This is the Miracle

Before you were conceived I wanted you.

Before you were born I loved you.

Before you were here an hour I would die for you.

This is the miracle of love.

Maureen Hawkins 

Making the decision to have a child- its momentous.

It is to decide forever to have your heart go

walking around outside your body.

Elizabeth Stone

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb.

PSALM 139:13

From Birth I have relied on you; you brought me forth from my mother's womb. I will ever praise you. 

PSALM 71:6

We have been feeling the little baby boy moving around more and more. Adam was able to feel it for the first time just the other day. As I have been reading and learning about the process that is happening inside of me I have been sharing pieces of interesting information-well, little miracles- with Adam along the way, and we are just in awe of the Creator. The Creator of the entire universe, the one who made the heavens and earth, the originator off all things, is creating our unborn child. I remember when my sweet niece Olivia was born and how the thought of having children was not really a present desire in my life...until this little life came into my life and all of the sudden my capacity to love was deepened and I had no idea of what my heart could do. It has brought so much joy to our lives to watch God change and shape our capacity to love with each day, toward each-other and for this baby. I am so grateful for such a tender, sweet husband who is drawing our little family closer and close to God through this process - and I am so thankful for a God who sees and knows the depths of my scared mother heart and is meeting me right at my greatest need. 

Big News Today!

Adam and I had our very first ultrasound today at 20 weeks along. It was so much fun to finally get to see the baby and find out that........ITS A BOY!!!!!!  woohoo!! We are so excited! We have been waiting these 20 weeks knowing we were going to find out and its just so crazy to finally know. We are having a son. So we went to dinner at P.F. Chang's and sat with our baby name books like dorks and wrote down all the options, it has been a really fun day! Here are a couple of the pics that were taken today...obviously they are a little hard to make out but they are both a frontal view of his sweet little face with his hand up to his cheek. Who do you think he looks like? I think he looks like Adam! Ha- maybe too early to tell....

Pregnancy test mix up

So I (Val) thought I would go back to when we very first found out we were pregnant and tell of my scatterbrained pregnancy test mix up.....Adam and I bought a couple pregnancy tests one weekend because I was insisting "something" was not going as scheduled. I took one of the tests that came in the box and waited....it had one bold line and one REALLY REALLY faint line next to it (two lines is a positive) I was just totally thrown off by this faint line, my goodness couldn't they at least make it a bold positive when you are standing with this little stick in your hand that determines  your future, couldn't they at least be sure to be clear!! Well I read the box and it informed me that a positive result remains in the box for a long time and a negative result fades completely to leave a blank box in just one hour. Well in all the confusion I just pulled out the other test to take it and see what happens to this one, and Adam my frugal husband quickly reminded me how much these precious sticks cost, so I agreed to wait the  hour out to see if the box goes blank or not. 

So one hour later I run into the bathroom and grab the stick, take it out to Adam and turn it around to reveal a completely blank box and sadly exclaim "it's a negative."  I threw the stick in the trash.....We really weren't "planning" on a pregnancy but the thought of it had quickly gotten me excited. 

So because it was a friday night Adam and I left right away to meet some friends for plans we had. We can home late and went right to bed, slept in and had a lazy sat. Sometime that night I happened to go into the spare bathroom where all this stick peeing took place and to my surprise a pregnancy test was sitting on the counter with a positive result in the box. I stood there for a while trying to figure this situation out. Then it hit me that the night before I had run into the bathroom in such excitement to check the stick that I grabbed the UNUSED one I had opened  and left the positive result stick sitting on the counter! I ran out of the bathroom yelling "I grabbed the wrong one!!" and had to explain it to Adam....we were both very excited but laughed that we let a whole 24 hours go by with this exciting news right on our bathroom counter!! 

If it's not mine...then who's is it?

I (Adam) have been thinking a lot lately about the scope of what can be considered a "full life."  Val and I just had two friends pass away this weekend; one from Lou Gehrig's Disease and the other in a car accident.  It's weird for these kind of things happen in general, but especially when it's people we know, and when we feel like we're still "too young to mourn the loss of peers."

All that to say, I've been realizing that if I trust that God is a good God and that He is in control even of situations like these, then He's in control of my baby.  And like it or not, I'm going to ultimately give up control (as though I felt like I had any) over what happens both in Val's pregnancy and after the baby's finally here.  It's not mine, it's His.  He will do for our child and our family what He knows is best, even if it doesn't feel comfortable or like the way we would have picked, He will always work "for the good of those who love Him."  

Maybe I just need to redefine what I believe "good" to be, and trust that with me, and with Val, and with this baby, that God's good is the best good.