6 Month

Over dinner on our road trip home The Man and I began musing over how close we are to our six month wedding anniversary and how quickly the time has gone. The thought 'I hope the next six are as happy' formed in my head, and as I was about to say this I stopped. Wait a minute! Is that really what I want? I told The Man what I was thinking and he promptly exclaimed, "You're crazy! They've been wond...Humm....Well, maybe you are right..."

Silently we thought over the hard things of the last six months. There was that dramatic hormonal change I went though, which was hard on both of us, and those personal demons of mine that resurfaced and had to be dealt with, and still do. There was the death of The Man's Grandpa. I held him in my arms as his heart broke. I can still see his face, set as a stone and warm with tears, as the soldiers handed him that triangle flag to present to his Grandmother. And my own personal heart break as I recognized that one day, if I lived long enough, I would stand on that very same hill and hear the guns fire, watch the solemn salutes, and be handed my own triangle flag in honor of my beloved husband. And this was followed my a renewed determination to love him, enjoy him, and bless him as much as I could every single day, and to praise, love, and honor God in the loss of The Man or any of my loved ones. There was that whole month apart, well, a whole month minus that one night. And then there is the loss of our baby. And The Man held me in his arms as my heart broke.

I looked up and our eyes connected. Yes, the past six months held a lot of hard things. Yet. Yet we are so happy, and blessed, and joy filled. I don't think I have ever been more so. God has walked with us through all this, through the valley of the shadow of death. I stand closer to God and closer to my man than I ever have before, and I take so much joy from both of them! I understand more than ever that the joy of the Lord is my strength. I know I need to grow so much more, but I feel almost as if I have had a glimpse through that heavy curtain to the holy of holies, a glimpse of what my life could be if I could truly lay it down, truly give him everything. What a blessing the hard things can be.

Loss

I don't know how to post about this, but I feel like I should, so I am. We lost the baby this past weekend. The Man was out of town a few states away. I had been spotting some all week, but it was light and according to everything we could find there was no reason to worry, but that started changing Saturday late afternoon. There isn't anything doctors can do at 8 weeks. We decided that if we lost the baby we would have to tell everyone, so we might as well ask everyone to pray, since that was the only thing to be done. So I simply kept off my feet and cried a lot and prayed a lot and watched movies and knit like a crazy person. It was good to have something for my hands to do. I'm pretty sure we lost the baby Saturday night. Thankfully The Man was able to fly home the next day, so he was with me for all the doctor's visits. After I started to feel a little better physically he decided to take me out of town to my parents, which is where I am right now. We were planning on coming this direction next week because there is a piece of land out here which we are interested in buying. It's been very good to be with my family and to have something else to think about. I can't cry any more right now. It's amazing how I can feel that God let this happen and yet in the middle of my confusion and hurt feel that I am so loved by Him and that He has never left me. After all God was the only one there holding me as that baby passed from my care to His. I don't think there are really words for the emptiness and pain of all this, yet I don't feel without hope.

The LORD gives and the LORD takes, blessed be the name of the LORD.

A Baby Story Part 2

About two weeks before I knew I was pregnant my cousin Gina and I were talking after church and she stopped in mind sentence, turned her head sideways, squinted at me and said something like, "You look really nice...very feminine. Are you pregnant?!??"

"Nooo", I laughed knowing that she was so excited for me to have kids one day, "not that I know of. Though it's always possible" (After discussing all the craziness of our lives right now, we had decided to simply leave the timing up to God.)

"Well if you are, I called it first!"

I told the story latter that day to The Man, "PHA!" he said, "Stink'n Gina!"

A Baby Story Part 1

A little over a month ago while talking with my oldest (not as in she is old, but as in we have known each other the longest) and dearest friends on the phone she told me that her little girl had been repeatedly asking for a baby sister.

"But you don't get to pick whether the baby is a sister or a brother. God picks. And besides that we can't have anymore brothers or sisters, so where are we going to get a baby?"

"Humm....I doooooon't knoooow???" long pause. "I know! We'll get our best friend c to get us a baby sister!"

And when she was put on the phone she instantly started jabbering about how they needed a baby sister, a girl, and we needed to get one for her. Okay? okay? I told her that I was found see what I could do about it. The funniest part was that she already has a name picked out for her baby sister...and it's the same as the middle name for a little girl that I have had picked out since I was 10 years old or so.
How could I have a name picked out for so long you ask? My mom lost a baby at about 7 or 8 months pregnant between my sister and I. When I was about 10 I asked her about it, and relating the story to me made her so sad, that the only thing I could think of to make her feel better was to promise to give my first little girl the name they had picked out for the baby she lost. What's the name you ask? Not telling...not yet anyway, lol.
Blessings!c

Yep!

So. Here's the basics. I'm seven weeks today. We had the pregnancy confirmed at the doctor's office this past Saturday. I was pretty nervous about telling people (and you know, no one can keep this sort of secret) before it was confirmed, because I've been so afraid I'm imagining this baby...and I am SO in love with The Little Bean...that's what we call him, and no, we don't have any sort of feeling about The Bean being a boy or a girl. I just refer to The Bean as "he" because it's silly and takes too long to say "he or she" every time I talk about The Baby Bean, and I don't like calling him "It". I have lots of little baby stories to tell and share, but I have work to do! And it's hard enough to just sit and be happy about The Bean and get any work done, but I certainly don't get any work done if I'm writing on this blog!
For now I will say this: The Man and I have a lot of things on our plate right now and a lot of questions we are trying to find answers to (buying land, moving, jobs, prenatal care, income, selling the house) and I think we are going to set aside some this week for serious prayer on these issues. There are so many unknowns in our life right now it sometimes makes our heads spin, and only God holds the answers to our questions. It would be a blessing to us if you would join us in lifting up these issues also. More news to follow soon! Blessings! c