Telling the Family

It was exciting to find out I was pregnant, it was amazing to see the ultra sounds, but it is even more exciting to tell your friends and family about it all.  Now we can all share in the excitement.  

8 weeks pregnant:  

We decided to tell our family around Mother's Day.  Unfortunately we were heading back to Nebraska for my Grandpa Eberspacher's funeral. This wasn't the circumstances that we wanted to sharing this exciting news.   Yet I was reminded again of God's perfect timing.  His timing is perfect, and as hard as it was to wait I like thinking that the Lord was forming this little life as He was preparing my Grandpa Eberspacher to leave this Earth!  With sorrow there also comes joy.  With death there is new life.  Yet I would have loved to be able to tell grandpa that we were pregnant.  He was such an amazing grandpa and great grandpa.  

We decided to have Erin play a part in telling the rest of the family.  (Erin already knew about the pregnancy.  We told her day 4 of being pregnant.  I just had to tell one person other than the nurse at the doctor's office. )  When we were all together in the livingroom, Erin handed out Mother's Day cards to all the mothers in our family: first mom, then Lauren, and then ME!  The girls all got it right away and started screaming and jumping up and down.  The guys were a little slower to catch on, but they understood once the girls went crazy.  It was a fun way to tell the family, and it was a blessing that we were all together.  

Unfortunately we weren't able to be with the Clark family when we shared the news with them.  I really wish we could have flown out there to tell them in person, but it was still special.  We ending up calling them on our drive back from Nebraska.  It was Mother's Day.  It was a great treat because Jennifer was with Rhonda and Larry.  Patrick calmly mentioned that we had already been thinking about Christmas.  He said, "I just don't know if the THREE of us will be able to make the trip this year."  (No, we were not talking about Max.)  There was silence on the other end of the phone.  I don't think they were breathing.  Jennifer and Larry said that Rhonda had to sit down because she was so overcome with joy and excitement.  :)  It was so fun to hear everyone's reactions.  

13 weeks pregnant:

We had our second ultra sound.  That baby of ours is a mover.  Patrick was amazed that I couldn't feel the baby moving.  I have to remember that it is only about 2 1/2 inches right now.  Since we had made it past the scary stage of pregnancy and the baby was healthy and active, we decided to tell the rest of our friends and family.  I made a lot of phone calls that day, but it was so much fun telling those that we love.  We also posted a picture on facebook so that it could finally be official.  

The beginning of something great!

There is no better way to start this blog than to start with the day that we found out that I was pregnant.  I have an amazing husband, and he put up with a lot of tears each month when we found out that another month had passed, and we still weren't pregnant.  I never realized I would be so emotional through this process.  (I shouldn't have been surprised.  I am an Eberspacher after all. )

At the beginning of April,  I took a pregnancy test again. (no, this wasn't my first time taking a pregnancy test :)  As soon as I took the test, Patrick and I immediately looked at the results.  It was negative.  How could this be?  I had felt a little different this month, and I was a couple days late.  Patrick left the room expecting me to break down once again and for the flood gates to open.  Surprisingly, I just calmly sat and stared at the test.  I was wishing that negative sign to magically turn into a plus sign. I thought that my eyes were playing tricks on me, but that negative sign really did change into a plus.  I didn't react.  I just cleared my eyes, read the directions to the test for the 20th time, and calmly came to the realization that I was FINALLY pregnant.  Patrick, unaware of the magic that had taken place, returned to the bedroom expecting a distraught wife.  He saw the positive pregnancy test on the counter, and he also couldn't believe his eyes. We were unaware that the pregnancy test did say to wait 3-5 minutes for the results to appear, but we are rather impatient.   I burst into tears.  No....actually Patrick burst into tear :)  and I didn't have a tear left.  I was just all smiles.  This baby that we had prayed so desperately for was finally here. God's timing is always better than our own even when we sometimes doubt it along the way.  God is faithful even when we are faithless.

The tears and fear wasn't over once we got pregnant.  Oh no!  I was now very afraid of losing this precious baby that we had wanted so badly.  I knew going into this pregnancy that my pregnancy might look different than other people.  I was told by a heartless doctor in the ER that I would most likely never be able to carry a baby full term because of my misshaped uterus.  Even though other numerous doctors confirmed that I could have a normal pregnancy, that doctor's voice continued to echo in my ears.  Fear is a very paralyzing emotion.  I have had to learn to trust God with my heart and my desires. I have learned and will continue to learn to hold my children with open hands because they ultimately belong to God.   I have been challenged every day in my reading of Jesus Calling  by Sarah Young.  It has reminded me to trust God and embrace His Peace.  This is a section from the book from May 7th:

If you learn to trust me--really trust me--with your whole being, then nothing can separate you from My Peace....Do not fear what this day, or any day, may bring your way.  Concentrate on trusting Me and on doing what needs to be done.  Relax in My sovereignty, remembering that I go before you, as well as with you, into each day.  Fear no evil, for I can bring good out of every situation you will ever encounter. 

6 weeks pregnant:
This was the day that we had our first ultra sound, heard the babies heartbeat, and also found out some very strange information about my anatomy.  The babies heartbeat was very healthy, and it was just crazy to fathom something so small having a beating heart.  God is pretty amazing.  When we began the ultra sound, the nurse ask me the strangest question. "Did you know that you have two uteruses?" What?!  You have to be kidding me.  I had never heard of this before.  I really was a mutton with my different vascular system, blood mutation, one kidney, and now...two uteri (yes, that is the plural for uterus). :)  HA!  That emergency room doctor was way wrong.  I don't have a misshaped uterus at all.  I just have two perfectly normal shaped uteri.  I would take that any day.  Patrick and I were shocked and couldn't help but laugh out loud.  We immediately looked this uteri thing up on the internet, which I encourage you to do because it is rather unusual.  It is actually more common then I imagined: 1 out of 3,000 women have two uteruses.  This new information was actually a comfort to me because it decreased my chances of miscarrying in the first trimester.  The only concern is in the third trimester because my one uterus (the left uterus is where baby Clark is hanging out) may not stretch as much as a regular uterus.  This could cause preterm labor or the baby could be breach.  These are all things that the doctors can keep an eye on and this doesn't worry me very much.  This was an interesting doctor's appointment for us and we were pretty excited to tell our family about this strange discovery.

This is little Peewee (aka: baby Clark) at our six week ultra sound.  Rhonda and Larry call the baby Peewee, and I think that might just catch.