Mother's Day

What a special blessing is the gift of a mother! Robert and I are both blessed to have mothers who love the Lord and have faithfully modeled lives dedicated to Jesus for us over the years. What great examples for me as I transition to the role of mother to little Trey.

They are faithful prayer warriors (probably more so than we will ever know), servant-hearted leaders, wonderful hostesses and providers, "keepers of the family" so to speak, gospel-reminders (preaching and living out the gospel to their children and families faithfully), committed to serving the church body, great listeners, and long suffering with our fathers! For which we are all very grateful! :)

I am sure my appreciation for them will increase 100 fold once baby Trey comes and they are my lifelines for the first two weeks. I am so thankful for such family support and their willingness to take time off their jobs to serve us in this way.

But even now and in the previous months of pregenancy they have been so encouraging and supportive. Faithfully praying for Trey's salvation, sending encouraging emails, marveling at the baby God is growing in my womb and reminding us to enjoy each and every stage of the process.

And then of course Robert's mom has spent countless hours of her free time (who really has "free time" when you work fulltime as a nurse/office manager and are also a fulltime wife, mother, grandmother, and daughter?) in her sewing room making Trey's bedding and drapes, monograming blankets and making cute little outfits for him. Not to even mention the dozens of phone calls, emails, and texts to me to discuss fabrics and everything else we've talked about in prepping the nursery along the way.

And my sweet mother has sacrificed her Saturday to come clean my house - all with a joyful heart! (Who does that???) - to help give it a good scrub down before baby comes. Robert was out of town this weekend visiting an old college roommate in Memphis (last man trip for a while), and it was so good to have my mom to keep me company and help me around the house. We laundered all of Trey's clothes which are now hanging so cute and pretty in his armoir and closet. Instead of cleaning, we decided to re-plant the mailbox flowerbed with some beautiful summer blooms since the warm weather had taken its toll on my pansies. They'll always be another day to clean, and I know when that day comes she'll be there to help!

I am so very thankful for our moms!! For these and so many other reasons.

And this Mother's Day I was also thankful for the opportunity to be a mother. And even though Trey's not visible, apparently it's apparent that I'm his mom. Everyone from experienced and seasoned moms and grandmothers at church to the cashier at Publix wished me a happy mother's day this year. Most of them caught me by surprise, but what a sweet gesture nonetheless. I am, technically, a mother....with a whole lot to learn!

Nesting

Disclaimer: I should have posted this at the end of April. It was saved as a draft which I found and am posting now. As an update, the nesting has gotten a little better (as in calmed down) now, but for a while there it was insane. Warning to anyone expecting: This stage really does come out of no where. All of a sudden you're a cleaning, purging, tireless machine. Might want to tie your husband and pets to the couch so you don't throw them away or donate them to the thrift store with everything else you discard in prep for baby.

I totally thought this stage would skip me entirely, but it's here. In all its crazy glory.

Let's just say that, based on the past two weekends and even some weeknights after a full day's work, they could make a reality show about me entitled something like "Adventures in Nesting..." (dun, dun, dun - imagine the scary music in your head).

The show would be like "Hoarders" in reverse, but completely as shocking and just as dangerous. I'm already a little bit of an obsessive cleaner and neat freak. But mostly it's because I just like things in order. A place for everything and everything in its place. But this is a whole new level of insanity. And it came out of no where.

I'm talking about cleaning out junk drawers and cabinets in the kitchen, going through ALL my clothes and discarding what I don't and never will wear - then going through some of Robert's, cleaning out entire closets, and making about a gazillion trips to the thrift store to donate the items we purged. I donated everything from clothes and coffee mugs (to make room in the cabinets for bottles and such after horrifyingly realizing we had no kitchen cabinet room for baby's stuff) to random wedding gifts and old laptops (we had four!).

It's amazing what you can accumulate and store that you never ever use. We should probably go through the house like this every year just to keep things under control. Though it would be even better if we had better self control and didn't buy or accumulate stuff we don't need along the way.

Ah, so much to learn.

31/32 weeks update

Wow. Time is a flyin' by. I was 32 weeks yesterday and realized I never posted an update on my 31 week appointment.

The short and sweet is that all is well and Baby Trey looks good and is growing on schedule. We are so blessed and grateful for God's goodness throughout all the stages of this pregnancy.

The Highlights (in brief):

-Trey is head down (or was last week) and in his birthing position. He's kicking up a storm - mostly to my lungs. Little buddy is getting strong, and mom's taking a beating.

-Fundal measurement was 31 cm- right on target for two days shy of 31 weeks when they took it.

-Heart rate was strong. Came through loud and clear on the doppler. Dr. Richards found it nearly immediately, and also found his head - nestled down there in my pelvis. Again, he's getting big.

-Weight gain was consistent with 28 week appointment - I'm still hovering at about 20 pounds above pre-pregnancy weight, though I suspect that is currently on the rise given the rapid weight gain he goes through in the next eight weeks (doubling weight). He's probably between 3.5 and 4 pounds right now.

-Ultrasound appointment coming next Monday (May 16) so hopefully we'll have some more pics to post on our little man as well as updates on his size and progress to date.

In other news, this post and the others I've been meaning to write for the past three weeks are delayed mostly because we've been crazy busy lately with nursery and baby prep, childbirth classes, work, volunteering, church, disaster response, etc.

I have been meaning to blog about the storms and how God has used them to teach Robert and I so much about the gospel, what it means to be Christ's hands and feet to a hurting community, how to really help, etc.

I also have a mother's day post in here somewhere and hope to get that up soon.