Official Blog Announcement: We’re having a baby!
Our little one will be arriving in January 2023. We are so excited!
In light of this, I thought I would do a Q&A of questions I’ve been asked (or questions I’m anticipating being asked 🙂 ) So here’s my baby Q&A! If there are any other questions you’d like to ask me, feel free to ask them in the comments below! 🙂
You’re so young; are you sure you’re ready for a baby?! Okay, first of all, I don’t think anyone is ever “ready” for a baby. It’s one of the scariest and most exciting things to realize that we made our own little tiny human, who is in my body, and we are now responsible for him/her. So no, we’re not “ready” but neither has anyone else ever been. Secondly, for most of history, people have been getting married and having babies at much younger ages than me. I’m not saying that’s the best way, I’m just saying twenty-one is a pretty reasonable age to have a baby.
But for my actual answer, yes, we’re young, but yes, we’re ready. We’re mature, financially stable, and we love babies. We are beyond excited to have our own little person. We believe children are a blessing and we plan on having many more kids (likely somewhere between 4 and 12 total) in the future.
As Psalm 127:3-5 says, “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.”
Are you finding out if you’re having a boy or a girl? What do you think it is? What about names? We haven’t decided if we are going to find out gender ahead of time, but if we do we will probably announce it. We have some names we’re thinking about already, but we’ll leave those a secret until he or she is born. As for our guess of “what we think it is” I’m going to go with “a baby.” 🙂 I’ve been convinced we’re going to have a boy since before I was pregnant, and when I asked my husband what he thought, he said “we’ll probably have a boy.” Others in our families have guessed both ways. So I guess we’ll see! 🙂
Have you been sick at all? For the first couple weeks, I wasn’t sick at all so I thought I may have sidestepped that one. Almost right away, I knew I was more tired and hungry than usual, as well as more sensitive (physically, emotionally, the whole deal 🙂 ) But once week 6 hit, the all day “morning” sickness started. Thankfully, it was pretty mild, and I was always able to find something I wanted to eat and by week 10 it was gone. Now, at week 14 I feel great!
Any pregnancy cravings? At first it was mostly pickles and ice cream. 🙂 My desire for pickles with everything began less than a week after I was pregnant, and the ice cream craving happened after the first time I drove by a Dairy Queen. Once I started getting sick, those cravings went away, and so I just craved whatever wouldn’t make me feel more sick. This included a lot of cheese, carbs, and fruit. Since morning sickness went away, I’ve wanted more pickles again, but that also might have to do with needing more salt since I’ve been out in the sun a lot.
What did you do when you found out you were pregnant? I suspected I was pregnant almost right away, and so my husband knew this too. But when I actually tested on May 3 and saw those two red lines, I went and laid and our bed and cried for about 5 minutes because I was so excited. I kept saying things like “This is for real” “I have a person inside my body” and “We’re going to have a baby! We already have a baby!” Then, once I calmed down enough and stopped shaking, I made some tea and wrote in my journal. Then I waited impatiently for four hours until my husband got home from work. 🙂 I left the test on the bathroom counter along with a note that said “Congratulations, Daddy!” When my husband got home, I played it chill and waited for him to go to the bathroom. Finally, I just told him he should go in the bathroom. He caught my drift, ran in, and then I started happy crying again. 🙂
What will life look like after the baby comes? Of course this is not something we can know for certain, but we can make plans. The baby will come in January and we are hoping to have our house done by summer 2023. Soon after baby, we will be moving to our little log house in the country. This will be so fun. I am glad the baby will be a few months old by then, so we should be somewhat adjusted before changing things again. I plan on staying home with the baby and eventually homeschooling. Depending on other circumstances, I may swim coach one more year, or this may be my last year. I plan to keep writing as much as I can, though I’m sure my productivity will go down significantly. 🙂 I will keep pushing toward publishing my Twins series, and continue blogging and sending email updates as much as I can.
I’m so excited I got to finally post this! I’ve had this drafted for a few months titled “Don’t post this until July” and I am bursting with excitement as I get to share our news!
Are there any other questions you have? Were you suspicious before our announcement? Let me know this and any other questions or comments below!