baby #4

now don't get confused anyone....
(i mean, anyone referring to my 3 loyal readers who have remained true through my 18 month hiatus)
this is a FLASHBACK.
to when i found out i was pregnant with Jack.
don't go starting any rumors that i'm pregnant. because i'm most certainly not. gosh. i need a good couple thousand days' break this time around.

so the big topic was lurking in the air between M and i and this point of our lil journey was -- now when do we get pregnant again? do we even want to get pregnant again?
it was such a challenging topic. because on one hand, i had JUST had a baby. my pregancy was so tough! i had gotten so big and it was really hard on my body. i ached all over. i was so exhausted. physically it sounded so hard. and emotionally, well, i felt broken. i was physically exhausted partially because of my emotional exhaustion... was pregnancy really the answer to fix all of that? wouldn't it make things worse? what if we did get pregnant our next baby had struggles too?

 now, aside from it being all about ME (geeze, i'm so selfish sometimes), i also thought of the girls - specifically of Ellie, who was definitely old enough to have her own reactions and emotions toward the whole experience. i worried about them - and how they'd view pregnancy and having children if we didn't have any more. would they think that death was a normal ending to pregnancy? would they fear that chapter when it came for them?

aside from these feelings were the very real feelings that never left my side of the longing for a baby. getting to bring a baby home. getting to love and nurture him - bathe him and dress him. for the girls to love on him tirelessly and teach him and giggle with him. i knew with all my heart that we did have more children waiting for us. and when it came down to it, i felt deeply impressed like the only thing that could help heal me and heal us was to have another baby.

enter PREGNANCY #4.

i got pregnant and was IMMEDIATELY SO sick and SO exhausted. on top of that, i was SO perplexed by my emotions regarding the whole thing. as i previously stated, i was confident that having a baby would be the thing that would help heal me and heal us. but i think i expected that healing to come immediately and was completely blindsided when it didn't. in my journal, i wrote, "I'm not really ready to delve into how I am feeling about the pregnancy yet. I'm so confused by my emotions and reactions. I'm sad and I miss Max. And all of a sudden I remember too many things that I had almost forgotten. Most of which is that this baby isn't Max. This isn't bringing him back. I hope he knows that I am not trying to replace him. In spite of those confusing feelings I'm having, I am deeply happy and incredibly anxious to have a baby.... While I am cautious, I must add that I am supermely grateful. I hope I can be the mama that this baby needs."

when we told the girls about the baby, they had a similar reaction. they were cautious. it wasn't like when we had told them we were pregnant a year ago and it was so carefree. you could tell that they didn't know how to express it but they didn't jump up and down to celebrate. and maybe they really mirrored how i was feeling. because there would be a lot to happen before we would get a little baby here. and that's a hard fact to embrace. so much uncertainty all over again. it takes so much faith in God- to know that he is control. and that it will work out as it should. but at the end of the day, in spite of hard things and challenging times, i do have that faith in Him. He has never let me down before and i know He never will.

and so, with that, here we go, pregnancy #4!

whoa.

^^ these pictures were how we announced on instagram/facebook that we were expecting! while their initial reaction to me being pregnant was cautious, i knew they were really excited...especially Ellie who wouldn't stop drawing pictures of our family with another baby in tow. cutest lil humans!

xoxo