Babymoon! (30 weeks!)

She's getting bigger! We're 10 weeks away!

This week, Austin and I headed to Glen Rose, Tx for a much needed and very restful get-away. We stayed at Fossil Rim and thoroughly enjoyed the deck and animals. We spent most of our time relaxing with the view and a cup of coffee. The weather couldn't have been better, cloudy and rainy in the mornings, sunny in the afternoons.

We ate good food, took lots of naps, talked, played games (I won my first game of Scrabble!) and watched the animals come out around sunset.

The big events were the drive through the park and feeding all the different animals along the way on Monday, and also visiting Dinosaur Valley State Park and seeing the dinosaur footprints.

I'm so thankful we got to go on a babymoon. We have been so blessed to have seven wonderful years of marriage, and almost ten years of knowing each other. This trip did not even begin to compare with how wonderful these years have been just the two of us, but it was such a nice way to be together "one last time" as a family of two.

I'm getting a little nervous about "D-day" (delivery day), but I know it will be okay. I'm learning a lot about trust right now. It is so comforting having my wonderful husband pray over me and our baby every night before we go to sleep.

Baby girl, we're so excited for you to get here. We aren't sad about it at all, but there is a sense that this is going to change things forever. We're happy about that. We're really blessed that we have such a wonderful foundation and relationship that we are ready to share with you.

 

God made us for community, for family, and he has invited you to be a part of ours. I pray we can be everything that He intends for your community to be. We're ready to share our lives with you fully and completely. We're ready because He has prepared us. You are going to teach us so many things too, I know, and we're ready to grow too!

 

We love each other, and we love you so much already.

 

Love, Mom and Dad

29 weeks!

Baby girl, I can't wait to meet you! I love actually watching you move around and feeling you wiggle and squirm and kick. When your Daddy prays over you at night, you've responded every time by kicking and squirming.

You really did kick Daddy in the face! He was talking to you and you got him right in the nose. 

Tonight we went to our second week of our Tiny Toes birth class and it was so great. We got to tour the hospital and see where this thing is going to happen. We also got to take a good look at our expectations for labor and delivery and when push came to shove, ultimately, all I really care about are things about our little baby getting the best possible start she can have. I can be flexible on most of the points of the process, but those first few moments of her new life are the most important to me.

We also were given the homework of choosing a song to sing to her every day for the rest of our pregnancy and we chose "Jesus Loves Me", the Jennifer Knapp version. She'll recognize it after she's born, and we'll keep singing it to her. After all, that's the main, basic thing we want her to know in her life...that she is loved by Jesus and it is really not more complicated than that.

Baby girl, we love you! Jesus loves you! And right now He is taking such good care of you and we are so thankful that He chose us to help take care of you too. We can't wait to get to know you, to help you know in the flesh, that you are precious and you are loved.

Love, Mom and Dad

28 Weeks!

Hello 3rd Trimester!

I can't believe it's been nine weeks since I wrote last, and my have some things changed!

Baby girl is growing like crazy and I finally REALLY look pregnant. She's kicking up a storm too which is such a cool thing. A week or so ago my sister and mom got to feel her kick, and Anna said that was the first time she had ever felt a baby kick! Just such a neat time.

We were so blessed to have Beth Dukes take our maternity photos last weekend and she's already edited them. They are beautiful and I can't get over how special these pictures are as they capture this incredibly special time for us.

19 weeks!

Baby girl is growing! Almost daily, I feel like my belly is getting bigger and bigger. I am really enjoying feeling pregnant, and LOOKING pregnant!

And I think we maybe, just maybe, know your name now. We care so much about you having a good, meaningful name and this might just be it. Your daddy likes it a lot, and I do too. It feels so important to give someone a name. So, someday I want you to know that we took it very seriously and we know that it's a name that we've loved for a long time. It is a special name. We are praying about it too, since right now, only God really knows who you are and if this is the right name for you, baby girl.

And then, I can't wait to meet you face to face and begin to live the life we're dreaming about already. We'll have a home and a name ready for you.

Love,

Mom and Dad

P.S.: Austin got to feel you kick for the very first time last night (Wed) at 10:50 pm! It was so sweet and cute. He was surprised at how fast and strong your little kick or punch was! He said that wasn't at all what he was expecting it to feel like. 

We are having...

 Yesterday was Maundy Thursday and we just had our ultrasound at 18.5 weeks and found out that we are having...

...a sweet baby GIRL!


It was a precious experience, and ever since, we have been imagining our lives with a little girl. We can't wait for her to get here!

Watching her move on the screen was incredible; she's really in there! She wiggled and squirmed and kicked and punched. She rubbed her eyes with her little hand and crossed her legs at one point like a little lady.
Austin was in love already, but seeing her I think sealed the deal. This is a very special Easter.

profile, 18.5 weeks. Look at that cute nose!

We can't wait to meet you, baby girl! We're almost halfway there!

Love,

Mom and Dad

Baby Brown

sonogram at 10 weeks

Well, I've debated about where to record the details and memories of my pregnancy and ultimately decided to use my blog because this has always been a special space for me. And so, here goes!



---We are 17 weeks in! I feel like things are just beginning to feel real for me. I think that I even have felt you move now, which is incredible. I really can't wait to meet you. We find out if you are a boy or a girl next week and both of us are so excited. You've already changed our lives and I dream about getting to know you as you grow. I am so thankful for you! Your daddy talks to you all the time and prays for you.---

Starting to get a baby bump!

We've been looking forward to this part of our journey for a long time and it's still hard to believe it's finally happening. It feels like God is already stretching us and teaching us new things, new levels of trusting Him that have already pushed me to my limit.

I laid in bed this morning as still as I possibly could with my hands on my belly hoping to feel something. After a while, I became aware of very subtle movement, almost wondering if I was making it up, but I kept waiting and it happened again. My eyes might have gotten a little teary.

Patience, process, trust, waiting...these are things you can't make yourself learn. But through grace, and our gentle Father we can be transformed. I don't really have that much to do with this process of bringing life into the world. Mostly I just get to witness and partake in it. And it has changed my perspective on what it means to bring life into the world in other ways too. How much action or credit can I really take? Ultimately I have no control over anything. But I can partake in life that is graced to me, bearing witness to the Creator of that life and rejoicing that there is beauty, miracle, breath worth breathing in the midst of so much darkness and uncertainty. For 17 weeks I've anxiously waited for evidence that there is life inside. I knew it was real, and true, but I wanted evidence daily.

I trust that Life is with me, even when I don't "see" the evidence. And I'm beginning to wonder if that's all we are called to do: witness to the Life we have the faith to believe in. Faith we only have through that Life in the first place.

Galatians

Reflections on Galatians:

Lord, reading your word has been such a blessing. How can I be in relationship with you? I wan this to be my sole desireand I know you already have answered that. The desire of my heart is for your heart. Amd maybe that it "The spirit of his Son [in] our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" (4:6)

So maybe you stopped telling me what to do. Because there's more. You want me.

Well, I don't want to scramble and grasp and fight. I want to walk in faith through the Spirit. In freedom. Freedom. And Love. I want to walk with you. (What does this mean??)

Seems like all I can do is ask and wait and have faith that I am a child of promise. But that promise was made with Abraham and his offspring, Jesus. I am an heir only through Christ. It is only through relationship with Jesus -the offspsring - that I am in heir to the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus. You are TRUTH. I can know TRUTH, and be known by TRUTH. And it is only in that knowing that there is freedom and promise.