8 Weeks...9 Weeks...10 Weeks...11 Weeks...

I've fallen far behind in my attempt to chronicle this pregnancy, so I'm going to try to lump a bunch of stuff in this one post and catch up on this past month.

First, the pictures, and I'll throw a disclaimer in here to let you know that I don't really like the pictures (well, I like the last one), but I'm including them anyway to share all the aspects of this pregnancy. I think the main reason I don't like them (particularly the first two) is because, when I look at them, I see a tired, slightly shell-shocked face--a face that demonstrates the truth of a notation in my records at SWHC: "unexpected pregnancy, adjusting accordingly" (the midwife I saw today told me about this note the nurse educator had written in my chart there during my first visit which landed during my 8th week, and it made me laugh because of how accurate it was!). By 10 weeks, I was beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel and was able to come out of my daze a little. By 11 weeks, the joy was flowing abundantly through my soul again, and I think it shows in the picture. That's not all that shows, since--woah!--look how that belly is sticking out already! :)

Looking at these pictures reminds me of a conversation I had recently with Becky, a friend from church. She is the mother of four children, born within only 5 years, and her fourth was a surprise. She mentioned that when she looks back at pictures of herself from that time period, she notices how fatigued and overwhelmed she appeared in all the photographs. Now that her children range in age from 13 to 8, life has become much easier for her; and she assured me that it would eventually become that way for me, too!

~ 8 weeks, 1 day
~ 9 weeks, 1 day

~ 10 weeks, 1 day
~ 11 weeks, 1 day...this was taken during our family Christmas celebration last Sunday, and it reminded me of the picture taken last year during the same event when I was 37 weeks pregnant with Tobin and looked like I had a watermelon stuffed under my shirt

As my emotions have evened out and my body has begun to adjust to these crazy pregnancy hormones again and I've become somewhat rational again, I've realized that there's probably a very good reason that late fall is an emotional time for me. Not only are the daylight hours growing shorter and the temperatures are dropping, but also I've been pregnant three years in a row during these weeks of late fall. 2006 was the pregnancy that ended in miscarriage; 2007 was Tobin's, of course; and now 2008 has brought us pregnancy again! I certainly never planned it that way, but I did find myself reflecting often during the last weeks of November and first weeks of December on the events of the previous two years and how they compared to the present. For example, on Thanksgiving Day, I thought about how in 2006 I was pregnant but didn't know it...in 2007 I was heavily pregnant with Tobin...and now here I am pregnant again on Thanksgiving in 2008. On December 14, I remembered that in 2006 I found out on this day that I was indeed having a miscarriage...in 2007 I was remembering the miscarriage without too much heartache because of the remarkable gift of Tobin and how healing that was for me and how wonderful it would be to meet him face-to-face very soon, etc...in 2008 I was smiling at God's sense of humor in turning my plans upside down and giving us another arrow in our quiver, before we even asked for it. I think, somewhere in my subconscious, late fall is tied up with all these emotional (both happy and sad emotions) events of the past three years; and I'm glad I realize this now so that I'll be better prepared if I deal with unpredictable emotions next fall as well. Who knows, maybe I won't be emotional at all come late November? Maybe I won't be pregnant and will therefore sail through cloudy, cool days with no diminishing of joy. I'll hope for that anyway. :)

All this talk about emotions reminds me of one of Jeff's comments when he saw the pregnancy test that was the first to clearly be positive. "Well, you're hormonally pregnant!" he said. Yes. Yes, I am. :) But one of the wonderful things about this being my fourth pregnancy (technically, my fifth, as my doctor dad pointed out after reading this, but my fourth to last this long) is that I have better perspective on even the hardest emotional times. When I'm feeling like the world is crashing down around my shoulders, I can tell myself that it's just a phase and things really will start looking brighter. When the occasional evening comes when I'm in collapse mode and don't feel like I can function for even five minutes longer, I can simply express that to Jeff, then go off and go to bed or do whatever, knowing that he'll step into the gap with the boys (and do a fine job of it, by the way) and I'll be refreshed in the morning.

Today I had my first regular appointment with a midwife and got to see Melody Mast who is so nice (aren't they all? I love those midwives!). Everything went very smoothly, except for the fact that I was having a very hard time staying awake as I waited in the examining room for her. I literally had to tell myself, "Davene, keep your eyes open!" because I knew if I let them drift shut, I would probably fall asleep and then fall off the examining table on which I was sitting. Wouldn't that have been a sight if I had fallen asleep, fallen over, and cut my head open, requiring stitches--all from a visit to the midwife. :) Fortunately, that didn't happen; and I finally hopped off the examining table, grabbed a magazine I had brought along (The Mennonite, by the way...no fluffy women's magazines for me today...actually, that might have been the problem; maybe I should have been reading fluff to keep myself entertained and awake!), and read that until she came in.

