The Little Details of Life

In thinking about only having 8 weeks to go, as much as we want this baby to be in our arms, we also want her to stay put for just a little while longer. Pregnancy is such a mix of emotions – the excitement to meet her, but the desire to just keep her safe and sound in the womb until the time is just right, it’s hard to know what to want. In waiting for our baby girl to make her debut, we look back at this whole process and just treasure each and every moment. Every moment of this pregnancy. Every moment of realizing there is a little human growing inside. A little human so full of life, yet so tender and vulnerable. A life we can’t wait to meet and a life we couldn’t be more thankful for.

We didn’t know what to expect when I got pregnant. Pregnancy was a new road, a new adventure, and even in a way, a new challenge. A challenge and adventure we just couldn’t wait to discover. You see, it’s the little details that have stolen our hearts. It’s the little details that have made this process so precious, so valuable, and often unexplainable. In thinking about meeting her soon, I want to share some of the little details that have made this journey worth every second.

I want to preface this with saying that I know many women who dream of being pregnant. Dream about having another child, but can’t, or even dream about that first. I say these things with hesitancy, knowing that there are so many who hurt and carry the burden of not carrying, with them daily. We think of you. We pray that one day God will bless you beyond measure and that one day, you can experience the joy of pregnancy.

Joy in the littlest of details:

• Being given the opportunity and gift of being able to carry a child
• Being given the gift of being able to try and get pregnant
• Counting down the minutes until Dan woke up so I could tell about the positive home test
• Calling our parents, family, and friends that indeed, I was pregnant
• Feeling little changes in my body within weeks of finding out I was pregnant
• Calling Dan to get anything lemon to eat to subside nausea and drinking ginger ale
• Seeing our baby girl on an ultrasound at 7 weeks – even though the thought of a miscarriage was so heartbreaking, the joy we felt after seeing her heartbeat – what a blessing.
• Feeling her little feet and hands move around
• Feeling a sudden burst of energy as she stretches out (or doing who knows what else)
• Losing my appetite for some foods, but gaining a love for others
• Having to quick run to the bathroom for fear of peeing my pants
• Waking up in the middle of the night from our baby girl moving – LOVE that
• Watching the progression of my stomach grow through pictures
• Putting on a shirt and realizing it only covers half of my stomach
• Seeing my belly button disappear as she grows
• Chewing tums like candy
• Being able to wash my hair every 4 or 5 days – gotta love prenatals
• Jumping at the feeling of feeling her kick
• Resting my hands on a stomach that is carrying a child
• Dreaming about names, what we want to do with her, what she’ll look like
• Having to bend over to see my feet
• Seeing how my shirts are showing wear on the belly because I rub my stomach so often
• Washing her little clothes and barely being able to fold them because how little they are
• Putting her furniture together
• Looking in her closet and seeing her clothes hanging
• Feeling her butt sticking out in my stomach and her little feet poking out
• Praying for our little girl
• Grabbing a hesitant hand and putting it on my stomach so they too, can feel LIFE inside
• Registering and finding all of the little things we have dreamed of having in our home
• Feeling my body starting to prepare itself for labor
• Letting every moment of this journey not go to waste