Thursday's Big Box Adventure

Oh how hard it is on my heart to worry about a child, born or unborn, and to know that ultimately there is nothing that I can do put pray to the God who created this child in the first place to care for it.  I feel some shame in that not feeling like enough, when in reality Christ really is our only hope regardless of circumstance, but I am trying to really let myself be honest about how I feel and at least right now, honest and faithful might not be the same thing.

So, in preparation for finding out if our baby is a boy or a girl this Saturday with our families, we needed to do something fun to celebrate the little life growing inside me that will one day soon be a very special part of this world, no matter what challenges he or she may have or not have.  We decided that as part of our big "reveal" we would need a box, some paint, and a few helium balloons.  After Ada and I picked Isaac up from school, we drove to the U-haul store to buy a box that would suit our purpose.  When we brought it home, we covered it in brown packing paper, and the kids and I painted it to honor the brother or sister we will soon know.

Isaac loves green and Ada loves purple so they picked their favorites to start the paint job!

Isaac finished his side and then moved on to the next while Ada walked around in the paint.

And he just kept going to make his "creation" special!

We also went to Las Paletas, our favorite popsicle place, to buy 6 blue popsicles and 6 pink ones to eat with our families after we find out the gender of our baby.  Thanks to the help of this baby's sweet brother and sister, we had fun continuing to "prepare a place for you" in our hearts and lives.  We are so excited to know if you are a boy or a girl!

Jeremy and I took the box to the party store in our neighborhood on Friday.  We gave them our ultrasound and told them that we didn't know whether our baby was a boy or a girl, but that we'd love for the box to be filled with pink or blue helium balloons to reveal the gender of our child when we opened it the next day.  The staff got really exciting (surprisingly) about the top secret assignment we gave them.  It's so fun to get to involve other people in the big mystery!  Isaac and I think it's a boy, Jeremy says it's a girl (but mostly because he's always wrong and really thinks it's a boy), and Ada says it's a baby!  How funny that our little risk taker is the only one not putting herself out there!

21 week sneak peak

Wednesday was a crazy day!  Here are some of my thoughts summed up in part of an email I sent to a few friends and the grandparents who I knew would be praying for us.

Our ultrasound revealed that baby has an enlarged tummy and that fluid doesn't seem to be moving through it.  Everything else looked good, so the tech sent me to my appointment with Dr. Libby and then had me come back afterwards for a second ultrasound to see if baby's tummy had gotten smaller.  Libby said that often her experienced ultrasound techs look at everything very closely and since everything else looked good that she wasn't worried yet.  So, i didn't worry when i talked to her--in fact, i didn't even ask her what an enlarged stomach could be symptomatic of (mostly because i didn't want to expose myself to any unnecessary info that's going to make me scared).  When I went back for my 2nd ultrasound nothing had changed so the tech sent the scans to radiology and said that Libby would call me in a few days if she thought we needed to do anything other than another ultrasound in 4 weeks (which is so long to wait!)  The nurse recommended that I call on Friday just for peace of mind since surely Libby will have talked to the radiologist by then.  

I know i can't do anything but pray for this little one.  unfortunately i also just looked up "enlarged fetal stomach" on-line and now I have a lot of questions i wish i'd been able to ask this morning.  Most of what i've read says that 50% of the time everything is normal.  Otherwise it could indicate down's or cystic fibrosis (and probably a lot of other things but i decided to stop my search there since it was making me anxious rather than surrendered).  i did also read that it might be a symptom of gestational diabetes, which obviously be something we could manage.

I felt so grateful for a window of time i had this afternoon to be sad on a day that i got up and got dressed for with grateful enthusiasm--baby's first picture day.  i think i needed to be sad as the rain fell and my older two treasures slept safely upstairs.  perhaps the best, though, was the sweetness of watching them play in the puddles in their rain boots and belle meade hand-me downs (ruined, i'm sure, and for the first time ever i didn't care if they ruined something nice because nice just doesn't matter in the big picture).  i've never had more fun in the mud.

libby got my scans and looked at them before she left the office tonight.  she called me on my cell phone and said that she really feels like the baby's enlarged stomach is something we will watch but that without any other markers showing up on the ultrasound, she thinks it is best if we follow up with an ultrasound in 4 weeks and move on from there.  i asked her about each of the conditions an enlarged tummy could indicate, based on what i read on the internet, and she said, again, that each of those come with other markers or genetic history (though she did say that down's is hard to rule out on an ultrasound).  i was grateful for her eyes on my scans and for her comforting knowledge.  she was cautious to say that though she can't say with certainty that this will fix itself, she has also had patients who have presented similarly and she's never seen it become something of consequence.  I was relieved by that and was so glad she called me.  i wish i had thought to ask her what causes an enlarged stomach, so i may have jeremy call her back later and ask.

i'm going to have sparkling cider, i think, after all, on this weird, scary picture day.  even though we'll be in this unknown place for at least 4 more weeks and maybe until we hold our baby.  thanks for praying for him or her!  we'll know on saturday if it's a boy or a girl!