Waiting on Bryson

We keep talking about how much we really don't think we are expecting our little boy to come...I had a lot of labor pains and started losing my mucous plug (sorry for too much info for some of you : ) ) at 34 weeks and was really worried about preterm labor. Then I hit 36 weeks, was 50% effaced and about 1.5 cm dilated, 37 weeks and was about 70% effaced and still about 1.5cm, and got a similar report at our 38 week visit yesterday.
I will seriously have hours at a time, mostly mornings and nights, when I start thinking I should really start timing the contractions but don't, and they eventually go away. So, I think after 4 weeks of this I just subconsciously feel like it's not ever going to be real. Surprisingly enough, I am much more patient with my waiting this time! I think it's because I have Emma and know any day could be my last time with her as an only child...so bittersweet. I can't wait to have another precious miracle in our arms and to give her the sibling she really wants (we'll see what she thinks when it's permanent), but I do have my teary times thinking about how she might feel neglected and worrying about leaving her to go to the hospital. My mom has shared how awful it was for her to leave my sister to have me, but we're very close, so there's firsthand proof at just how well it works out. It's just sometimes overwhelming to try to think of how we will be able to balance our time between our children and being sure each one feels individually important and loved. I know millions of people succeed at it, and I feel confident we will; it's just hard to imagine.
Physically, most days I feel exhausted. The contractions eased up some last week but have really kicked back in again this week along with some other pains that I've been having the past month. Some nights, I sleep hard as a rock, other nights, I am frequenting the bathroom and/or eating Rolaids. My back is starting to really hurt and be extremely tense, which I am assuming is from all the contractions. Add to all that, the emotional stress, the trying to keep the house clean and kept up (I can't stand to go anywhere overnight with it not clean--I hate coming home to a dirty house!), keep the groceries stocked, the bills for us and the business a little ahead, and spend plenty of quality time with Emma, Ben, and in the word...oh, yeah, that's probably what's exhausting. : ) None of this is meant as a complaint; I'm just trying to capture what life is like during this pregnancy. I know I'll look back on these days wondering what I did and how I did it (kind of like college years...how did we do so much and on such little sleep???), so I just like to have it in writing. I am so grateful for every bit of this in my life as well as for the energy the Lord gives me to keep going! In our weakness, He is strong...to Him be the glory!
Other than my emotional times about Emma, her upcoming sister transition, and her growing up WAY too quickly, I am doing well in the emotional realm. Thanks to the prayers of many, I really have felt a peace about this delivery. I am still asking God for a successful VBAC and healthy baby and Mommy, but I have not really felt any anxiety over it in a while. As disappointing and painful as another c-section would be, I know I'll be excited to meet my baby, and I am even more excited to watch my precious little Emma climb up with me and hug and kiss her baby brother as she keeps telling me she's going to do when he's born. Isn't that so sweet?! One day as I was laying in bed with her reading to her before a nap, she randomly pulled my shirt up saying she wanted to tell Bryson hey. She then proceeded to lay her head on my belly and sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" to him. Is she already a great big sister or what?!? I love how she randomly rubs my belly, or says, "Hey Bryson" or "Come out Bryson"! Every time we ride by the hospital, she gives a spill of how Bryson is going to be born there and come out of Mommy's belly, and how she's going to hold him and kiss him and hug him. It melts my heart every time! Sometimes I go that way just to hear her talk about it.
Overall, I am just completely amazed and humbled at the experience and miracle of life! Every move Bryson makes brings warmth to my heart and praise to my God that He created something so miraculous, intricate, and special. How do people experience this and not know God is God??? How do people think man evolved or that a life is worthless enough to abort? I just try so hard to soak it all in every day as I never know if this is the last time I'll be blessed with the miracle of life in this way. Even though I feel quite monstrous and would love to see some semblance of my old body in the near future, I know I'll miss the constant kicks, hiccups, and nudges of this pregnancy. For now, we are patiently waiting for the day the Lord brings Bryson into this world. He is due Good Friday...

Time Is Ticking...

