That’s right!!

Paxton is going to be a big brother!!!

His baby brother or sister is due to arrive December 31st!

After a week of extreme tiredness and a bit of nausea I thought it was possible that I was pregnant. I took my first test on May 4 and we had a ‘faint’ positive! John David wasn’t fully convinced and neither was I! We decided to test again on May 7 and had another positive. I celebrated my second Mother’s Day as a mama to 2 (although the only people who knew were John David and me and we were in disbelief!!)

I had about 6 weeks of nausea and food aversions but have not been sick like I was with Paxton. With him, I was sick from week 6 to 12! I am now 12 weeks 2 days and am starting to feel normal (I finally meal planned this week!)

Being pregnant, dealing with nausea, tiredness and an extremely active toddler is one of the reasons posts have been few and far between here.

We’re thrilled to be adding to our family! We had an ultrasound last Thursday and our new baby looks healthy! We were surprised to see how much of a baby he/she looks like, we weren’t quite 8 weeks when we had our first ultrasound with Paxton and he looked like a little bean!

Now, the big decision ahead of us is do we want to find out the gender! Since Paxton was born, I said I want to wait until the birth to find out with our next one but now that we have one on the way I’m starting to think I want to know! John David wants to know! We will have the next ultrasound around week 18 or 20 which means we have only 6-8 weeks to decide if we want to find out!

If you want to follow along with weekly pregnancy updates, I’ll be sharing those on our family blog, The Simple Life of the Boreings!

As a new mom, relationships with more experienced moms is crucial. Whether they have 20 years of mothering or just one, they have experience that a new mama just doesn’t have.

Most new moms look to their mothers for guidance, advice and help with everyday things. When you live hours from your mom, mother-in-law or grandmothers, it is important to be connected to women in your church, neighborhood or at work who can serve as a mentor to you and be there for you.

My husband is in ministry and throughout our marriage, we’ve lived away from our families. Thankfully, we have been blessed with close friends who are like family in our churches.

Continue reading at Amy’s Finer Things where I’m guest posting as part of the Why Didn’t Anyone Tell Me? series.

Pregnancy is amazing, beautiful and miraculous.

It’s been over 6 months since my son was born. I still look at him and at my body and I am in awe of God and His creation.

I look at pictures taken over the course of the past year and I am simply amazed at what  my body did, how it grew and allowed my son to grow and thrive.

Those first weeks and months of pregnancy there is no visible evidence whatsoever of the growing baby. Then your belly begins to grow and you finally begin feeling a tiny person move. At first there are tiny little flutters. Then there are hard kicks and hiccups.

5 weeks pregnant

The day before delivering

6 months postpartum

Some days I still feel like I should be pregnant and feel him moving. I lay down at night and think I feel a baby kicking.

Other times, I forget that I ever was pregnant and what it feels like to be pregnant- and that scares me, I never want to forget that miraculous feeling!

I’m mostly in awe at my body. I nourished this child for 9 months within my body and then exclusively for the first 6 months of his life and my body continues to nourish his and allow him to grow.

There are still visible marks of pregnancy, I have stretch marks on my lower abdomen and the linea nigra (the black line on my abdomen) remains, although it has faded. They are reminders to me of the beauty of my body- nourishing and growing a new person for the past 15 months- and the beauty and intricacy of God’s creation!

September 8, 2009

September 8, 2010

It’s amazing how he’s grown from a little bitty “bean” to a (nearly) 17 pound baby boy in just one year!

Linked to: Wordless Wednesday

This post was written by my sister, Rebekah. It’s a beautiful story of God’s forgiveness, grace and love. Not every woman is thrilled to learn it’s positive when they take a pregnancy test but each one of those babies are blessings!

Rebekah and 3-day-old Emerson

I was 19 when I found out I was pregnant.  I had just started my sophomore year in college and it was a nightmare.  Not only was I pregnant, but I was not in a relationship with the baby’s father; this was not exactly an ideal situation.  I was so scared about what my parents and friends would think and say.  I think I was even more nervous about going to church pregnant and unmarried.  I told my parents and they were pretty supportive, upset of course, but supportive.  My mother and I did get into a few arguments and she said some things that really hurt my feelings, but I know she was just as upset about everything as I was.

So many people that I talked to acted like it was no problem at all.  “You can take care of it” or “just get it fixed” were common remarks and an abortion seemed to be a simple “solution” to the problem.  Even though my parents already knew I was pregnant it would be so easy for me to just tell them I had a miscarriage.  But I couldn’t do it.  I had never even considered having an abortion if I got in this situation and now that I was in it an abortion was certainly not an option for me.  I knew things would be hard and some people would think badly of me, but I had made the decision to have sex and this baby was not something I could just get rid of like it never existed.

Each month was difficult for me.  Often I felt like no one cared and that I was a loser and a screw up.  I kept wishing that things would go back to normal, but I knew that realistically this was my life.  I was going to be a single mom and I needed to prepare for it whether I wanted to or not.  During my pregnancy my relationship with the Lord actually improved.  I had been a Christian for several years, although I had made poor decisions on many occasions, but I felt like I was closer to the Lord than ever.  Even though I was in a bad situation I knew that everything would be ok and towards the end of my pregnancy I was actually happier than I had been in a long time.

Emerson Alexandria was born on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 at 9:54 am.  I couldn’t believe that this little bundle was actually my daughter.  It took a few months for me to realize that I was a mommy and the “unconditional love” didn’t set in for a couple months either.  I felt like something was wrong with me and that I wasn’t going to be a good mom.  After a while, however, I continued to fall more and more in love with my little girl.

Today I don’t know what I would do without her.  I love holding her in my arms and my favorite thing to do now is take naps with her lying on my tummy.  She has made me become a better person and has made me realize that I need to enjoy life and what I have and not take things for granted.  Although my situation is certainly not ideal and what God intended, I know that this happened for a reason.  I am so glad I made the decision to keep my baby and not “fix the problem” like I was encouraged to do.  Babies are not choices, they are a life.  We should not have the decision to terminate a life that God has created.  All people are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” and seeing how every person starts off as a baby, this applies to them also.  Emerson is the best thing that has ever happened to me and I know that every other baby can bring just as much joy as she has.

Celebrating Emerson’s First Birthday!

Rebekah is now 21 and is a wonderful mother to her little girl! She graduated with her Associates degree this past May and is starting classes in a few short weeks for her Elementary Education Degree. Emerson is 14 months old and into everything but such a blessing to our family!

One year ago tonight we found out life changing news, we found out we were expecting!

It’s amazing how much a + symbol means!

We were just thrilled that we were going to become parents but had no idea how amazing it really was going to be!

Today we reflected on the anniversary of finding out we were going to become a family of 3! We celebrated by loving on our son!

Our sweet sleeping blessing one year later!