It's a Girl!!!

Steve and I are so excited to announce that our baby due January 28, 2013 is a little Girl!  We are so thrilled for Jonas to have a baby sister and feel so blessed by this little one already!  The Ultrasound went really well.  All of the information still needs to be confirmed by the OB GYN, however, the Ultrasound Tech who performed the exam said that everything looked great!  The baby's heart beat was strong and has been consistently at 150 beats/minute over my past exams.  Her heart looks healthy and she is measuring almost exactly at my due date!

We have picked out a name for our little one also!  We will be naming our daughter Joelle Rose.  Joelle is pronounced "Jo-ehl".  We are excited to use this name for our little one!  Steve's middle name is Joel, so she is named after him!  We chose "Rose" as a middle name because we really just like the name!

Our little girl is very active these past few weeks and I have enjoyed feeling her move around.  She is positioned very similar to how Jonas was during most of my pregnancy with him; her back is down the left side of my belly with her feet kicking toward my right rib cage.  So far, I have been thinking that she is less active than Jonas was, but I am only really remembering those last few weeks of my pregnancy with Jonas to compare to!  I guess it isn't a good comparison!  The Ultrasound Tech said that she was quite active today.  While trying to get a nice profile view of her head and torso, she did a few flips around!  It is so incredible to see them moving around at this stage!

Here are a few pictures of baby Joelle from today's Ultrasound.  We are eagerly anticipating her arrival and hope you are all as excited as we are!  Thanks for checking in!

The Joy of Children

As many of you already know, my husband and I are expecting our second child this winter, and we are eagerly anticipating his/her arrival.  Throughout all of the Joy of being pregnant again and all of the excitement as we start to think of how things will be changing, we have been taken back by how many people react when they hear our great news.  Some of my conversations have gone like this: 

Random stranger: "Oh, wow, your pregnant..... congratulations!" 

Me: "Yes, we are so excited!"

Random stranger: While glancing from my belly to my now 1 year old son "So, this is your second?"

Me: "Yes, Jonas is going to be a big brother in January!"

Random stranger: "Oh, well, aren't they going to be really close in age?"
Me: "I guess so, they will be about 17 months apart or so, depending on when I deliver"

Random stranger: "Oh, gosh, that must have been an oops baby, then right?"

Me: "No, we planned it this way.  We want our children to grow up with brothers and sisters close to their age"

Random stranger: "Oh........"  

Yes, sadly, this is a conversation that I have had.  Usually a conversation like this one comes up in the check-out line of the grocery store.  Whenever I have conversations like this with people, it makes me sad that people are not as excited as we are about this new life growing inside me.  It surprises me that more and more, people are concerned with how close in age our children will be.  Why is this so important to people? Some families choose to have children 9 months apart while others choose to wait for their kids to be 3 years apart in age.  Neither way is right or wrong; they are just different.  Just like when some families choose to only have 1 or 2 children, and others choose to have 7 or 8 (or even more!).  There is nothing in the Bible that says that you should only have 3 children, with at least 2 years in between each,  so that you can give them the best of everything that they could possibly ever want.  What the Bible does say is that Children are a Blessing!  Check out this verse: 

Psalm 127:3-53 - Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from Him. 4 - Like arrows in the hands of a warriorare children born in one's youth. 5 - Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shamewhen they contend with their opponents in court. 

With this being said, why is it that we are so judgmental of when a family has children, or how many children they decide to have?  Why do we choose to make our opinion of what is right and what is wrong (regarding children) known to everyone?  

I really hope that I am not offending anyone who is reading this post.  This is not meant to make anyone feel bad.  The reason that I am posting this is so that we can think about both sides of a situation before we share our personal opinions.  I hope, rather, that anyone who is reading this is encouraged by what I am saying!  

Thank you to all of our friends and family who have rejoiced with us these past few weeks without any judgment about the timing of our second child.  We appreciate your support more than you know!  We are eagerly anticipating the arrival of our son/daughter in January, and we are so grateful that you share our excitement!  

May God bless you all!