Well, today’s the day scheduled for Baby #3 to arrive. (I’m writing this in advance and scheduling the post.) So I plan to take a little, or maybe a big, hiatus from blogging to focus on this little one and adjusting us all to the newness she will bring to our home. Thanking God for this soul He has created and praying we lean hard on Him as we care for her and train her up over the years, Lord willing. We covet your prayers as well!

Well, I’m off on another vacation break. One of the amazing perks of being a “stay-at-home” mom is the flexibility in summer to not stay at home, but to instead whisk up the kids and join a friend at her cabin at the Lake for days at a time on the beach – ahhhh. See ya next week!

This is completely irrelevant to the purpose of this blog, but it seems too significant to not mention. 1 am 20+ weeks pregnant, and at our ultrasound yesterday, we learned our baby is structurally healthy, developing normally, and – shockingly to me and everyone else who always assumed we’d only have boys – a GIRL!

For many women, pregnancies and deliveries happen so textbook and with such predictability that maybe it doesn’t seem like such a big deal for everything to be going smoothly (although there is no way to say that EVERY baby isn’t a complete miracle!), but we have had a different experience.  I had 2 miscarriages before Zachary was born, 2 healthy boys conceived, carried and born with no issues, and then 6 miscarriages over the last 4 years. I’m sure y’all can do math, but that makes this my 11th pregnancy, and that’s a total of 8 babies with the Lord. Not a great batting average.

All miscarriages were in the first trimester and not for any consistent identifiable reasons, even after undergoing every test and evaluation available. And, while facing miscarriage after miscarriage was taxing on us (yes, mostly me, but hey – I hear it affects Jason as well) on many levels, there wasn’t any medical reason I needed to prevent pregnancies, so we opted to continue to leave the door open, so to speak, until we knew clearly that we ought to take permanent measures.

So, while we weren’t preventing this from happening, I really did not expect to actually have any more children at this point even if I did become pregnant, so it is still quite a surprise to me that we really are having a baby this November! And then add to the shock that it’s a GIRL! We just always figured we’d keep having Jason clones and I was happy with that! Jason’s quote of the afternoon yesterday was, “Hmmm. This complicates things.” Ha ha – indeed. Adding another boy to the mix definitely would’ve been easier, but I am kind of liking the idea of having some more pink around here.  :)

Thankfully, pink eye has left the building. All eight eyes in our home are white/blue and goop-free. The doc says I need to wear my glasses for another week and a half, though, to prevent irritation and re-infection, so I’m going to ease into blogging again with a link each day to an online article relevant to the topic of the day. That way it’s less typing for me, but still keeps me in the topics and sharing some really helpful or thought-provoking reads. Enjoy!

Until my eyes are completely healed I’m taking a blog break. I am finding reading and using the computer too much of a challenge with my sore eyes and glasses. Since very few will notice my absence and those who do will understand, this seems wise. Sometimes you should push yourself to keep at it and sometimes you just need to make yourself rest. I’m trying to choose the latter this week. I plan to pick back up on Monday, Lord willing!