Praise the Lord O My Soul!

Praise the LORD, O my soul; and all that is within me, praise his holy name! -Psalms 103:1

On September 16, 2010 of this year (a day after my birthday), we found out that we were expecting again. I was filled with many emotions, but the main one that I experienced was that of shock. Since we miscarried in July, our doctor suggested that we waited a month and then try again. In my mind I decided that we should wait until October or November before trying again. I guess I was thinking that this would give my body a bit more time to heal since this was my 2nd pregnancy in one year, so finding out that I was pregnant came as a bit of a surprise, even though it really shouldn't have.

Since September 16th, I've been flooded with many emotions...and some of those emotions make me so mad at myself. I put up walls again in my heart to protect myself in case we lost this baby too. I haven't allowed myself to get excited...I've just been very guarded. Don't get me wrong, I was excited...I really was, I just didn't want to allow myself to feel excited.

My choice in how I've reacted to the news that our family was going to continue to grow has made me upset with myself. I started to put superstition above God. Here, we've just experienced God like we never had before with our journey with Joshua. He revealed Himself to us and was always present, not leaving us for one moment, and yet, I was making decisions based on decisions that I had made in the past. Examples of this would be, I didn't call my doctor until I was almost 7 weeks along, because last time, I called right away and then I miscarried. Or I didn't call to make an appointment to get my haircut because last time right after I did, I had the miscarriage. How stupid is this?!? My God is so much bigger than any superstitious stuff, yet this was a really big struggle for me. Like I've said, I've made myself really mad at myself because again, I've failed to keep my eyes on The One who has never left my side or turned His back on me. The One who I owe it all.

I've also been mad at myself because this baby has deserved more from me emotionally than what I've given the past several weeks. No matter what the outcome is, this baby deserves my entire heart and up until today, I hadn't given it.

We had our 10 week check up on October 29th. Even after hearing the baby's heartbeat at 140 BPM, I still couldn't relax and be completely happy. I've been through this before...for 18 weeks hearing my precious Joshua's heartbeat and feeling so reassured that everything was ok, to find out that it wasn't ok. Even though hearing the heartbeat of this baby was music to my ears, it still didn't give me any peace.

Emotionally, we've had to move a lot slower with this pregnancy. It's been taking baby steps each day just to go forward. We're being very cautious.

Today we went for our first ultrasound. We got to see our beautiful baby bouncing all over the place. The baby spent most of it's time showing off how he/she can suck his/her thumb, which he/she gets that from both parents. Yes it was amazing to see our child...but you know what was even better???? We got to see 2, yes you read correctly, 2 beautiful kidneys that had blood flowing to them. We got to watch the bladder fill up with urine, we got to see the stomach and we got to see that there was plenty of amniotic fluid. When I heard that there was two kidneys I said out loud "thank you God, I only asked for one and you blessed me with two!". As we got to watch the scan go over our baby's body, Jon didn't see any feet. We clearly saw legs, but no feet, so he asked the technician if the baby had feet. At this point, I wanted to say who cares about limbs...we can deal with that later, our baby has all of it's organs. But the technician spoke before I got my comment out, "yes, your baby has feet, everything looks fine".

Going into this ultrasound was filled with mix emotions, but mostly feelings of anxiousness. We kept telling God all day long, no matter what the results are, you are still God, you are good, and worthy of all our praise.

So today with this ultrasound there were a lot of tears shed, but tears of pure joy and thankfulness...our baby has all of it's organs and is healthy.

I would like to humbly ask again for continued prayers of healing as we continue to grieve Joshua along with continued growth, development and health of our newest little addition.

Thank you so much for your love, prayers and support.

Love,
Jonathan and Kristin

P.S. Don't forget that we serve a God who loves us so deeply and knows us so intimately. His ways are perfect and no matter what...He is worthy of our praise!!!