Since I was completely forthright with my weight last summer, I'll continue the trend and mention that I started this pregnancy at 150 pounds (higher than I would have liked, because I never did lose all of Tobin's baby weight...oh, well, there's always next year to lose weight!), weighed 155 pounds at my appointment on Dec. 10, and weighed 156 today. Ann, the sweet nurse educator, told me I could gain 50 pounds this pregnancy if I wanted to! I have no plans to do that, but it's nice to know that no one will yell at me if I do. :)

My blood pressure was 118 over 64 today, and everything looked and sounded fine. It actually took Melody a minute or two to find the baby's heartbeat (it was probably not even that long, but it felt long to me because I had been so eager to have some confirmation that all is well with the baby), but find it she did, and it was galloping along in the 160s.

The search for a baby name has begun, and it will probably be a long process, just like the last time. Of course, we have a girl's name picked; but a boy's name--well, that's a different story. In general, the trend seems to be that Jeff favors more normal names, and I favor more--well--abnormal names. Unusual names...unique names...there, that sounds better. :) I was so energized by the Harmonia Sacra sing last night that I stayed up way too late, hunting around on the Internet for name ideas to throw at Jeff. I did find some "unique" ones, most of which were promptly discarded by Jeff as soon as he woke up this morning and checked his email, only to find scads of emails that I had sent to him in the night with various names and their meanings. His response to most of them was very simple: a "no" written in the subject line. :) Only 28 more weeks until we have to have a name!!! :)

We have reached one decision, however, and it's a huge one for us. For the first time ever, we plan to not find out the gender of the baby before birth. I can hardly believe I'm saying this, and I'll probably be kicking myself until I'm black and blue on the day after our 20 week ultrasound when I realize that we could have found out! But here is why we've come to this decision. Jeff was actually the first one to suggest it; it happened to be the night of the Christmas parade downtown, and he had had several thoughtful conversations in the barber shop with people who shared their stories of how meaningful it was to be surprised on the day of birth and who encouraged him to consider not finding out. So Jeff mentioned that to me, not in a demanding way as if that was what we must do, but very casually. I mulled it over and after a few weeks realized that since this might be my last pregnancy (then again, it might not...who knows!), I might never get the chance again to experience the big moment of truth in the delivery room. As it stands now, I don't want to miss out on hearing that huge announcement as the baby is born: "IT'S A --" whatever it is, which will likely be "boy" in our case, but only God knows for sure. I want to experience that for myself; and since we wouldn't redecorate the nursery anyway and since I now realize that a newborn doesn't care what color clothes he/she wears and doesn't have to have a perfectly matched wardrobe so if, by some miracle, we have a girl, we'll have time after she's born to buy her the pink outfits she'll need, etc...since I don't feel a compulsion to do a ton of preparation for this baby, I don't feel the urgency to know what he/she is. I'm actually surprising myself by all of this! In the past, I have loved knowing what we were having; but this time around, I love the secretness, the hiddenness, the woven-in-my-womb-by-God's-hand-and-only-He-knows-this-child aspect of it all. And the final straw that pushed me to this decision was the thought that I might never get to experience this again; and since I already know what it feels like to have the foreknowledge of the gender, I want to see what it's like to do it the other way. As a bonus, Jeff told me that he talked with a labor & delivery nurse who said that a birth is much more fun for them as well when the gender isn't known. OK, well, now I'm convinced, because after all, we'd like to make labor fun for the nurses, right??? :)

For memory's sake, and since I'm almost through this first trimester, let me summarize a few things. The only bothersome symptoms I've had have been fatigue, emotional highs and lows, and a little nausea. The nausea tends to hit me more often in the evening than it does in the morning which is how things were with David's pregnancy. Jeff has a theory that "evening sickness" means the baby will be born at night. That held true with David, since he was born at 9:40 PM. We'll see if Jeff's theory stands up to the details of this little one's birth!

Not surprisingly, I began to feel uncomfortable in my regular clothes fairly quickly this time around. My poor uterus didn't have much time to regain her former shape, and the muscles hugging her are stretched and worn out. With Tobin's pregnancy, I didn't wear maternity clothes until 12 weeks. This time around, I started wearing a few maternity things between 10 and 11 weeks. I'm discovering that elastic-waist non-maternity pants, though not highly thought of in the world of fashion, are just the thing for easing me through this transitional time before I fill out maternity pants more fully. I have exactly one pair of this category of pants, but I'm wearing them today and reveling in the comfort.

