pregnancy update #1

i realize i haven't updated about this pregnancy at all! i must be about 20 weeks now, due around the end of august?

i was pretty nauseous and tired for about 6 weeks, which now that it's behind me, wasn't that bad! plus, this time i tried to keep a good attitude about it and see it all as part of the great amazing blessing of being able to bear children.

we are keeping this baby's gender a surprise until it comes out! i never thought i would be one to be able to do that, but i read in a commentary about surrendered motherhood that since God actually describes the womb as a "secret place," we might consider leaving it that way. i never really thought about that psalm (139) in that way before, as giving instruction. perhaps more of a description of how things necessarily were in the time it was written. but God's word is always relevant, and it always instructs. i feel totally at peace with waiting to see what He has chosen for us! last time around i was so shocked when i found out through ultrasound i was having another girl, that it kind of put a damper on the rest of my pregnancy. but now i would not trade my Golden for a hundred boys. even if i never have one. i LOVE having girls.

yesterday sparrow and i were talking about what we thought the gender of the baby might be. i said, "God is making it into whatever it needs to be, for His own glory." sparrow: "is his own glory helping too?"

golden, too, rubs the belly and says "hi, baby!" but mostly she is just really excited to see my belly button and exclaim over it.

i have not seen a doctor or anyone yet. i knew we were moving, so i didn't want to start and then switch. not to mention the clinic in santa barbara was less than desirable for a place to go hang out with two toddlers just to wait and wait, then be poked, prodded, patronized, and admonished. yikes. i am hoping here in the big city there will be more options for care, perhaps even with a female ob, or maybe i can birth at a hospital that has an alternative birthing center! we will see. either way, besides feeling large, i feel fine, baby is moving, and i am not worried. it feels a blessed thing to be me.