I Just Love You

I started writing a post about how I wasn't sure how we'd fit the baby and all of the baby stuff in our tiny apartment. Right now, we're living in an one bedroom apartment. It's not the biggest apartment we've lived in, but it's definitely not the smallest. Thankfully, the list of true baby necessities is short. There's no way that we'd fit bigger things in our apartment. Two people plus a dog doesn't make for much room to spare.

So, I started writing this post about how I've been looking at baby things just to get an idea of what we'd need or want and how much it will all cost. I kind of got stuck in my writing and decided to move on to other things until I figured out what else I wanted to write. During this time, I turned on some music and one of the songs that came on was Five For Fighting's "I Just Love You." If you haven't heard this song, you really should listen to it. I first heard it when I was in Maine a couple years ago and it touched my heart then, but it touches my heart even more now.

The song is about a dad who is away from home and receives a phone call from his little 4 year old girl saying that she just loves him. It's a sweet song and although it's specific in its message, I started thinking about the little baby that I have growing inside of me, and what a miracle he or she is.

Some of may not know that I have waited three years to get pregnant. The reason that I have waited so long is not because of any planning on my part, in fact, quite the opposite. I just wasn't able to get pregnant for whatever reason. At first, it was sad for me, but I realized that sometimes it took time for it to happen. Eventually, however, it became hard on me and it was hard not to indulge in self-pity. I struggled some weeks to go to church and be around the other sisters who, for the most part, all had kids. More particularly, I struggled in trying to find other things to fill my life with.

I've always wanted to be a wife and a mom. Even when I was little, I never really had any aspirations to have a career, none that stuck anyways. Even when I made it to college, I had a hard time picking a major and sticking to it. After I picked a major, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it. Nothing sounded all that appealing for that long. When it became clear that having kids wasn't something that was going to happen right away, I had no idea what I was going to do to fill my time. I knew stressing about having a baby wasn't the answer and that I needed to focus on something else, but I had no other plan. No job option seemed to feel right. Even the jobs that I did try to get just fell through. Instead, I picked up hobbies and learned new skills. It was the first time in my life that I had continual quiet surrounding me. It nearly drove me crazy and Ashton didn't really appreciate the fact that, because I had spent almost the entire day by myself, when he finally got home from school and work, I just wanted to spend time with someone else.

Eventually, life got easier and I learned to appreciate where I was in my life and, although I still wanted to have kids, I was happy. It was a long hard road to get there, but I learned so much. I grew closer to my wonderful hubby and Heavenly Father. So, it was a huge surprise when I found out that I was pregnant. I stared at the pregnancy test for a long time. Even now that I look pregnant and am almost 18 weeks, some days it still doesn't feel real that I'm going to have a baby. It's something that I'm grateful for and I thank my Heavenly Father every day for this blessing.

So, although every baby is a blessing and a miracle, this is my little miracle baby.

Belly Shots

The moment that you've all been waiting for is finally here. I'm posting pictures of my pregnant belly. I already posted them on facebook, but figured that I'd post them here as well.

This is my belly at 13 weeks. You can't really see it because of the shirt that I'm wearing, but trust me it's there.

16 weeks