Surprise!!

Hi everyone!! Well, another blessed curve ball has been thrown at our family, and I'm very excited to share it with you!



That's right, there's another little Baily on the way!! This is a big big BIG surprise to us, but we are thankful to the Lord for entrusting us with another of His children and can't wait to meet our little man sometime in August! :) The craziest part is that we didn't know we were pregnant until we were around 17 weeks along if you can believe it! However, in an effort to help explain that I am neither stupid nor unobservant, I decided to write a new blog post in order to explain the whole crazy story. WARNING!!!: There is no way to explain this story without sharing some personal details, to the degree that some will think it's too much information. So be warned. You're about to get the...whole...story. :)

So my ob/gyn put me back on birth control 6 weeks after Camryn was born. She put me on a kind that was safe to use while I was nursing, but a kind that I had never tried before. She told me that I would not have a period while I was on this type of pill, even after I weened the baby. (this is an important detail to remember... I was not supposed to have a period, so the lack of one was completely normal!) So the months went by, and I weened Camryn when she was around 6 months old (November 2010). Everything is normal, until around a month ago.

Sometime around the end of February/beginning of March, I started to notice that although I was making a focused effort at working out and eating right, my belly was getting bigger... and firm to the touch! Pregnancy crossed my mind, but I thought no way! I've never ever missed a pill so that's impossible! However, when the same was true a week or so later, I finally decided to go and get a pregnancy test, just to ease my mind that I was not pregnant. Well, let me just tell you, those 2 lines could NOT have been any brighter!!! I was in shock. I couldn't possibly be pregnant!!! It's not time yet! I didn't want my babies to be this close together! But even in the midst of the shock, tears, and disbelief, the Lord immediately began whispering Proverbs 16:9 in my ear. "In his heart a man plans his way, but the Lord determines his steps." Over and over He spoke this truth over my life, reminding me of His sovereignty. "I am the author of life. My ways are higher than your ways. I see every page of the story and you only see this one. Just trust Me."

I called my doctor the next day and after doing some blood work, she immediately scheduled me for an ultrasound. Since I haven't had a period since before I got pregnant with Camryn, there was no way to know how far along I was without an ultrasound. The blood work indicated I may have been further along than we originally thought... so we figured maybe I was 8-10 weeks along. NOPE! Ultrasound Tech informs us that we are in fact 17 WEEKS PREGNANT!! This news sent me into a wave of emotions. In addition to the shock that was already my constant companion, there was now fear and guilt to add to the mix! I had been on birth control that entire time! I hadn't been taking prenatal vitamins! How could this happen? My doctor informed me that it appears that I am just apparently in the 5% of women who this type of birth control doesn't work for, and that the only thing that kept us from getting pregnant earlier than we did is that I was nursing the girl. She then decided to send us to a specialist because of some potential health risks to the baby when momma's been on birth control while pregnant. There was around 3 weeks in between meeting with our ob/gyn and the perinatologist. I was not an easy person to be around during those three weeks. I couldn't help but feel that if there was something wrong with our son, it was my fault. Nathan tried to tell me that I couldn't do anything about what I didn't know, but that's not how I felt. I felt guilty. Guilty for taking birth control. Guilty for not taking prenatal vitamins. Guilty for having feelings of not wanting this baby for the first 24 hours I knew about him. God never promised me that my son would be healthy, either, which I really wanted Him to do. He just kept reminding me that He was sovereign. That He was the author of life. That I would praise Him whether my son was healthy or not. I knew this was true, but it was still so hard.

After perhaps what has been the longest 3 weeks of my life, we went to see the perinatologist on Monday and discovered that our boy is perfectly healthy! It was such a blessing in more ways than I can even describe. The doctor walked us through the ultrasound, step my step, showing us all the things that could go wrong in our situation that hadn't. "If there was a big empty space here, it could be a sign of spina bifita, but there's not. If there was a thick skull wall here, it could be a sign of down's, but there's not." He even showed us a close-up shot of his top lip to show us that he didn't have cleft lip/cleft palette (a common problem due to lack of prenatal vitamins). Every single fear was relieved in an instant. My son was ok.

Even now, words don't seem adequate. I want to have the perfectly appropriate words to convey my joy that he is healthy, and my praise to the Lord for him. But there are just not words that are good enough to describe the feelings in my heart right now.

It's true, this was not my plan. But he's my son and already I know I would die for him. That's another feeling that's hard to explain to someone who's not a momma yet. I'm so grateful for him and for what the Lord is teaching me through him. He's already such a blessing to us, and now we *only* have to wait about 4 1/2 more months before we get to meet him! :)