These days, I'm amused by people's comments, as we're out and about, regarding our flock of boys. It's not at all uncommon for someone to remark on how full our hands are; and I smile to myself as I think, "If you only knew that I'm pregnant now, too, you'd really think we were nuts!" :) There are advantages to not really showing yet...and being forced by the cold weather to wear coats which cover any telltale bulges. However, I'm at the point of welcoming such comments because I want to have the opportunity to speak up and show the person I'm talking to--as well as showing my boys who are listening--how wonderful I think it is to have the sons that God has given to us! I think the commenter sometimes assumes a gripefest is coming--that I'll surely remark on how tired I must be and how noisy the boys are and how they drive me crazy sometimes. While all of that might be true (tired...noise...slight craziness), I will not focus on that and will not go along with society's impression that children are a burden. I will take every opportunity to affirm the incredible gift that children are and the fullness of joy that comes from having them in my life. I will let my children know that I treasure them and that I want the world to know it! I will not let them hear me complaining about how difficult they make my life. I will climb down off my soapbox now. :)

Another thing that makes me climb up onto my soapbox quicker than greased lightning is the insinuation I sometimes pick up on that we're doing the world a terrible disservice by having four--FOUR--gasp--children. The next person who says something about that to me will be forced to sit and watch the trailer of this movie (click on "Trailer & Clips" to view it). :) By the end of it, they'll be thanking me for having multiple children and contributing to the sustenance of our very civilization (not to mention our Social Security system which requires the young to pay into to support the old).

Speaking of family size, I had an interesting juxtaposition of conversations one day in December. In the first conversation, the friend with whom I was speaking was definitely happy for us about this pregnancy but seemed to assume, as a matter of course, that this would be our last child because, after all, it's number four. An hour or so later, I was talking with another friend who was also very happy for us about the news; she mentioned what a blessing children are and then said, "You can never have too many, can you?" Two opposite reactions from two wonderful women who both love the Lord and strive to follow Him but land on opposite sides of the fence on the number-of-children-to-have issue.

By the way, I am by no means telling anyone else how many children they should have. Not at all, so please don't misunderstand me! Rather than reinventing the wheel, I'll just link to two great recent posts on Christin's blog that deal with this issue: here and here.

Speaking of Christin, I still find it incredibly amusing that God gave us this pregnancy exactly when He did because Christin had made a comment to me very soon after I had Tobin. She had just found out that she was pregnant with her fourth, and she said, "Enjoy the next nine months with him, because by the time my baby is born, you'll be getting pregnant again!" I laughed along with her but secretly thought, "No way!" As it turned out, she was right, and I was so mistaken. :)

I've written before in this blog about how much I have loved being pregnant and how, when I would be in a season of not being pregnant and would see pregnant women, I would often wish that it was me and would long for my next pregnancy, etc. This time around, I had not yet hit that point of feeling the least bit of envy when I heard of other women getting pregnant. There are three examples that come to mind of families who got pregnant with their fourth before we found out about this pregnancy: Ben & Karen at church whose oldest is about the same age as Josiah (7 years old by the time the baby is born), Jet and Christin whose oldest was 6 when their fourth was born, and Chris and Misty whose oldest will be--hmm, not yet 5, I guess--when their fourth is born. With all of them, I thought, "Oh, I'm so happy for them, but I'm so glad I'm not in their shoes!" Think God was laughing every time I thought that? :)

Jumping back to family size... Jeff has really gotten a lot of comments--positive and not-so-positive--from people in the barber shop as he's shared the news with them. Many of the comments have revolved around the theme of "already?" "so soon?" "how old is Tobin?" Jeff sometimes gets to the point of not even trying to be nice and he'll say, "It used to be that people would say 'congratulations!' or 'I'm so happy for you!' when we announced a pregnancy, and now you just say 'already?'" What's up with that anyway??? :) Obviously some people have expressed a lot of joy for us, but it's also obvious to us that we've crossed a societal boundary of what's normal as far as family size. And this is only number four!

To sum up, I'm so grateful to have heard the heartbeat this morning and to have received an extra affirmation that all is well with our hidden one. I'm so grateful to be almost through the tumultuous first-trimester waters. And most of all, I'm so grateful for this little tiny baby in my womb. My tinook, I love you!