeks.

Lydia continues to do well, growing and learning as always. She gets better by the day at speaking in sentances, though the words are still sometimes out of order. She is a fantastic little helper and does well picking up her toys when we are done with them and following directions. I'm sure if I was not expecting a baby in less than a month we could be successfully potty training. She will talk about the potty and has started to put her toys on the potty for them to use it. But alas, I still don't want to be dealing with all of it when I have a newborn, so we will wait. Good thing I continue to get cheap/free diapers with my couponing. :)

Well... technically 33 weeks 4 days... but who's really counting?

I am beginning to remember why the end of pregnancy is very not fun. As Eli grows and grows, my body is starting to feel the effects. If I'm standing up or walking around for any length of time my back, hips, and legs begin to ache. I guess an extra 40 pounds will do that to you. This wasn't such an issue last pregnancy because I could basically sit and rest whenever I needed to, but with Lydia it is much harder. She is constantly begging me to get up and dance, jump, spin, run, etc and she really doesn't understand that mommy needs to rest sometimes. I wish we could find more sit-down activities that she enjoys.

The heartburn has kicked up a notch too. I've relocated to a couch to sleep at night so I can prop myself up better, but I have to be super careful what I eat in the evening or I may regret it. Between that and how much Eli wiggles around in my belly, sleep is getting hard to come by. Often I am up every couple of hours. I suppose I could say this is just preparation for when Eli gets here, but lack of sleep isn't really something I like to prep for!

But really, I don't mean to complain. I know that all of this has a beautiful end result that is completely worth it, and I do not take that for granted. I'm so excited to see and hold my little boy! On a lighter note, we continue to make progress preparing for his arrival. He has a good supply of clothes washed and put away in his room along with clean bedding to welcome him home. Brent is almost done with decorating the new nursery then all that's left is to clean up the baby equipment that's been stored in the basement since Lydia used it.

Mom & my mother-in-law are both still thinking Eli will end up being an October baby. As long as he is healthy, I would not be opposed to this!

When I was showering on Friday I noticed a small line of what looked like bug bites under my left arm. I didn't think much of it until that night when my back was itching and Brent saw I had a cluster of around 14 more bumps on the left side of my back. We assumed they were bug bites until I did some research on Sunday night and found that rashes in pregnancy are not only common, but something that should be discussed with your doctor.

So yesterday (Monday) I called my OB and went in to have her look at the rash. I was expecting to hear it was something pregnancy related, so I was surprised when she told me it looked like shingles! I know some people who have had shingles and it was NOT fun for them. The doctor said I am more susceptible to them because of the pregnancy & subsequent compromised immune system. She actually said I was the third case she's seen recently.

Now I'm on medication for the next 10 days to help get rid of it and trying my best not to scratch my back despite the constant itch. It's so funny to me to see the various differences in pregnancies. With Lydia we had several scares that resulted in a lot of stress at the start, but not a whole lot of physical ailments for me personally. With Eli I've already had two illnesses that I've never had before: sinus infection and shingles. Let's hope this is the end of it... less than 8 weeks to go!

With less than 2 months to go until his due date, Eli and I are doing great. I'm still feeling really good with the only complaints being some aches and heartburn at night (oh and the getting up to pee a lot). Eli moves a ton but not in such a way that it is uncomfortable for me often. He stays out of my ribs and only occasionally uses my hip as a punching toy.

Had my latest checkup today and all is going well. I'm still measuring big, but only by a couple of weeks this time. I was that way with Lydia too (I'm short... there's only one direction for the baby to go...) so I'm not too worried anymore. The doctor estimates he will be in the 8lb range. I can handle that. My weight was also better than I expected. 154 lbs. That's up 33 from my first weigh-in at the doc's office. With Lydia I gained almost 50, so I'm quite pleased with 33. 8ish more weeks to go, so even at a pound a week I shouldn't end much more than 40 pounds up from the start. Not bad if you ask me.