Our little girl is growing up sooooo fast and will very soon be a big sister...from what I hear, will seem like a much bigger girl when she walks in to meet her brother. It's so bittersweet. I look at her numerous times a day wondering how in the world there is a little person in my life that is so perfect, beautiful, fun, crazy, and "grown up". She never ceases to make our cups overflow, and we are so very grateful to have Emma in our lives!
We are constantly blown away by things she learns, says, and does...she is still quite the independent and strong-willed type. Still a climber...finds ways to get to light and fan switches, food, money, "lips", music, pretty much anything that interests her at that moment. It was actually quite humorous to go in her room and find her asleep a couple of weeks ago and wonder how in the world her fan got on when I distinctly remembered turning it off at her request...and to find her climbing on top of her sit and spin in Bryson's room with the quick explanation, "I want music, Mommy". She cracks me up! She is obsessed with "lips", which is my softlips (a chapstick thing). It's kind of amusing to me because my friends and teammates in high school and college used to make fun of me because I would not go anywhere without it myself. She asks for it and puts it on as frequently as I let her. Many a time will she get to my purse wherever it is and dig it out to access my softlips herself. A couple of words/phrases I love to hear..."It's wucky, Mommy", "Tanner barkin", "I scared", "okay, okay" as she holds her hand up and nods her head...yesterday, she spilled her milk in the kitchen and was telling me, so I asked her to grab a towel and wipe it up (I was hunting a recipe at the time)...A minute later she came running into the dining room buck naked, laughing, and saying, "It's slippidy, Mommy, it's slippidy!" and quickly ran back. I followed to find much more milk than I had imagined, and she was sitting in it splashing and then jumping up splashing...she kept laughing telling me how slippidy it was. She thought slipping was funny until she actually fell. No use crying over spilt milk, huh?!?! I definitely had to laugh...It would be hard to be much more tired than I am these days, I had a full day yesterday, and now she added mopping to my list. Oh well, such is motherhood, life really.
Her imagination is booming lately, and we go to the beach almost every day! What a wonderful life I'm living! What could be better than daily walks on the beach with my toddler, picking up shells, laying in the sun and splashing in the ocean?!?! Other favorites are cooking and eating in her kitchen and talking on a phone.
Her motor skills are great too, and she seems to run faster and jump higher every day! I'd love to try her out in gymnastics in the near future, but I'll have to settle in with 2 first and then see what kind of money and time that would involve. In the meantime, she loves to swing on bars and rings(not a huge fan of sitting in a swing unless it's barely moving), run, jump, ride a bike, and do flips, so I doubt she's missing out on too much. She can really "write" and draw fairly well. She is decent at coloring in the lines if she's trying. Pretty sure she's going to be a lefty bc she's favored the left hand for quite a while. I'm hoping she'll be more ambidextrous so we can more easily teach her things...especially sports! Of course, a lefty can be a commodity in the wonderful world of sports too (This is me hoping she stays interested in sports!!). Yes, I know there is much more to life than sports and will be proud no matter where the Lord leads her.
I had to include a few pictures...my little helper in the kitchen who is worse than her Mommy about tasting while she cooks! : ) DJ made her the cute little apron, and she loves to wear it to help me cook or to cook in her kitchen. Probably can't tell, but in the picture of her wearing nothing but a purse, she actually had 2 purses, a small camera bag, and her keys...she was supposed to be getting ready to go to the grocery store with me and came running down the hall telling me she was ready to go! : ) I'm telling you the girl adds much joy and laughter to my life! I love the picture of her playing in her sandbox with the little pink hat. For whatever reason, she's been obsessed with that hat since we bought it and quite frequently pulls it out for the 70-80 degree days such as the day I took this picture.

Life These Days

What a busy month we've had since I last posted! We had a wonderful dinner and evening at our youth sponsored Valentine's Banquet, we celebrated my Uncle Bob's 60th birthday and Rick's 31st, we actually got a "real snow", we finished church basketball season (with the exception of the John Revell tournament this week), we completed a drawn out IRS audit, we survived a lock-in with the high school students, we refinanced our house with a much better interest rate (which will save us a considerable amount on our mortgage), and I helped plan and host our second annual women's pj party at church.
We survived the dreaded audit process, which was a pain, but ended without us owing or gaining anything...Praise the Lord! It did happen to be the year we had a new business, I became unemployed, and we changed health insurance 3 times...not the easiest box from which we had to sort through and find documentation. The lady was very gracious and easy to work with though, and, had her manager not been pushier, we would have been finished much sooner.
Our real snow was so much fun, even though I was on the Mommy side of things. : ) It was hard to balance getting pictures and videos with keeping everyone warm and dry and still enjoying "living the moment". The more we experience as parents, the more we understand and appreciate just how much sacrifice, effort and love our parents put into raising us...thank y'all! : ) The snow started on a Sunday night, and Emma was soooo excited. We had to bundle her up and let her go on the back deck to see, feel and try to catch the snow on her tongue! Lot of effort for 10-15 minutes, but it is always a joyous occasion to watch life through a toddler's eyes! We were all excited to go out the next morning to play...I was greeted with snowballs flying from Ben and Emma. : ) Then we headed to the backyard to see Tanner and build a snowman. We had a good 3-4 inches, but it was really hard to get it to pack; we made a decent sized little snowman nonetheless. Emma loved him and still occasionally points out where her snowman was in the backyard and talks about how he melted and fell down. Then we took a walk toward the woods...unfortunately, an aggressive dog was on the loose, and Tanner entered protective mode with Emma, so they were fighting. Ben was actually kicking the other dog in the face to try to send him off, but he was relentless at attacking Tanner. We stopped in at my parent's house to lock Tanner up so Ben could come home and get his truck. Emma and I went in to warm up and take a break. When Ben finally took care of Tanner, we all continued on our walk to the woods, which was so beautiful! Emma was not interested in sledding but wanted to keep eating the snow off the branches. We made and ate some snow cream later in the day, and Em was loving that! The thing I like best about where we live is that most of the time as was the case this time, the majority of the snow was melting quickly by the afternoon. I know that can be a bummer as a kid, but we need my husband to be able to get out and work, so I have a little different perspective in life now. It is nice to have a huge snow every so often though (I think it was 2004, maybe 05 when we had 16 inches, which was great fun the first couple of days!).
As for the lock-in, I should say Ben survived it more than "we". I stayed until about 11 but then picked up Emma and came home. Ben didn't make it home until after 8 that Saturday morning. He kept saying he probably wouldn't stay too late, but I told him I knew he'd act just like a 15 year old once he got going with them. Sure enough he played all night and morning long and then paid for it the next several days. The achiness and sleep deprivation are apparently a little harder to get over at 30. ; ) I guess I can say "we" survived in the sense that I actually didn't get to sleep until about 1:30 and then had about 3 hours of hard contractions that morning as I tried to keep Daddy's girl away from her trying to sleep Daddy as well as get ready and get to a birthday party.
Our pj party at church was great fun again! I love to see and participate in the body of women fellowshipping. Hopefully our September event will include more ladies from Ebenezer's body! We watched the movie Bella, which is wonderful and quite an inspirational story in the battle of abortion! I do highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it! I think it was possibly extra powerful to watch being 9 months pregnant--wondering how anyone could consider killing a miracle and how utterly hopeless one must feel to be in the position of being pregnant and completely alone. I thank my God that He has indeed chosen me to walk a different path in life, and I am eternally grateful that I have a joy and hope that is much greater than any circumstance this temporary world can present!