a journey in motherhood

We found out on Tuesday that Elizabeth Grace will be joining our family in April! We are so excited to be having a girl. We hadn’t had a preference, and we both had very positive reasons to want a boy or a girl, but now that we know we couldn’t be happier. My original appointment was for Wednesday but I wanted to know so badly I rescheduled it for Tuesday. The same teacher (we went to the u/s school again) who had done the u/s for Elliot was there. She was super nice and we had such a great time watching her wiggle and flip on the screen. She was quite active, I’m sure due to the intentional orange juice & coffee I downed on the way to the clinic. This time I got to have a student practice for quite a while - it was a bonus for sure as she spent lots of time looking at each limb & organ.

We’ve had a lot of fun sharing our news w/ family and friends. And of course I’ve done some shopping! It’s true what they say about girl clothes being so much fun to buy!

I love her name, as we’ve actually had it picked out since before we were ever pregnant with Elliot. Had she been a boy her name would’ve been Oliver, but we plan to have more kiddos after this so Oliver will probably become a part of our family eventually!

Theres a lot for me to think about becoming a mom of a girl. After all, I’m a girl and I will be her primary example of womanhood. wow. I’m excited an nervous and intent on being intentional! I’m excited to know I’ll have a daughter especially because of my passion for female fertility, pregnancy, childbirth etc. It will be something special I can share with her.

The only struggle I have is the “princess” thing - and I have made that pretty clear with a lot of people. However I think I’m missunderstood. It’s not that I don’t value femininity or romance or beauty or enjoy the girly things, it’s just that I really detest the princess - it’s all about me & glitz & glam & pink & you know…….Afterall we live in a democracy and if she wants to she can be the President, but princess is not going to happen. So she won’t be nicknamed princess by mommy or daddy OR anyone else, thank you very much.

Back in April we decided to put our Condo up for sale….originally expecting to buy a home in another county and commute…because we really wanted a house. Alas, we still couldn’t afford to buy on one income - but a brilliant idea of my husbands (which really credit goes to God’s sovereignty) we decided to sell anyway - and rent!

We made alot of cash on the condo - most of which is safetly tucked away in investments for another house purchase one day. But one thing we did spend some money on was a family car. While we were in escrow we went on a test drive for a Toyota Highlander. While in the car I mentioned to Charlie to look for houses for rent - our salesman asked if we were serious - we were of course & incredibly on the test drive we went to his house - where the house next door (owned by his landlord) had just been vacated. Long story short - we moved in a month and a half later and bought the car a month after that. It was an amazing provision from above - and the price was incredible!

We love our new home - it’s a spacious 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms with an enclosed porch (play) area and a great grassy side yard with what we could only describe as a small orchard for a back yard. It’s located on an adorable street just a block from a cozy downtown area and 1/2 block from a great park. It couldn’t be more perfect for our family. 

Yep, that’s right Elliot should be a big brother sometime in the middle of April next year. I’m 15 weeks along and things are going well. 

We wanted to have them approx 2 years apart and I feel very blessed that will likely happen, however just like last time the journey to having a baby was not without it’s bumps. We had a miscarriage in June and the pain was fierce. Somehow I supposed we might not have to endure that again after Elliot, but it wasn’t true and it left us both wondering if we were up to doing this at all….but obviously we were because here we are and praise God things are fine with this little one. more to come on the pregnancy….

you know how guilt can settle in and it makes you less and less likely to do what you know you should do? That’s what has happened w/ my blog. The longer I’ve left it alone, the more guilty I’ve felt - but also the more reluctant to start again. But alas, I’ve been reminded of it by a few people lately, as well as my own desire to get back to it - so here I am.