Eli's room continues to come together. All of the base painting is done with just a decorative tree left to be painted. Today I bought the letters to spell out his name on the wall. So besides the tree, we just need to buy/install curtains, buy picture frames, and print out the pictures (images from his bedding) to put in the frames to go on the walls. I've been doing occasional loads of laundry to get clothing ready for his first few months and am looking forward to organizing it all now that the furniture is arranged.

It still seems so unbelievable that I'm going to have a son in a couple of months. What a wonderful Thanksgiving I have to look forward to this year! So much to be thankful for... hopefully including a healthy little boy in my arms.

I know I probably say this in pretty much every blog post, but things seem so busy these days and I find it hard to remember to stop and write it down. I can't believe it is September already! Here are some updates on the kiddos:

Lydia

18 months old now and getting smarter by the minute. I was asked the other day how many words I thought she says now and I guessed around 100. Today I decided to try to make a list and made myself stop after passing 250. So the real number is probably somewhere between 250 and 300, and these are words she actively says without us having to say them first. There's no way I'm going to try to add to the total with words she won't say unless we say them first or words that she clearly understands. Within the past week or so she has also become more and more confident with using multiple words together and forming small sentances. Mostly these consist of "Bye-bye {insert person/object here}" or "All done {insert item here}", but there are a few others that pop up here and there in her daily chatter.

At her 18 month doctor checkup I loved seeing the doctor's reaction to all that Lydia knows. Especially the face she made when I said Lydia already knows most of the alphabet! She now recognizes all of the letters and only has slight hang-ups on a couple of them (such as, sometimes "C" starts out as "G" and we have to correct her before she will say it properly). She's getting much better at colors now too and frequently points out orange, purple, pink, and green objects... which I find funny since blue used to be the one she assigned to everything, but now she seems to ignore blue things.

Sleeping, eating, playing... Lydia does them all well and she is a complete joy to watch. She continues to be on the go constantly. My mom, Brent's mom, and I all took her to the butterfly house last weekend and it was nearly impossible to get a picture of Lydia because she wouldn't stop even for a second! She just ran around saying "buh-FLY!" As she is getting older and gaining more independence, we are starting to see her testing her limits a bit more than she used to. I hate punishing her and wish she would go back to just listening right away (and don't get me wrong, she is a GREAT kid and obeys very well), but sometimes she pushes it too far and gets a hand slap for touching things she was told not to touch. But like I said, in general she is very obedient and loves to help clean up, do laundry, or other small tasks I set her on.

Potty training is sadly on hold right now. I was hoping to be getting a good start in these coming weeks, but Lydia decided she was going to get some sort of stomach... something... and be pooping like crazy. We even got to the point of being told to bring a sample in to the doc's office so they can check for bacteria, but as soon as they requested this Lydia has seemed much better (this was just 2 days ago). But there's no way I was going to attempt potty training a child that is pooping out some nasty stuff 5 times a day. So for now we are waiting for her system to get back to normal and will go from there. Still hoping we'll give it a go at some point this month.

As a final note on Lydia's life at the moment, I am getting excited to see her as a big sister. I really think, and hope, that she is going to absolutely love Eli. We talk about him all the time already and I try my best to convey the idea that he is a baby and will be here soon. She loves to give kisses and hugs to my belly and will smile and say "Eye-Yeye" (Eli) whenever she notices my belly or even sees baby boy clothing around. Can't wait to see my two little ones interacting!


Eli

Pregnancy week 30 is just on the horizon. So far things continue to be going along smoothly. If I remember correctly, I seem to recall being a lot more uncomfortable at this point with Lydia. My only complaints right now are heartburn and aches at night, but those are pretty minor irritations.

I had my most recent doctor appointment at about 28 weeks along and she said I was measuring 33 weeks! Yikes! I know those measurements can be off by quite a bit, and that I measured big the whole time with Lydia too, but now I'm slightly nervous that I'm cooking a 10-pounder here. Perhaps this will just mean he will arrive a little sooner. Mom is predicting a halloween baby... so we'll see! I also took my glucose test at that time and sadly failed the 1 hour test. This meant I had to go back in for a 3 hour test where I would get my blood drawn 4 different times and checked for glucose tolerance. While it was an annoying way to spend a Saturday morning, I did get a lot of work done on Eli's blanket while sitting around for over 3 hours, and I passed this time so no need for a special diet.

We finally got started painting the nursery this past weekend. And by "we" I mean Brent and my dad. My parents were here last weekend and Dad helped Brent with Eli's room while Mom & I were at the butterfly house. The walls are slated to have tan and green, so the tan was started and finished on Saturday. This coming Saturday we'll be working on the green, then Brent plans to paint a tree in one corner of the room. So excited to see his room come together!

Eli at 26 weeks 2 days

25.5 weeks pregnant now and feeling great! I keep meaning to look back and see how I felt at this point with Lydia, but pregnancy brain combined with chasing a toddler around makes me incredibly forgetful.

I was not planning to buy new furniture for Eli's room. The plan was to transition Lydia to a twin mattress and transfer the crib & changing table over to the new baby's room. However, yesterday a friend passed along a deal too good to let go. Walmart had a crib & changing table set (originally $180) marked down to only $99 for both pieces of furniture! On top of that it will ship directly to our house for free. Yay! I decided to go for it. While my penny-pinching practical side said it was a waste, my preferences really wanted a darker color for the furniture in Eli's room. I wasn't too thrilled about decorating another white-furniture nursery. Plus, there are lots of other benefits to having this set instead of reusing what we already own. It makes things much less complicated with dressers. Now we can keep the changing table/dresser that is in Lydia's room there. It's small with only 2 drawers, so it won't last forever there, but it will be fine for awhile. We also already have a large set of drawers in a dark wood color that will now (more closely) match this furniture in Eli's room. So we'll be able to move that into his room for more storage. All in all, we spent $100 and were able to avoid buying a new dresser for Lydia's room and will get some use out of the dark wood drawers we already have. I'd consider that a win!

I must apologize about the lack of belly picture to go along with this post. We have been so busy lately that I keep forgetting to take a decent new one! I'll be certain to get some to share during our upcoming camping trip.

In the meantime, here's a new picture of Eli!


This was taken at my ultrasound appointment today (21 weeks 3 days). He weighs a bit over a pound and was measuring about 5 days ahead of his due date, but that's not enough of a difference to change it officially. So the due date will be staying put at November 13th! This appointment was way different than what I expected... and way longer! When I had my mid-pregnancy ultrasound with Lydia they had me in and out of there in 15 minutes or less. This time I had to go to the hospital because our insurance changed and required that we go there. They have a totally different process at the hospital. The tech took over 120 pictures and the entire ultrasound lasted a whole hour! I really feel like my baby boy got a thorough examination. And yes, we did indeed confirm that we are due to have a son!

Another benefit to the hospital visit instead of my OB's office was that they had 3D capability on their ultrasound machine. I always prefer to see the baby's face in 3D... it looks a little less like a creepy skeleton! Eli was not in a very good position to get great pictures of his face, though. He had his arm up by his head and it kept casting a shadow. Then he kept trying to turn his face inward. I think he was tired of being messed with after an hour of poking!

In the end I couldn't have been more pleased with the outcome of the appointment. The tech was very friendly and talked us through all of the parts she was looking at. We asked if everything looked good and she said they did as far as she could tell. A doctor has to look over the pictures and write an official report, but I assume if there were any major problems a tech of 16 years would know (and she said the doc would get called in right away for anything major).


So now feeling completely confident in the gender determination, I spent the afternoon browsing Amazon for a few of the "boy" items we'll want to have for our little man. I think we will be in good shape with everything except for clothes. I'm sure I will pick up some new things for him in the coming months and will fill in the gaps with gently used items from a big sale I go to in the Fall.


Oh - and we'll be even more set for his arrival now because today we bought a van!! I think this officially makes me a mom. ;-)

Today I looked down while taking a shower and realized that my toes are gone. The belly is taking on a life of its own (literally!) and has overtaken my downward view.

There has always been a debate amongst women (pregnant women especially) about whether it is better to find out the sex of the baby ahead of time or to wait until the baby is born to find out. I've always been a big planner and don't think I could ever possibly wait until the big day to find out. With both pregnancies thus far we've kept the mindset that you will always be surprised at some point... either getting the fun news at an ultrasound or in the delivery room, both will be fun and surprising moments.

A part of me still feels this way, but I did have a thought the other day that made me think it actually could be more fun to wait (though I know I'd never have the patience). You see, I AM very excited to know that I am having a boy. And I am already having TONS of fun thinking about what it will be like to have a son, preparing his room, and calling him by name. But the one thing that delivery has over ultrasound any day is 100% certainty. There's no denying after a boy is born that he is in fact a boy. Unfortunately with ultrasound, I find myself constantly having this nagging in the back of my head making me scared that it was wrong. What if I get all attached to "Eli" only to discover later that my son is in fact a daughter??

Granted, I plan to have a couple more ultrasounds before the big day arrives and if all three times I'm told I'm having a boy, those are pretty good odds. And trust me, if you saw the pictures of the "proof" - there's really no denying I've got a son on the way. But kinda in the same way that the ultra faint pink line on the pregnancy test robbed me a little of the "Oh my gosh I'm PREGNANT!" moment when I was testing the first time (with Lydia) because I wasn't really sure if it was a positive result, an ultrasound is never 100% fool proof and it causes me to be scared to celebrate and to embrace the idea of having a son.

Maybe I'll feel differently in July when (if) I get confirmation from my next ultrasound that I'm having a boy... and again, I still don't regret choosing to learn the gender and will likely continue to do so for any subsequent pregnancies... but I now feel like I can understand a little bit of why it could be more exciting to wait.

I love that this post is immediately following my one about potentially having a girl. Haha!

On Thursday (the 20th) I had my 14 week checkup at the doctor. Everything looked good and the heartbeat was strong around 150bpm. Before leaving I asked her about scheduling the ultrasound (typically done between weeks 18 & 20). I was a bit surprised and disappointed when she responded saying she wanted me to wait until 21 weeks... and even more bummed when I heard that the hospital where I have to go to get my ultrasound won't do it before 22 weeks! I had really been hoping to find out the gender of our little one... and more importantly know that he or she was healthy... sometime in June. It was so hard to think I might not see our baby until halfway through July!

As I sat around bummed about this situation, it eventually dawned on me that I have friends who know an ultrasound tech and they were able to see her for a gender check around week 16. Had I been able to get my regular ultrasound at 18 or 19 weeks, I could have been patient... but knowing the long wait I was in for I decided to talk to one of my friends to see if I could possibly get in with this tech that they know.

Lo and behold I get a phone call on Friday morning saying that the tech was not only able to see me, but could get me in that day (just one day shy of 15 weeks at this point)! We were scheduled to meet with her at 3:45, so I spent my afternoon watching the clock with anticipation. So excited to see my little one!

Brent, Lydia, and I all went to the appointment - which was fantastic! The tech was so wonderful as she pointed out our little one's head, heart, tummy, and feet. At first the baby was squirming around a ton and kept crossing legs and putting hands between them, but eventually we got the view we were looking for. There it was... the "kickstand" as our tech put it... our baby is a BOY! We had fun getting different views of our son and eventually I asked the tech how sure she was about the gender. Her first response was that she never says 100% because she believes nothing is for sure until you are holding the baby. Then a bit later I asked her if we would get the 95% sure from her and she said, "Hmm... I think I'm actually going to go ahead and give you guys the 100%!" When a professional who has done this for 12 years gives you 100% certainty, I think that's trustworthy!

I left still feeling a bit in shock. I was afraid to really let myself believe we're having a son (I'm sure I would have reacted the same way to a girl... because I'm a skeptic like that), but as I sat in Red Lobster waiting for a table (our traditional celebration dinner after baby ultrasounds) I let it sink in and my heart melted at the thought of holding my little boy in November. Over dinner Brent and I discussed names a bit. We had already tentatively decided, but now it was time to set it in stone. We mostly tossed around various versions of the name Eli - Elijah, Elisha, Elias, Eli... in all cases planning to call him Eli. So in the end we decided that our baby boy will be named...


