Three Months of Thank-yous

At the beginning of March we got the wonderful (and after so much waiting) surprising news I am pregnant.  For two weeks I thought I was actually going to have a typical morning sickness experience with nausea managed by eating a bit all day long.

Nope!

By the time I hit 8 weeks pregnant life stopped.  At first I was only throwing up once a day but that escalated to 4-5 times a day. Andrew took over all household duties, was on campus as little as possible to watch the kids, made food, did lots of emergency shopping trips, stayed up into the wee hours of the morning to do his homework, and got up early in the morning to bring me food.  When he was gone our neighbors often dropped by just to help get the kids out to the playground or rescue Nathan stranded at the kitchen table in his booster seat. Many afternoons were spent just sitting on their couches while the kids played and many lunches were potlucks outside with whatever they had and could find in our kitchen.

At 11 weeks we reached meltdown.  After the kids were tucked in bed we both received a priesthood blessing.  At 9:30pm on a Sunday night I headed to the ER to get some IV fluids and hopefully reset a little with an acquaintance (now friend!) from BYU that recently moved out here .

The following Monday morning the angels started coming.  We had SIX people on the first day unexpectedly show up to drop off food and clean our house.  I wasn’t alone from the time Andrew went to work in the morning to when he came home late in the evening for more than 15 minutes at a time.  MIRACLES. And they’ve just continued coming with food and pausing to clean and chat.  We are so grateful for the prayers offered on our behalf and for the people that have been making time, many on a regular basis, to help us.

Last week when Andrew started his first week of summer term classes a friend from high school drove out from Iowa and stayed with us for six days.  She heard from a mutual BYU friend that we could use some help and made it possible as soon as she graduated with her masters and was back in the midwest for the summer.  It ended up being a huge blessing because Andrew came home on Tuesday and said he was flying to Maryland on Thursday for research.  She sustained us in his absence.

We have no idea how long this morning sickness is going to last.  At 14 weeks I wake up each day hopeful that I’ll be feeling better soon, but Andrew keeps reminding me to be realistic and accept that this is the situation for awhile.  We are so grateful for this baby that will be joining our family in November.

Life from the couch: