Our Baby

We have good friends expecting their first child.  The husband used to work for mine and they are a wonderful younger (younger than us) couple.  They are only weeks away from meeting their child and we are thrilled for them.  There is no greater leap of faith than becoming a parent for the first time.  Although, I beginning to wonder if having a 3rd doesn't require a great deal of faith as well. 

On Nikki's blog (which you can find here), she's been documenting her pregnancy and I was recently asked by someone we have in common (i.e. my husband) why I haven't done that.  With all the "minor" things going on in our lives, I haven't had much time to cover this pregnancy in a lot of detail.  (Plus with two, the 2nd gets a little less coverage than the 1st and so the 3rd progresses the same way.....so I hear anyways.)

I've been thinking about his comment and decided it might be time to talk about "Our Baby" as we've taken to calling her.  And yes, it is a her - we found that out last week.  It is 100%, according to the nurse that did the ultrasound and since she's been doing this for 20 years as well as she was right about our first two kids, I'm going to take her word for it.  Our Baby is already a feisty one, she took forever to move into position to see her gender and kicked the whole time.  She is perfectly healthy.  In fact, here is a picture of her!

 (Don't you just love that these sweet little babies look like aliens?)

So far, I haven't gained much weight (less than 6 lbs as of last weigh in) and that is on purpose.  Since this pregnancy #3 and I am close to 40, I thought it wise to keep the weight gain down.  I have a nice round tummy which seems to be growing every day.  It reminds me of the conversation in Pulp Fiction about how Bruce Willis' girlfriend wishes for a pot belly and declares they are sexy.  Glad she thinks so and if I would only have the pot belly, I might agree.  But with my pregnancies other things get big, no "all belly" for me.  Since I am only half-way through, there is still plenty of time for more weight gain, and I assure you there will be.

This pregnancy has been different, I've had no real craving for sweets (that doesn't mean I won't eat them, I just don't have to have them), nor that interested in pizza.  With Natalie and Sophia, we ate pizza every three days and I was a sweet-eating machine. Also with the first two, I could eat EVERYTHING.  This time around, I fill up fast.  I do like cereal, frosted mini-wheats to be exact and Dr. Pepper.  I'm guessing those "needs" will have to be replaced or adjusted when we move to Italy.  At least they have lots of milk, cheese and awesome crackers (so I hear) there so I won't be in to bad of shape. 

I share one thing with Nikki, in that I've had to start acquiring all the baby paraphernalia again.  The only thing we had left was a crib frame.  Not surprising as Sophia just turned 6 and we've moved 3 times since she was born.  Given I'm not terribly sentimental and I lean more to the side of "get it out of the house now", it was lucky we even had that (when I wanted to sell it, Dave suggested we save it for grandchildren.)  I've been very blessed with people looking out for us, giving us stuff and pointing us in the direction of people wanting to part with their baby items so Project Baby #3 for Less has been a success.  

This is a pretty normal pregnancy.  Sure, I'm tired but I was tired before, just now I can get away without feelings of guilt for napping.  Fortunately, the girls are in school so I can sneak in my naps during the day and we can keep up a relatively normal lifestyle when we are together.  

Our Baby being a girl came as quite a shock because I was CONVINCED it was a boy.  The family was rooting for a boy too - one Dave's side to carry on the Vogel name and on my side to break the "girl" streak after 4 granddaughters. Now, I was also convinced Natalie was a boy, although I was certain Sophia was a girl, which just goes to show you I have no intuition whatsoever; at least not when it comes to baby gender.

The girls are very excited, although they were also very interested in having a boy, but like them, we are all excited about Our Baby.  They both want to help and are looking forward to reading to the baby (it's nice to have someone else who wants to read Goodnight Moon a few hundred times).  I'm excited about the baby getting big enough in my stomach for them to feel a kick!

Here is their reaction to finding out if they were getting a brother or sister (notice I told them while they were eating cookies.  I've learned a few tricks of the trade in my time as a Mom):

The night I found out I was pregnant, I had to tell someone in person.  Dave was out of town (poor guy, had to hear about it over the phone) and my best friend could only get texts - so I ran across the street to our neighbor who has 3 kids herself.  When I was talking to her, I had this thought:

God certainly thought our family wasn't complete.  So whoever this is, he/she will be what we never knew we were missing.

I think about that more and more as well as Psalm 127:3-4.  I might not have gotten the gender right - but God is making our family complete and that is what is important.  This girl is our bonus and blessing baby - one, after she is born, we will look back and wonder how we ever lived without her.  I tear up when I think about how we will have to tell her her sister is a cancer survivor - she will only know Sophia as the strong, sassy little girl she is today, not the one who had to go through all of that mess.

I'm so glad our girls will have the experience of seeing Mommy and Daddy with a baby so they will be able to understand what we were like with them.  They LOVE stories about when they were babies, now they will get to see it firsthand!  I'm so glad they will have another person to be connected to and share their lives with.  I know each day won't be rosy (more awareness from being a seasoned Mom), but this is an experience only God could have given them us.

In case you are wondering - yes we are working on names.  The top contenders are currently Abigail and Sarah (or spelled Serah like I found in Genesis the other day) but like I said, we have awhile to go so there is plenty of time to decide. 

That's all for now Our Baby.  I just felt her do her freestyle flutter kick, so I guess I should credit her as the co-author of this post.  I can't imagine what life will be like, but I am over-awed at God's blessings so I can only expect it will be wonderful.  A true season of blessing awaits us.

Thanks be to God.