Why I’m REALLY, REALLY excited for 2014

Ok, so in my last post I posted about our goals and plans for 2014…but I left out one HUGE thing….

We are HAVING A BABY!

This has been SO hard to hold in for so long!

So for now, here is the story…

I suspected for a few weeks, but every time I took a test, it was negative. So, we played the waiting game. I so badly wanted to find out if I really was pregnant or not before we went to Florida for Thanksgiving. I wanted to be able to tell my family in person. But no such luck. I had all but given up, but decided to try one last time on our last day there. I peed on the stick and then just placed it on the counter, not really paying attention to it. I washed my hands, and then glanced down at the stick….and TWO PINK LINES! I almost screamed. I grabbed it and ran through the house screaming for Theo. Theo was still sleeping, and sat up with a very confused/concerned look on his face. I shoved the stick toward him and then he smiled this big smile. It was all very exciting and overwhelming, and we had no clue what to do, so we took off for Wal-mart to find some things to help us announce it to Daniel and Kelly.

We asked Daniel and Kelly to take a picture of us in front of an orange tree (honestly, we didn’t care where it was….we just wanted to tell them.) Kelly took a little bit of coercing as it was still pretty early and not really ideal weather for taking pictures. Daniel snapped a bunch and then we said… “Wait, we have a prop”…and pulled out a onesie and some baby booties. The looks on their faces was PRICELESS. I will never forget that moment.

We went inside and skyped with my parents, sending them the picture in an email while we skyped. The internet connection was not the best, so we just saw blurry pictures of them trying to download an email. Finally, they saw the picture, and screaming and yelling ensued. Also priceless. The whole time, my Grandparents were in the room, and we had put the baby booties right in front of Grandma’s plate. Finally, she asked…”is this an announcement?”. So fun. We were just so excited that we proceeded to tell most of the rest of Theo’s family over the phone later that day. Also priceless, since my sister-in-law started jumping and screaming at the grocery store when she heard the news.

I am 10 weeks along, and so far….sorta good. I certainly have all the symptoms of the first trimester of pregnancy. I have had mild nausea 24/7 and NO energy to do ANYTHING. I am so thankful for the timing, though, because I have had over a week off of work for Christmas, and several snow days, too. Theo has been amazing…I always tell him that he is doing more work to grow this baby because he is so good at taking care of me and what I need, even when I don’t feel like eating anything. Theo is the vitamin police, and I haven’t gone with my prenatals yet. 🙂

We have had one amazing ultrasound, courtesy of Theo’s Dad (it pays to have an obgyn in the family!), where we got to see the heartbeat. Yesterday I had my first appointment with my widwife (yes, midwife…more on that later), and while we didn’t get an ultrasound, we got to hear the heartbeat, and that brought tears to my eyes!

Thank you all SO MUCH for your excitement, support and being with us on this journey from the beginning. We are truly blessed.

And many of you have asked…Are we still doing foster care? YES, we are! We choose to do foster care knowing that we eventually wanted to have our own kids, too. We are not doing foster care for US, so that we can have a child. We are doing it so that together, we can help raise children who don’t have good homes. And I know that there is a lot in it for us to learn, so we are eagerly anticipating that, too. We actually have our first homestudy with the social worker on Friday, so keep us in your prayers. We will be telling them that we are expecting, and at this point we don’t know how much that will change our timeline of plans. We had originally wanted to have a foster child in our care by the end of this year, but with a new baby coming in August, that timeline might change a little bit. But we are still continuing with that journey!