I've always been a fan of Biblical names and want our children to be named after worthy characters in the Bible. Eli was the high priest who raised the prophet Samuel. Additionally, I've always liked the idea of our children having middle names that reflect our ties to family. Lydia ended up with my middle name and Eli will have Brent's middle name - which has actually been passed down through Brent's father from his grandfather.

So there you have it. Come November, we will be the Pirolli family of four - Brent, Sarah, Lydia, and Eli!

Random fun fact - Lydia's first, and so far only, letter that she learned is "E" ... and we never really made efforts to teach that to her. Perhaps she knew she'd have a brother named Eli someday?

I know I've been pretty lax about writing about this pregnancy compared to my last. Maybe it is in part because it's my 2nd and I just don't think about it as much... or maybe it's because I've not had nearly the complications this time around that I had last time. Regardless, I really AM excited to be pregnant again and do think about this baby quite often! I just don't have the time to sit and write about what I have been thinking or feeling as easily as I could the 1st time around.

Green or yellow indicates a girl result (red or orange means boy). Again, I don't put a whole lot of faith in this test. We will still wait for our ultrasound in about a month before calling the baby by name and painting the nursery. I would love for Lydia to have a sister... and I would love to have a little boy... so I'm going to be happy either way. I'm just curious to see if the test turns out to be correct.

So I've been trying really really hard this time around to not be a crazy, nervous, nutcase pregnant lady. While I have held firm to the knowledge that God is in control, I have to admit that I was super excited to be going to my first appointment with the OB today to hear the heartbeat. Other than being crazy tired, most of my other pregnancy symptoms dissipated by week 6. This left me with a nagging thought in the back of my mind that maybe something was wrong. Or maybe I just convinced myself (and 2 at home pregnancy tests) that I was pregnant when I really wasn't.

Regardless, I was thrilled when the doctor put the doppler on my tummy and almost immediately we heard the lovely thump-thump-thump of Peanut #2. I had so many little complications with my first pregnancy that by 10 weeks I'd already had 2 ultrasounds (and 2 more followed just a couple of weeks later). So it felt strange this time to not really have "proof" of anything going on. Very happy to have received my proof today. Doctor said the heartrate was around 150 and everything looked to be going as expected. Yay!

On a side note, Lydia was with us at the doctor's office and it was funny watching her face when the doppler got going. She kinda stared at my tummy with a confused expression. It will be interesting trying to explain to her in coming months what is going on!

Brent commented tonight after putting Lydia to bed that she is becoming a little sponge. She is definitely starting to soak up EVERYTHING! He was reading her an Elmo book and asking, "Where's Elmo?" then pointing to all of the things that were NOT Elmo and saying, "Is this Elmo? No..." Lydia then proceeded to point to all the different things and say "no."

She's working hard to pick up the words that we use. She's added more since the last list I made including "crash" for when things fall down and some more animal sounds. She recently picked up on "meow" and "oo oo" (monkey), but my all time favorite is when I ask her what the lion says. With a deep throaty sound she goes "rawr rawr rawr!" I love it! We need to try to get it on video soon before she decides she's done with that game. In addition to the words she will say unprompted, she does very well attempting to repeat what we say. On Easter family members were playing with her using bunnies and saying "hop hop." It was so cute to hear her try to say it back (sounded more like "bop"). I think she's working on "more" and "all done" too. Oh, and she's much better at saying "mama" and "dada" now too. Which makes me smile. :)

At long last she is also starting to make some progress with walking. Just yesterday she decided to try a few more steps, so today I tried to encourage her some more. She was doing so well taking 5 or 6 little steps at a time to get to me... one time she was holding something out for me to take it and I backed up a little and made her walk to me to give it to me. She did great! She even did a little walking this evening without any encouragement from me at all. So perhaps we'll finally see her take off soon! She's also become quite a stair climber. We finally got gates to put at the top and bottom of the stairs, but I try to let her still climb up on her own as long as I'm right behind her. Yesterday we took her to the park for dinner and some play time and she climbed up several stairs to a slide all on her own! (Brent was right behind her, of course) And those stairs included some BIG steps that we didn't think she'd be able to do. She is always proving us wrong!

