*15 week bump date attempt*

It takes two seconds on my Facebook page to realize that one of my biggest passions and joys in life is being a mother. The moment I met Beau, my life changed for the better in ways I couldn't have imagined. I felt a joy and fierce love I had never known and I knew that once I became I mother, I would never want to turn back. It is the greatest change in my life and when people talk about kids being a burden and wanting freedom for a while, I just can't understand. Mostly because I've never felt more free, happy, or myself than when I started taking care of my very special boy.

But getting there is not easy. The Mount Everest I like to call pregnancy and really the first few months with a newborn is the key to that happiness and for me it's not an easy climb!

So, since this will be the last
time I'm pregnant (go to last blog if there's any questions why, ha) I've decided to try to do things like bump dates to try and attempt to make pregnancy more exciting and enjoyable.

I see other cutesie little pictures and blogs and look at them in awe and jealously as I work hard to enjoy it even a tiny bit. But that jealousy is coupled with happiness for that person because I am grateful some women love it. What a gift to you! Blowing out someone else's candle doesn't make mine burn any brighter, great stories of pregnancy do my heart good.

I want to be that glowing mother that dreams of the baby and oogles over a growing human inside, but I just puke and watch my thighs grow more than my belly and wonder why it always feels like 107 degrees wherever I go. But finally meeting my baby outside of my body changes everything and life does become more beautiful and full of love than I ever imagined. So it's definitely worth it. I'm truly happy for moms who love pregnancy and I'm trusting in you to keep the population growing.

I'm really am beyond thankful for the opportunity to be pregnant even as much as I've suffered because it teaches me to truly love them and give myself up for them even before they are here. I would do anything for my babies and they are my greatest gifts along with Brian! The love of a mother is nothing you can explain, but it's incredible. I am honored to take the journey to the next phase of life and make our family complete!


So, here's my attempt at a bump date at 15 weeks along! Baby is the size of an orange:)










I'm feeling A LOT less nauseas but it's still hanging on during the day. I'm really happy many hours of the day and able to enjoy life again and play with my boy which I will never take for granted again! I've missed him so much. From about 4pm on, though...I still feel extremely sick and have to go to bed around 6:30 or 7! Ha! It'll be interesting to see when the nausea stops!

Baby has a heart rate of 165!! Faster than Beau who was 145 at this age. It is the best feeling to hear that sound!!! The upside to nausea is it's like I can always hear that heart in a way. It's a great reminder that baby is doing great. And now that it's more of a normal nausea situation, I can appreciate it! :)

We find out if it's a boy or girl January 7th!! It's crazy to think the mystery of what my family is going to look like will finally be solved. I've dreamt of this my whole life and couldn't wait to start knowing the people who would matter most to me in life. (Which is why I was married two months before I convinced Brian we should have our first baby! Ha!) We are both glad I was that crazy!! It was a great decision for us.

So, will I be an all boy mom or have a daughter? Not long until we know! Ahhhh! Talk about butterflies and nerves. I'm thankful I have the holidays to help me pass the time.

Okay, let's see...I'm craving chik fil a chicken sandwiches and they taste like a piece of Heaven! And oranges, I can't get enough.

15 weeks in and I've already made it over the hardest hump. That's something to be thankful for!! I am so excited to see what these next few months hold for us:)!

Lessons I learned in the Darkness

What I'm about to write is not one of my favorite types of things to write about. It's heavy and really personal but I have this feeling that won't go away that I need to share what God taught me lately in some of the most difficult days of my life. The end is where my lesson comes in because I have to explain where I was at first, I just really hope that someone can get something good out of what I learned because I want my suffering to matter and mean something even if it's just to one person.

Out of all the things in life I've ever experienced, my first trimesters have been the worst. It's hard to explain the horror and suffering that surrounds it especially since most pregnant women do not have to go through what I go through. Anytime I see someone at 12 weeks announce they are having a baby and I've seen them many of the weeks leading up to it, I'm like what?! How?! Because my pregnancies leave me debilitated and suffering in physical and emotional ways I never knew possible. I have to tell people in the first trimester because 1.) I disappear for a while and 2.) I need to be encouraged through the dark days.

