Your Heart will Rejoice

When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.

So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

John 16: 21-22

I cannot say how much these verses meant to me as I sat in church around 6 months pregnant, still terrified of becoming a mother. Joy. You might remember, I challenged myself at the first of 2013 to choose joy for so many reasons. 

These words comforted me throughout the rest of my pregnancy, and I was reciting them to myself throughout the delivery process (which was a process indeed).

I am a high - risk pregnancy.  From the beginning, I knew that I would have to be induced early so that the doctors could time my labor with my going off blood thinners. So at 12 am on May 21st, Nathan and I went into the hospital 10 days before my due date (June 1st) to go into labor. My doctor had been concerned about my (TMI warning) unfavorable cervix, so I started out on cytotec and went to sleep around 1:30 am.  A few hours later the nurses woke me up because I'd gone into labor naturally, much to my relief.

Again, a few hours labor, with very little progression, I was put on pitocin, and eventually had my water broken. Not long after, the contractions intensified, and at the insistence of my high risk doctor, I had an epidural. 

The day progressed, but I did not. We went through lots of rolling back and forth onto different sides as my epidural kept going away on my left side. My contraction sensor went bad and was telling the nurse I was having contractions of about 12 intensity when they were really around 80.  Baby started to give us scares with d-cells and variables in his heart rate. Looking back at texts I was sending friends with messages such as,

"still no baby"

"Only 2 cm"

I should have known that things weren't going too well.  By 6 pm, I was only 4ish cm, but stubbornly insistent on going natural.  

At 2am (after 24ish hours of labor) I hadn't gotten any further and we chose to have a c-section. I was exhausted, baby was exhausted, and all in all my body just wasn't ready to give birth.

Nathan texted our parents and my mom later told me that at about 2:45 she felt an overwhelming peace - instead of the fear that something will happen to your child - a fear that as a new mom I am familiar with.

Gavin James was born at 2:52 am. After such an ordeal, something that Jesus understands as "sorrow" and "anguish" was immediately replaced with joy. A joy and a love that only another mother can understand. A joy that cannot be taken from me.

Absence and some Photos

Oh bloggity blog, how I have missed you. The saying goes that absence makes the heart go fonder and in the case of writing here it is 100% true.  I think about starting up writing, and posts, and photos, and things to share daily, and then I don't do it.  

Don't get me wrong, I love soaking up my new son and figuring out how to manage chores and get back to my real job.  so I can't say that I regret how I've used my time away from posting regularly.  But today is the day!  The one where I decide to take action instead of finding yet another new tv series to watch on Netflix.

So, before divulging into motherhood and how it's changed my life forever, I want to share our "maternity" family photos, taken by the wonderful Emily Sill.

My initial thought for taking adorable photos was to share a bowl of Jeni's, but the line was epic long so we skipped over to the park where we found amazing light and scenery. I love all of the photos taken, but now can't stop gushing on the cuteness of what was growing inside me when these were taken.

Current Preggo Thoughts

There's basically an app for everything.

So how could I resist downloading "baby center's" preggo app that tells me exactly whats growing when and where, gives daily tips, has weekly terrifying birthing videos that I refuse to watch, and tells me all the ways that I am failing as a proper pregnant lady.

"Eat vegetables" it tells me.  I have a bowl of cereal.

"Count your kicks" it says.  I push a foot back into place.

"Write down a pregnancy memory" it suggests.  I roll my eyes.

But because it's past my bedtime, and because tomorrow's Friday, here are my current thoughts on pregnancy...

1.) nesting. I don't think it's really happened to me yet and I'm not sure that it will.  Yeah I like pulling cute little onesies out of the dryer, but I think I'm doing these things more out of obligation.  I think that's just my feelings on laundry in general.

2.) It's hot. I sweat in the movie theater.

3.) Dear everyone who keeps telling me I'm too small...I'm not. Perhaps I just need to wear an "I've gained 30 pounds and still have a month to go" sign around my neck...

4.) I'm tired, not sleepy.

