just reflecting I guess I'm realizing/admitting that it's disappointing to be in Idaho for this pregnancy. Out of all the places we've lived, I never would have guessed that we would be here, living in the same town where I was born. For one thing, I always hoped we'd be in a foreign country so our baby would have some exotic dual citizenship. :) But really it is hard because we're not part of a community here like we have been everywhere else we have lived. I've daydreamed for the last four years how fun it would be to announce that we were pregnant while at Prairie... or in Sudan... or in Quebec... or in Utah. Especially the last one. I went to several baby showers last year and was excited that the same women would celebrate with me one day. Now here we are in Idaho, where we still don't know anyone at our church and almost the only people we know in the area are family. I love being near Keith's family, but even that is foreign to me because I didn't grow up with family nearby, and fellow believers have been our family in the places we have lived since being married, and it is an odd transition to actually have blood connections now. I still don't really know what to make of it. I know that God brought us here, but I still don't really know why, and I'm still not really over some of the disappointments that have happened because of it. And I think I'm getting more emotional in this fourth month of pregnancy than I was in the first three, so that doesn't help either.
2008-06-29 (15 weeks)
belly pictures I posted a couple of pictures of my belly. (This one is a side view.) The new mirror picture at fifteen weeks is probably the most pregnant that I have looked so far. Usually, I still look about the same as in the eleven-week mirror picture, although I think I'm beginning to expand more this week. Thank God for rubber bands - it is pretty wonderful to keep wearing my normal clothes just by adding a rubber band on my jeans and shorts.
The thing I've been loving lately is that for the last few days, I have been waking up to find that the baby has migrated north and is sitting like a big round lump just south of my belly button. It probably sounds weird, but I am really enjoying it, because as long as I stay laying down, I can really feel so much of my uterus! Then I stand up and it just seems to all slide back down into oblivion. We took a bunch of pictures of the obvious lump this morning... this one is a side angle. That lump is our baby! :) Most of the time, our baby seems so small, I think because I can only feel the front of my uterus, but when I wake up and it has slid up like that all the way to my belly button, I can't even believe how huge it is!! It's not even supposed to reach my belly button for another five weeks!
2008-06-25 (14 weeks)
movement? I think I'm feeling the baby move now. It has made me so happy every time I have felt it! The other day I was feeling so sick and discouraged, and I was journaling and pouting about being sick when suddenly I felt this lovely little somersault in my abdomen. I had felt it before, but it was such an encouraging moment to feel it again. It seems so early to feel movement, and I could be wrong, but it sure feels like the baby to me! I don't know what else it could be. It's definitely a new sensation.
Today is the first day in months that I haven't been miserably nauseated or sick or both. It feels so wonderful!! I've actually been getting some work done! Until now, my brain has been so foggy and my body so tired that just doing anything that took brainpower or physical energy has been completely beyond my capabilities. I don't know what I've been doing all this time, but I am so happy about actually wanting to make something to eat, feeling a normal level of hunger, wanting to go for a walk, etc. Last night I cleaned and rearranged our whole bedroom (a bigger task than it sounds - we've basically been using it for storage), and today I'm not even worn out from that and have even done other productive things! Praise the Lord! And I really have to give a little credit to my aloe vera juice... I kept refusing to drink it while I had this cold or the flu or whatever for the past few weeks, and then I've finally had some in the last few days, and poof, no more sickness.
Until this month, I had been really sure that we were having a girl. Then I found myself daydreaming about having a boy, and I realized that I want a boy so much! I would love to have a little boy! I would love to have a little girl too, though, so really I am just excited for whichever the Lord has given us. I think waiting until birth to find out the gender makes me a lot more impatient for December to get here, though. To be honest, I am a little disappointed that we are not having twins... I would love to be having a boy and a girl right now. It's not that I want one more than the other... it's just that I am 100% wanting a boy and 100% wanting a girl! :) Ah, so nice to have some energy back... last week I couldn't imagine going through the misery of pregnancy again, and this week I am looking forward to having five more kids. Well, we'll see!
