Growing a Little Bigger these Days

             We knew when we decided to have Talia that we would always have one more. We weren’t really sure when, but we knew we would want her to have a playmate when everyone went off to college in 9 years…. This summer Talie turned one and we decided it was the perfect time to start trying to have a baby. A few months went by without much success… I guess I should say that I am not a very patient person when it comes to things like this, I mean can’t it just happen??? During these months I had kind of came to the place of contentment, I was happy with my family, loving having Talie as a toddler, I was in my last semester of college after many years of not going, and I was ready to apply some of my time to working helping others with their marriages and families. Everything changed November 12^th.

            We woke up early that day to go down to our son’s flag football playoff game at SMU. I woke up, I felt nauseous and my pants were suddenly a little snugger than I remembered from the last time I put them on. I went to brush my teeth before we left and I started barfing. It clicked, could I be pregnant? I didn’t want to be pregnant… I was finally content with what I had. I wanted to take a test, but didn’t have one, so we went about our busy day. On the way home I really wanted ham and pineapple pizza so I stopped by the store grabbed one and 2 pregnancy tests, because one is never enough.

            I rushed in to the bathroom as soon as I got home full knowing that it was going to be negative because it was late in the day and you have to test early, and I was not going to be pregnant. I peed on that little stick and sat there for a split second… There was a plus, the tears started flowing. I was sad, everything that I had planned in the past few months was changing, I was starting over AGAIN… I know I should have been happy this is what I wanted deep down; this is what thousands of people want that can’t have. I sat there for  a long time just thinking, I couldn’t even tell Ty because I was holding back tears and couldn’t really explain to anyone why… I set it in the top drawer in the bathroom and came up with some excuse for him to go in there. He was elated. I knew he would be. I should have been like him, but I just couldn’t… Over the next few weeks I was moderately sick and still in denial, but then I got to the point where I was accepting and happy with the fact that we were having a new baby, that we were being blessed with a beautiful new child.  During this time I was asked to speak at graduation! I was so excited! I bought my ticket and mom and I were going to go and enjoy a few days together!

            But then it hit… The worst sickness and pains I have ever felt. I was in bed, I couldn’t function, and I thought maybe I was losing our baby on more than one occasion, and I was a wreck. At times I thought the pain would be less if someone could just cut this thing out of me… (not that I would ever let anyone do that to me) Thankfully, we are religious and believe in blessings and I received one and it promised that I would be given eternal blessings from this… It brought great amounts of comfort to me, but then worry that I would not receive earthly blessings because I would lose our child and only get to see them after we die, thank goodness for the plan of salvation, right? For weeks I was in bed sick, to sick to get up and function. I missed Thanksgiving because I couldn’t eat, or even sit up, I had an amazing friend take care of me and take care of Talie during the day so she didn’t become a TV addicted 17 month old and a rock star husband who especially worked all day and took care of everything at night when he came home.

            Days went by and I was still sick, but somehow by some miracle I was able to finish my last semester of college. I had to turn down the invitation to speak at graduation because I knew I just would never survive the trip. This crushed me because it was something that I really was looking forward to and felt was a great honor. The weeks of December slowly came and went and over the course of the month I finally was able to get out of bed and function more with each passing day. Christmas came and went and we were able to share the joy with the kids of the news that they were going to be getting a new sibling.

            Ty and I went to the Doctor and saw our sweet baby full of motion and movement on the ultrasound. We heard their quick heart beat at 179 beats per minute and get to analyze if a little girl or boy will be joining our family. We are so blessed with this addition and look forward to the days when we get to hold them in our arms.

            This pregnancy so far (14 weeks) has been the biggest struggle for me physically and mentally, but I would not change it. Weeks of being in bed, feeling nauseous most of the day, having to take anti nausea medicine every night to survive the next day and then finding out that I am Vitamin D deficient and get to take even more pills each day to keep our baby healthy. It is all worth it and I would not change a thing. What a blessing it is to know that someone else is joining our family! So the question in our family is: Will it be a boy or a girl?