You know the feeling when you have major food poisoning and are about to heave it all up? The second before where you get sweaty and the worst feelings comes over you and dying doesn't sound too bad. That's what I feel like for six weeks strait day after day, night after night, minute after minute that ticks by slower than it ever has. One especially low night I remember just throwing up a little bit of water and blood and that was it.

I tried to comfort myself with happy thoughts about my new baby, but the problem is, I couldn't really THINK. I couldn't FEEL anything good. I couldn't feel happiness, I couldn't feel love, I couldn't feel hope, I couldn't feel any warm feelings I felt before I was sick. All I had left were survival instincts and how can I make it to the next hour? But sadness and hopelessness found it's way in easily. I KNOW that having a healthy pregnancy is a wonderful and great thing to be happy about, but in that condition you can't think like that. Your mind is so overtaken with misery that thinking strait is next to impossible and guilt for not being happy makes it worse. Being so sick you can't comfort yourself with the truth. I was just a shell of who I once was during these days and the only way I knew life was still going was by hearing a leaf blower outside the closed window every once in a while. And getting texts from my friends and family...which genuinely helped because I needed to feel remembered.

I prayed and prayed that God would spare me this pregnancy so many times. I woke up in a panic many nights just thinking that I might have to endure what I had to endure with Beau again. How could I do it? How could I survive that kind of torture a second time? The C section was a cake walk and RELIEF compared to what I went through the first 14 weeks. They say once the baby comes you forget, but I never forgot. It haunted me almost everyday and panicked me over and over again. Everyone would say "Next time will be different!" but I knew deep down it probably wouldn't be.

 I also prayed a more important prayer, that at least if I did have to suffer again, would God please bring something good spiritually from it? Because last time I did not grow, I only became bitter. I wanted my suffering to MEAN something. Help SOMEONE. And it hadn't.

So here I was, faced with my biggest fear yet again and it actually came worse this time. I cried out to God day after day just begging him to give me some relief, ANY relief. But the relief never came. It seemed like the toilet was mocking me, no, no no...you're still here. I tried not to cry because crying always made me throw up more.

I finally just got really honest with God and wrote down in my journal: "Dear God, I'm afraid to pray. I don't know how much more no I can handle. Please give me something, ANYTHING"....and here's where I learned something I'll never forget.

I opened my bible and it landed on this verse:

"While Jesus was here on earth, He offered prayers and pleadings, with a loud cry and tears, to the one who could deliver him out of death. And God heard his prayers because of his reverence for God. So even though Jesus was God's son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered. In this way. God qualified him as a perfect High Priest, and he became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him." Hebrews 5:7-9

I was in shock. It was exactly what I needed to hear in that moment. Jesus himself spent many days and nights just like I did crying and pleading to God, yet he was allowed to suffer for something GREATER. The one who never sins learned for suffering. LEARNED from it. I felt God telling me through these verses that he HEARD me and that he wasn't treating me any differently than he did his own SON, Jesus Christ who was allowed to suffer as well. Jesus pleaded over things that were heard, but not always answered yes. Jesus HAD to suffer to save us all. It was a greater plan, a bigger picture.

I have had more times when God has said YES to my pleadings that I was expecting my prayers to always be answered yes, but that's not always what it's going to be. I have to trust that when he says no he has a good reasons for it. Maybe my body just needs to be severely sick to make healthy babies?  Maybe I was given this to have a deep compassion for women who need help in this time. I will GLADLY take anyone's babies for them that are sick and need help throughout my life. Even if a person is not as sick as I was, I have such compassion for it. I just can't handle thinking someone else might have to suffer like that as well. Or maybe I was allowed to suffer so I could learn this incredible lesson. God answers me no differently than he answered his own Son when I suffer. I don't understand the no's in my life, but I know one day I will.

There is a BIGGER picture and I know that God HEARS me...and sometimes that has to be enough.