Yes, we have a TV in our room (it's big too).
Yes, believe it or not we have figured out how "this" happens.
And yes, this baby was prayed for and planned *GASP*
Most everyone has been really excited about our announcement of our 4th baby, and that's so nice because we're really excited about our 4th baby!! We have had the occasional comments here and there that go something like this:
"Wow, you know how this happens right?!"
"Do you have a TV in your room? That usually helps."
"Have you heard of birth control?"
"Were you on birth control?"
"Josh didn't get a vasectomy after your 3rd?"
"Oh. Wow. Well, congrats. Good luck!"
And yes, I get the occasional stares while out in public with all 3 of my kids and my very pregnant self. I know. I'm crazy. I probably look a little crazy and disheveled. (Funny and sadly true story: the other day my pants were hurting me in the car so I unbuttoned and unzipped them so I could breathe better. I am almost 38 weeks so I'm huge. I pull into Publix and get all my kids out and 30 minutes into our shopping experience I realize my pants are STILL unbuttoned and unzipped, which means everyone can see my bright red underwear and my enormous belly protruding out of my pants like Mount Everest. Yes. This happened. So just because I love having kids and planned to have more than what some call "normal", by no means equates to being organized and put together!).
Anyway, after I had Saylor (our third) everyone told me I should be done now that I got my girl. I felt like I should be done. But I couldn't shake the feeling that I didn't feel our family was complete. I prayed for peace to be done having kids because 3 is a lot of kids! But instead I got the urge to have another one. By the time Saylor was 8 months I was already praying for her future brother or sister. I felt like I was crazy, but then I remembered that "the world/society/culture" would think I was crazy, but the Lord would not. I diligently prayed for peace on if we should be done having kids or if we should have more, and the Lord answered my prayer with the overwhelming response to pray for our future baby. So that's what I did. And that's what Josh did. And at the end of February the Lord blessed us with baby #4 :)
Hello little miracle. 8 weeks and 4 days. Already had a strong heartbeat (150)
We told our families by giving them this "Counting book" that Aidan and Roman "made."
Haha! My mom and Cathy pretty much knew what was coming after the first 2 pages, but my dad was caught off guard! Roman was playing with him and I think he was kinda paying attention to Aidan showing him the book and also trying to play with Roman, so when Aidan showed him the last page he said, "oh yea, the baby makes 4....wait, what?!" It was sweet and funny!
Our little announcement to the world
12 weeks
20 weeks
7 months
20 week ultrasound...boy or girl?!
30 weeks
35 weeks
**I'll post more pictures of me at 40 weeks (pretty sure I'll see that glorious week!), and probably 41 weeks too**
This pregnancy I was definitely the sickest. I'm sure a lot of it had to do with having 3 other kids under the age of 4 and not getting the rest I needed; however, with Saylor I was 10 weeks pregnant and we went on a mission trip to the country of Panama for 10 days and even though I didn't feel that great, I could still go. With this baby, there is no way I'd be able to do that! But overall I cannot complain because I don't get horribly sick and I'm still able to function. Zofran was my friend for a few weeks though :)
I'm also so glad we decided not to find out the sex! This was more my idea...Josh really wanted to know, but he's pretty awesome and went along with me. It hasn't been nearly as hard as I thought, and actually it's been really easy because I can't really do anything, which is nice. We have no nursery ready (I have used my crazy nesting energy to redo the playroom and finish Saylor's room, which included stenciling...something I will never do again!), and we're basically just "winging" it until we get settled in with our new baby. We have 2 extra rooms to put he/she in until we figure out if it'll room with Say, or if the boys will room together, or if we'll transform the playroom into a room...either way I'm at peace that this baby doesn't need a decorated room from the time it's born. Don't get me wrong - I LOVE decorating rooms and think it's awesome to have an all-out nursery (have you seen Saylor's room?), but 4th time around and I don't have the urge to do that :)
NAMES. This was the kicker. It's hard enough to figure out names when you know the sex of the baby and can only focus on either boy names or girl names. When you have to figure out 2 sets of names, it was almost impossible for us! First off, we had no names in mind. Second, we couldn't use our "back-up" names that we liked, but in the end didn't get picked because then every time we'd call our child I would think, "I like your name, but not enough to name the first few kids it!" And third, we had to have the names "flow" with our kids' names. We couldn't throw a Frank or Jan in there because it wouldn't really go with Aidan, Roman and Saylor...so that also made it difficult. So, after about 8 months we finally settled on names. It took us a while to tell anyone, but now it's out there:
If it's a boy he'll be Maddox Knight
If it's a girl she'll be Piper Shelley
Ta-da. Those are our names. The middle names are family names (all of our kids have family names as middle names), so that part wasn't as hard as the first names. "Knight" is after my mom's dad and "Shelley" is obviously after my sister. :)
"Are y'all done?!" We get this question a lot. Honestly, we're not 100% sure. I would like to be done and I think Josh is done haha! I've realized that I am not like a lot of the women out there that just "know" they are done. I thought I'd feel that with Saylor, and I didn't. I'm not sure if I'll feel it after this baby, but I'm praying I will. Some people just "know" they want 2 kids and some just "know" they want 10 kids. I don't know. I do know that I want us to be able to provide everything for our kids. By everything I mainly mean TIME. Of course kids are extremely expensive (my mom has been telling me that for 29 years LOL! I get it now!), but I want us to be able to let them do sports, dance, after school activities and I want us to BE THERE. The more kids you have, the harder it is to do that. For me personally, that's a priority. And for me personally and the way I'm wired, I think I would feel overwhelmed if we had more kids on spending the time with each one of them. Especially when it came to making it to games, plays, school stuff...you get the point. So, are we done? I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure we are, but I need to pray about it ;)
So, I'm due November 10th. That is in exactly 17 days, or a little over 2 weeks. I would prefer to have this baby sooner rather than later, but Roman was my earliest child and he came on 40 weeks exactly. Aidan was 4 days late and Saylor was a long 8 days late. Mentally, I'm looking more at November 20th (which by the way, I will be in a horrible mood and probably really haggard if I see that date with no baby!), but apparently my children are always really comfortable in there and don't like to leave, so we'll see.