5.) My favorite place is a hot shower.

6.) My feet don't fit in any shoes, luckily, it's sandal weather just in time.

7.) My husband did some dishes last night. He's my hero.

Little Shoes for Little Buddy

Over the weekend I gave into my preggo cravings and crossed the street to the local Shipley's donuts. Here I bought a half dozen, carefully choosing two for the husband, went home and immediately poured out some coffee fresh out of the press and proceeded to eat all four donuts...and an orange.

While eating said donuts, I stitched up something for the little buddy.  Some felt baby shoes!

I "pinned" the tutorial a couple of years ago intending to make some for niece kaitlyn. Now that she is almost 2 I found it about darn time to try these out.  The tutorial is from The Purl Bee and every tutorial that they do is enchanting and beyond my skillset as a knitter, but I love looking at them just the same.

They took most of the morning. Cutting and pinning the felt was really easy. I'd guess that in total the little project maybe took 2-3 hours, but I took lots of breaks and was very distracted by season 3 of Parenthood on Hulu.

I've got another pair in the works for my niece who arrived on Tuesday! But I think I will wait to give them to her until I can put them on her precious little feet myself!

What Do I Wear?

Today we are going to take family photos!  I'm so excited :)

However, because of my shopping hiatus my maternity wear wardrobe has been mostly things that I'm just lucky I can still squeeze into, and things that the awesome women from church are letting me borrow.

Nevertheless I've had a lot of trouble this week thinking about what to wear. I mean, this is probably the one time in my life that I am going to be exactly 33 weeks pregnant. I'm trying not to build it up too much in my brain and have too high of expectations, but Darn It! I want to look cute!

We have a plan to go to my favorite place on earth for some ice cream, and then take dillan over to the dog park.  So I was thinking I'd have a cute ice cream outfit and a cute casual park outfit.

So this morning, I did a little impromptu shoot to see which outfit I had in my head will turn out best.  To me there's a very clear winner, but I really want to hear what you think?

Which do you think? Any accessories to add? Any mixes?

Thanks for helping! leave a comment and let me know what you think, but nice comments only please! ;)

Boy and I Sure are Growing

Even though the past 8 months have flown by, I feel like the change in my body has been gradual.  Well...that's a lie, in this moment I feel like the change in my body has been gradual. Tomorrow I might be standing in astonishment at the lack of a direct eyes to toes visual, but we'll let that live in tomorrow.

I haven't done a great job at keeping tabs on my growing baby belly, so I wanted to do a quick recap of some growth moments.

Here I think I was about 6 weeks pregnant. you guys didn't know! But you probably could see that I had started gaining... umm... elsewhere.

Our anniversary. 8 weeks pregnant I think. I didn't eat seafood on this glorious trip to Charleston.  All the more reason to go back!

About 12ish weeks preggo. I miss this skirt. 

20 weeks preggo!  I got a steak that night because as I recall I didn't get an appetite back until about that time.

24ish weeks.  Dillan photobombed. I like to think that someone noticed the bump that day because a lady told me I looked cute.

Gonna go ahead and guess about 25/26 weeks. 

Maybe one more week ahead at 27.  My mom wanted a belly picture. I think this is my favorite t-shirt of all time.

Easter photos. Dillan always has to check it out.  30 weeks.

And that my friends is the update. This Saturday I will be 33 weeks with baby boy expected in about 5 (I have to be induced around 38 weeks).  And we'll be taking some maternity photos! I'm so excited to document this time with the talented Emily Sill!  Hip Hip!

The News is Out

Today is Nathan's birthday! happy Birthday Nathan!

As part of his birthday celebrations, he made a little facebook post. Now it wasn't exactly a secret, but I had no idea that he was going to share.

So, the cat's outta the proverbial bag and I'm pregnant!

It's okay, I'll give you a second...

I'm pregnant.

Little one is almost 12 weeks old, and while I'm technically not out of the first trimester woods, baby is looking good and measuring ahead.

And so am I...

many many more details of this experience to come :)