Hey friends…It’s officially fall in NC. The crisp cool air, falling leaves, and Carolina blue skies. My favorite season of all time!

It’s still my favorite, even though tragedy always tried to steal our joy away from this season. Finn was born early at 28 weeks on Oct 19, 2012. He’s a big 4 year old now! Who’s obsessed with superheroes, tells jokes, and makes friends every where he goes. He’s such a joy in our lives. And even after losing Elodie, now over a year ago, at 22 weeks on Sep 24, 2015…this season now just has new meaning, its super special to us now.

I’m now 18 weeks pregnant with baby boy. Many have asked and I’m sure curious as to how I’m doing/feeling. Well, I wish I could say its been uneventful, but its been a little challenging. Basically, my uterus hates me and its quite irritable already. We already made one trip to the ER a few weeks ago. So now I’m on semi-modified bedrest, which actually means that I need to take it easy as much as I can. I drink about 2-3 liters of water a day, take magnesium and probiotics, walks are now out, no more lifting heavy things (including Finn), keeping my feet up as much as I can and lie down when necessary.

Fortunately, I’m able to work from home full time now. I also have medication to help manage these early contractions as they come. I take it only as needed and so far it has only been a handful of times. But the TAC is doing its job and no changes there, I’m so relieved to have it. So it’s one day at a time! Some days it seems like this pregnancy is just crawling by and other times I realize I’m nearly half way there.

Emotionally, I’m doing OK. I started to put a list of baby things we need and made a small registry. Today was the first time I actually bought something for our new little man. Finn insisted on buying a pair of jammies for him. I’m trying to embrace this pregnancy and trusting the Lord that our little man will be born healthy and full term. Some days its hard to believe that its still possible. It’s taking a lot of trust and prayer!

It also hit us a few weeks back and continues to hit me hard that the Lord had this little baby boy’s life already planned, even though we had no plan to be pregnant with a third baby if it wasn’t for losing Elodie. Its those realizations, where you discover how amazing the Lord really is and how He works in such mysterious ways. This little boy’s life is that much more special to us now.

Outside of cooking baby, our new house is finally ready to start renovations. We closed last week and have a line-up of things this week…tree removal, Habitat for Humanity will demo the kitchen and remove the cabinets and appliances to be donated, and permits will hopefully be in-process so the rest of the work can get going soon. Timing of when we’ll get in is still up in the air but still hoping by March. Oh and if anyone has any baby items handy to hold us over,  we’ll definitely take you up on it…our movers, unfortunately, packed all our baby items at the back of our storage unit! Classic! This is where I just laugh, b/c this whole adventure can either make you cry or laugh! I’m choosing joy…most days. Ha!