We're ready. We're REALLY excited to meet this sweet baby and transition into being a family of six. If you asked me 10 years ago how many kids I'd have I would have answered 2, maybe 3. But I've learned that God's plan is always better than my plan. I've learned (painfully!) to trust Him instead of paving my own, reckless path. I've finally gotten to a point in my life to fully lean on Him, be in His Word, trust His Word, and most importantly LIVE His Word. It's hard, it's not comfortable and it is totally against the grain of society, but it's worth it. So, by following Jesus' plan for my life in particular, He's blessed us with 4 kids, and I couldn't be happier :)
I'm also so glad we decided not to find out the sex! This was more my idea...Josh really wanted to know, but he's pretty awesome and went along with me. It hasn't been nearly as hard as I thought, and actually it's been really easy because I can't really do anything, which is nice. We have no nursery ready (I have used my crazy nesting energy to redo the playroom and finish Saylor's room, which included stenciling...something I will never do again!), and we're basically just "winging" it until we get settled in with our new baby. We have 2 extra rooms to put he/she in until we figure out if it'll room with Say, or if the boys will room together, or if we'll transform the playroom into a room...either way I'm at peace that this baby doesn't need a decorated room from the time it's born. Don't get me wrong - I LOVE decorating rooms and think it's awesome to have an all-out nursery (have you seen Saylor's room?), but 4th time around and I don't have the urge to do that :)
NAMES. This was the kicker. It's hard enough to figure out names when you know the sex of the baby and can only focus on either boy names or girl names. When you have to figure out 2 sets of names, it was almost impossible for us! First off, we had no names in mind. Second, we couldn't use our "back-up" names that we liked, but in the end didn't get picked because then every time we'd call our child I would think, "I like your name, but not enough to name the first few kids it!" And third, we had to have the names "flow" with our kids' names. We couldn't throw a Frank or Jan in there because it wouldn't really go with Aidan, Roman and Saylor...so that also made it difficult. So, after about 8 months we finally settled on names. It took us a while to tell anyone, but now it's out there:
If it's a boy he'll be Maddox Knight
If it's a girl she'll be Piper Shelley
Ta-da. Those are our names. The middle names are family names (all of our kids have family names as middle names), so that part wasn't as hard as the first names. "Knight" is after my mom's dad and "Shelley" is obviously after my sister. :)
"Are y'all done?!" We get this question a lot. Honestly, we're not 100% sure. I would like to be done and I think Josh is done haha! I've realized that I am not like a lot of the women out there that just "know" they are done. I thought I'd feel that with Saylor, and I didn't. I'm not sure if I'll feel it after this baby, but I'm praying I will. Some people just "know" they want 2 kids and some just "know" they want 10 kids. I don't know. I do know that I want us to be able to provide everything for our kids. By everything I mainly mean TIME. Of course kids are extremely expensive (my mom has been telling me that for 29 years LOL! I get it now!), but I want us to be able to let them do sports, dance, after school activities and I want us to BE THERE. The more kids you have, the harder it is to do that. For me personally, that's a priority. And for me personally and the way I'm wired, I think I would feel overwhelmed if we had more kids on spending the time with each one of them. Especially when it came to making it to games, plays, school stuff...you get the point. So, are we done? I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure we are, but I need to pray about it ;)
So, I'm due November 10th. That is in exactly 17 days, or a little over 2 weeks. I would prefer to have this baby sooner rather than later, but Roman was my earliest child and he came on 40 weeks exactly. Aidan was 4 days late and Saylor was a long 8 days late. Mentally, I'm looking more at November 20th (which by the way, I will be in a horrible mood and probably really haggard if I see that date with no baby!), but apparently my children are always really comfortable in there and don't like to leave, so we'll see.
We're ready. We're REALLY excited to meet this sweet baby and transition into being a family of six. If you asked me 10 years ago how many kids I'd have I would have answered 2, maybe 3. But I've learned that God's plan is always better than my plan. I've learned (painfully!) to trust Him instead of paving my own, reckless path. I've finally gotten to a point in my life to fully lean on Him, be in His Word, trust His Word, and most importantly LIVE His Word. It's hard, it's not comfortable and it is totally against the grain of society, but it's worth it. So, by following Jesus' plan for my life in particular, He's blessed us with 4 kids, and I couldn't be happier :)
2 comments:
What a fantastic post!! I love reading your stories (and really miss blogging)...maybe it's time to step it up again! Best of luck on the remaining days of pregnancy and of course delivery! You're a great Mom!
Love, love, love this post! Such a wonderful statement of God's plan and god's timing!
Love the beautiful pictures of your 3 babies and am really looking forward to seeing pictures of the 4th!
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