As for baby #2, things are going well. Having been pretty nauseated when I was 5 or 6 weeks pregnant, I was pretty worried that things would get worse before getting better. But I was wrong about that and have felt much better lately. Still very tired, but I don't feel sick as often. Just a little over 2 weeks from now we'll get to hear the heartbeat. Really looking forward to that! Oh, and I've realized that people who say you show sooner with your 2nd pregnancy were not kidding! I'm already ready to get out the maternity jeans and I'm not even 9 weeks yet! I started wearing mostly maternity stuff around 16 weeks with Lydia... I'll be shocked if I make it to 12 this time.

I realized something when I began to think about wanting a second baby. I found myself once again noticing all the other women in my life who were getting pregnant with their second children and once again feeling a sense of jealousy and urgency... much the same as I had when I so very much longed to get pregnant for the first time. What I realized the second time around, however, was that my feelings were ultimately being driven by fear. It wasn't so much that I wanted so badly to be pregnant, but more that I wanted so badly to be assured that I would and could get pregnant. Even after having no trouble conceiving Lydia I couldn't help but fear that we'd struggle the next time. What if Lydia was a miracle and we didn't know it? What if we try again for years and can't have any more kids? I felt more and more desperate to get pregnant NOW just so I could be assured that it could happen!

I think it was sometime in January when I came to grips with what I was really thinking. Seriously, Sarah... do you really think God is that small? Do you really think that He lacks control over this part of your life? When God says "fear not" what makes you think that He didn't mean it for this situation? It was at that point that I determined to shift my thinking. I reminded myself that God is a loving God and that He fully understood my desire to have more children. He knew that I was hoping for children close in age. But He also knows what is best... and I had to accept that as well. I had to accept, and be okay with, the idea that God may have different plans. God could have given us Lydia and determined that we are to focus solely on raising her... or He could choose to bless us with other children, but not until later, or perhaps through adoption. I didn't know what God's plan would be, but I committed myself to trusting in that plan rather than being controlled by my fears.

I think I have applied this same idea to the question of when to announce a pregnancy. I know a lot of people prefer to wait to make the big announcement, and I don't fault them for that at all, but it's just never sat well with me to hold back such wonderful news. I couldn't help but ask myself why I wouldn't want to share the news, and the answer always seemed to point back to fear. Fear that I'd lose the baby and have to share the sad news. Fear that someone might say something to me not realizing the pregnancy didn't work out, resulting in the pain returning. Or simply fear that people knowing might actually somehow increase the possibility for things to go wrong. I couldn't come up with any reasons for not telling people that didn't stem from fear. Doesn't the Bible tell us to share our joys and sorrows with one another? Then why hide the joy for fear of the sorrow? Share them both and allow others to rejoice with us and comfort us if necessary.

As most people probably already know, earlier this month I got the most wonderful birthday present when I found out that I am pregnant again. I was elated! And it has been so reassuring to feel God teaching me to trust Him through this. I actually became pregnant the month that I was least concerned about whether or not it would happen. And now God is continuing to push me to trust in him with the pregnancy. I was so nervous the first time around. So scared that something would take my precious baby from me before I'd even get to meet her. Looking back, I felt as though I was desperately racing through those 9 months as if disaster was right on my heels.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel any anxiety at all this time around, but I'm learning. I'm trying to be still... remember that God is in control and He has a plan for this new little life. I accept that His plan may mean suffering a loss, and I trust that He would carry me through that if it were to happen. Life may not always turn out the way that I picture it, but as long as I am focused on Christ then it will always turn out the way it should. I am continuing to pray for health and growth for my new little bean, but my aim is always to rest in God's hands, trusting and not fearing.