20 week ultrasound!

weeks 19 and 20!!!! half way there!!!!!!!!!!

we have finally made it to 20 weeks.  crazy.  so thankful, SOOOOOO thankful to have made it this far.  god has been wonderful in reassuring me and sticking with me when i was feeling fearful about how this pregnancy would go.  steve has been wonderful too... sort of christ with skin on during this time, a godsend.
we find out in 3 days what the gender is... crazy!
okay, well here is a picture at 19 weeks...

                                            and...  here's a few at 20 weeks (today!)!!

okie dokie=)
...and in other news... naomi and i are back from london and paris with many pictures and stories... so i'll post some of those soon=) some can be found on our travel blog, http://googlyeyesonfrenchfries.blogspot.com/ .  naomi has been very diligent about updating it via her iphone despite our exhausting days and blogger being down for however many days.

18 weeks today... pregnancy update

baby is movin' quite a lot now.  i thought i felt things a couple weeks ago but wasn't sure... 

now i've almost got it figured out how to get baby to move!  i sit still and talk or sing to him/her... 

or especially if steve talks=)

this second picture i think really helps... cause gravity moves away all my "extra stuff",

and all that's left to see is the baby bump =) 

i'm not just fat i swear... maybe a little chubby AND pregnant?

here i am at 17 weeks... gettin' there =)

to rosie, with love...

now my life is rosie, since i found my rosie=)

5 weeks and six days...

till we fly back to the states!

steve finished and submitted a huge writing project he was working on! yay!!  we were going to go to the Isle of Skye for a few days this week, but have decided to wait a few weeks on that.  SO... we are cleaning out the house this week, packing, and putting things up for sale that we won't be taking back to the states... such as our car=) sadly we won't be adding this license plate to our collection... they stay with the cars in the UK, as opposed to with the owners as it is in the US.

   i'm also working on getting the guest bedroom ready for naomi.  right now it's being used for stuff getting packed.  

all this cleaning means stirring up bugs and spiders, so i'll be on the hunt for them in the next week.  we've discovered a new bug.  it's large, black, and really hard to squish.  i'm really hoping it's not cockroaches.  gross gross gross.  this is a really old house and we've found it full of "wildlife".  i think i'd rather deal with spiders than these creepy black beetles... or whatever they are... 

4 weeks today till we find out the gender!  it's been a weird time, having to wait 8 weeks from one ultrasound at 12 weeks, to the next 8 weeks later at 20 weeks.  so weird to think about the idea of there being another human in our lives... for the rest of our lives... a boy or a girl... crazy!  

i'm so thankful to have made it this far in this pregnancy.  i found that the miscarriages sort of isolated me from people (by my own doing and/or other people's not knowing how to interact with me)... but i found comfort in the friends/family/family friends that shared stories and their own pain from losses... but now i feel somewhat guilty, or just sad, that some of their stories haven't reached happy endings (we haven't yet, but i feel more hopeful that we're on our way)... maybe i'm isolating myself from them, but know how i felt and i don't want to be put in the category with all the "normal" "casual" families... i'm still scared and i think i always will be.  i've been forced to face the fact that this child i'm bearing could be ripped from my life at any point... and really, it was never mine... i just get to be the guardian for a while.  sobering.  i still need my friends who know pain... i feel closer to them than i do families who haven't faced loss.  maybe that will balance out... i hope so.  i've been in this funk for the last year and am so longing for some light.  god has always brought good out of my pain.  i know he will again... i'm just waiting to be on the other side so i can see it all clearly and come to life again=)  

the dog days are over?

the weather forecast said "mostly sunny" which appears to mean partly sunny... that's okay, i'll take it!!!
the days are longer now and we are getting more sun, even if it's just for a few hours.  it seems like the sun and i are linked entirely.  if it comes out, so do i =)

i think the first trimester tiredness and sickness is gone? i hope i hope.  i was so thankful for it... it let me know i was indeed pregnant and with a healthy pregnancy (so far.  thank you god!).  now, at 14 weeks, my energy is starting to return and i can be on my feet without getting dizzy most of the time.  i've gained 2lbs back of the 8 i lost while being sick the first trimester.  apart from my lower abdomen feeling "full" (there is definitely something growing in there), i don't really feel pregnant... so i want to enjoy this time.
       i spent a good deal of yesterday morning reading a blog i stumbled upon about a young family.  they had one daughter and the woman was pregnant again, but lost the baby at 12 weeks.  it took a while for them to get pregnant again.  she shared openly about the struggles and fears of being pregnant again after their loss... all the way up until she gave birth... it was really encouraging and helped me get out of another little funk i got into in the last couple days (my mom had lost a baby at 7 months... her water had broken early.  she was given a cerclage for her pregnancy with my younger brother and me.  it's not hereditary, but it's made me think i still can't let my heart soak this baby up... i can't even think about what i would do if we lost this baby.  so i'm not...)

 i have a lot of catching up to do with cleaning this place.  a little at a time.  it took me forever to sweep the whole house yesterday.  the broom is half the size of a normal broom and this house is SO long and there is so much dust... like someone keeps emptying the dryer lint all over the floor.  i've never experienced that before living here.  i did it though.  next i'd like to vaccuum... with our shop vac... also a back breaking activity, but well worth it!

we're working on tying up all we need to here in scotland before flying to MI.  less than 60 day!  we sorely underestimated how expensive life here would be.  god is getting us through, but we will be looking for work this summer to pay off some of the ridiculous amount of debt we've managed to accrue.  having some income to start fighting it off will be a huge relief.

we've had some really hard stuff to deal with and figure out in the last year.  we've both had really hard seasons, struggling with different things, but i'm so thankful that we have each other.  steve is a godsend.  i love having really hard talks or really deep talks, and still being able to laugh in the midst of it too... i love our sense of humor and just in general how we "get" each other.

naomi is coming in a few weeks, for two weeks.  i think we'll mostly be sticking around our house for the first week while we fine tune our plans and gather some food.  then we're off to london and then paris for the second week!  i've never been to paris and am really looking forward to going with her.  i think i'd like to do more girl get aways in the future.  we'll be laughing a lot!  i'm looking forward to that too=)

so now that i'm feeling better, the sun is making more appearances and staying out later, naomi is coming to go exploring with me, we're going to be with friends and family in MI soon, and we'll be in denver this fall... i feel like maybe possibly the dog days are over=)