Experience: that
most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.
Truthfully, when
I dreamt about landing in Washington state I saw all the avenues that I would take
to immerse myself in our new stomping grounds. I saw myself walking in
unexplored parks, volunteering for different activities that I am interested
in, and joining the meet up groups that I had started researching when we got
to Oregon. I do not feel safe about life
unless there is at least a semblance of a plan in place and I knew that part of
moving out here and not being miserable would be the establishment of a new
social circle and lots of fun activities for us as a family.
And then we found
out we were going to have a baby. Holy
bejeezus…a baby. Andrew and I had talked
about this possibility over the summer.
I had fallen even more in love with Andrew’s amazing family as well as
the time spent with my brother and his family combined to inspire in me a want
to continue our family’s legacy. There’s
some pretty good breeding possibilities happening here, am I right?
We were open to
the idea of expanding our family but we weren’t really going out of our way to
become pregnant. I was still monitoring
my monthly cycle and really didn’t think that we would be able to get pregnant
right away, even if we did try. I’ve
been on so many medications over the last year, my health is not the best, we
both drink a ton of caffeine and I’m not exactly the prime age for
conception. At best, I was thinking it
might take us six months to a year before we were able to conceive.
As the saying
goes, it only takes once and that one time happened and now…well…
Here's our baby...hands up by face for a sweet little profile picture.
Backs of the legs and little femurs growing!!!
A second profile picture of the baby.
That’s our
baby. She was very squirmy yesterday and
really made the ultrasound tech chase her around to get all the images they
wanted. We were able to see her brain,
bladder, little heart…so amazing! I
never had early ultrasounds done when I was pregnant with Aydan so I didn’t get
to see him when he was this tiny. I can’t
help but think of how different this pregnancy is from my first but how amazing
to have had each of the experiences I have had.
Aydan is getting more excited about his sibling all the time. I know that this is just going to add to the
strength and beauty that is already so strongly present in our family. This is just one more layer of
Henning-Kolberg awesome J
The pregnancy has
left me very ill for the last month and a half but I am slowly starting to come
out of the sickly state and am hoping for the improvements to continue as the
pregnancy moves forward. I am happy that
the ultrasounds show the baby is developing exactly as she should. I had been very concerned that being so sick
would maybe make the baby smaller than she should be but she’s actually three
days larger than she should be and while that doesn’t seem like much, in tiny
baby land that feels like a good sign to me.
Needless to say, lack of energy
and the ever present tummy distress has left me pretty much home bound. I have found random things to keep me
entertained – my current obsession is documentaries about the United Kingdom
from about the 1500’s to present day and maybe too many shows on Netflix. I have also started working on paper crafts
which has been an excellent time filler with a purpose.
Sitting still for
too long is a struggle but I am taking this time to absorb some life lessons
that I haven’t fully integrated in the past.
The biggest one is trying not to say things like “I can’t wait for…”. I find that I live too often in the future
while not fully enjoying the present.
Now isn’t that silly? I don’t
really know what other things I’m working on because this one requires an awful
lot of effort…but I am learning each day.
On the good days,
I have actually managed to get OUT! And we
have had some very positive encounters that help me keep my hope for the
future. There are certainly people that
have already captured my interest and once I start having more good days than
bad, I can start feeding my social, active lifestyle again.
This was two weekends ago but a gorgeous day to just find a place and go...
And this is the place we found. It's maybe 10 minutes from the house, Richmond Beach Park. So pretty.
Love this picture of Andrew :)
I love living so close to a BEACH where people go and walk around and hang out even in January...because they can!
One bit of clarification real quick: we don't know the sex of the baby yet. I say she because that's how I have felt I should address the baby since I had the first inkling that I might be pregnant. We won't know for sure about the sex of the baby until 20 weeks. At that time we will have another ultra sound done and will know what we are expecting. Mama Nora will hopefully get to be with us when we find out! How nice to have her so close!
And now for some more pictures...because I hope you guys like seeing what we are up to as much as I enjoy sharing :)
Rosie is a weirdo dog...
Content pups and content boy.
Sometimes Andrew lays on the floor and Crumpets wonders what the heck he's doing...
Have I mentioned my love of receiving mail??? Agatha, we miss you and LOVE you!
LOVE MAIL!!!
This is my new distraction attempt. Rolled paper can be turned into baskets and bowls and other things and I figured, why not? First batch of rolled paper.
First completed bowl.
This is the project I am working on now. I haven't made this yet but I am starting work on it...
These are some of the little circles I have made so far. I probably have close to 20 or 30 more done at this time and I feel like I'm getting pretty quick at getting them done.
So there’s at least a bit of an update for
everyone. Maybe someday this will become
more habit and something I actually can accomplish on a regular basis. Still more and more changes happening for our
family
