It's been awhile again, but the Bells have BIG NEWS!!! They are going to be big sisters in March 2017! (Hopefully!) So that's where this blog comes in... most of you followed our journey with my pregnancy with Anabell and Isabell and their early births and NICU time, through this blog in fact! And most of you heard us say over and over again we were done having kids after such a traumatic experience with the girls we never wanted to live that again. So I'm sure you're all thinking this pregnancy was an "oops!" but I want to clear that up right away! Here goes....
Last August/September God started putting it on my heart to have a son. EVERYWHERE I looked were mom's and their sons, or dad's playing catch with their sons and I felt this urge for my own. But it was football season after all for my nephews, what did I expect right? So I kinda just ignored it and went on with my life. It was also about that time that we started attending Becker Baptist Church. Right away they started up these small groups for this ALL IN series and it sounded intriguing so Jim and I decided it was a great opportunity to get to know our fellow BBC'ers! Every single week God smacked this idea of we needed a son right in my face! I can't even remember what all triggered it, but I remember about halfway through I couldn't ignore it anymore. So I told Jim, "hunny, I think we need to have a baby." He almost puked and was like "yeah, ok, whatever Heather," and didn't even want to discuss it. But I couldn't just get over it, I reminded him going ALL IN for God was dropping our biggest fears and giving it ALL to Him and His glory. What were our biggest fears, but having another couple months on bedrest, another premature birth, another NICU stay, another set of twins, etc. Jim still wasn't ready. About the same time, Jim came to me and was like, "Hey, I think we should get baptized!" I pretty much gave him the same look he gave me about having a baby and was like "um, I already was, I'm good." The last week before our series ended I remember laying on Jim's lap while he continued persisting we get baptized and I continued persisting we have a baby and I was uncontrollably sobbing, "why would God tell me ALL IN is having a baby, and God would tell you ALL IN is getting baptized, why wouldn't God tell us the same thing?" That was the night that changed it all. We sat up late discussing exactly that, why would God tell us different things? Finally we realized, because they were both right. We should be baptized, our friends and family needed to see what was changing in our hearts on the outside and that was symbolized by our baptisms. We had a wonderful chat with Pastor Rob that put my mind at ease about being baptized despite that whole baby baptism thing and it totally made sense! Duh! Of course, I wanted to announce to the world (at least my immediate world) that I was a believer! Yes! Then Jim finally started to get that itch too. Of course he wants a son, so we will try 1 more time, if we get a girl that is wonderful, but we will adopt a son someday instead to complete our family. So the journey began....
By January, I was starting to get discouraged. The girls only took us a couple months of trying so what's the big deal here? Then I started to get a new itch... I kept seeing videos on Facebook of Syrian refugees arriving in boats in Greece and I needed to be there. Maybe I was wrong about that whole baby thing, maybe God just wanted to see if we would listen, and we did, so now the REAL deal... He wanted us to go to Greece! So I emailed Jim at work one day, because I got so excited I couldn't wait for him to get home and said "Jim, we have to make this work, I'm going to Greece for a month." He came home with that same ol' look on his face, "Heather, you're crazy, let's talk." So I laid it all out there, all the reputable volunteer groups were looking for a month commitment, I knew he couldn't get that time off of work, we just had to find the money and a place for the girls and I was going! So Jim did what Jim does best, he did his research and sent me to do it too. I found this Facebook group with amazing information and was like OK, we don't have to commit to a month, Jim can come with, we can go for a week, this is great! We went back and forth for a couple months and finally decided we needed to do something to commit. So we cancelled our yearly summer vacation to Cass Lake and decided that was the week we would go to Greece. THREE, I kid you not, THREE days later, Turkey signed a deal with the European Union to send the refugees back there and all hell broke loose in Greece. All the volunteers on the island were kicked out, all the camps went from volunteers to military influence. There were riots daily, refugees setting themselves on fire, smoke bombs, tear gas, boats stopped coming over and we knew our plans were over. It became too dangerous for us to go there and with 2 toddler girls at home it just wasn't the time.
So I was back at it with God. No baby, no Greece, what on Earth do you want from me?! June came and I remember talking to Pastor Rob again, while filling the busy bags, and telling him my frustrations and he reminded me to just keep listening. Yep, got that covered, I listen, nothing happens but ok. Gotcha. On top of that, we had cancelled our only family vacation and feeling the stress of not going, but realized, financially, we couldn't have afforded it anyways. So we decided our new mission was to get our finances back in order, we have been steadily falling behind since I quit my job and while we were waiting around for nothing to happen, might as well fix that right? So we sat down, set up a budget, and were rocking it. Just when we started feeling good, I got a knock on the door... we were served court papers for not paying a medical bill. Oh crap, you got to be kidding me! We finally start making a dent and you gotta throw this at us. So we figured that out. Then my blood pressure started dropping for no reason and I went to the Doctor the Thursday after we were served the papers and left so dang mad! The doctor didn't even know the medication I was on for my blood pressure and when I told him it was supposed to be safe during pregnancy he said "well you've been on it awhile and aren't pregnant, you better go home and tell your husband he's doing it wrong." EXCUSE ME?!!?! Then proceeded to offer a pregnancy test that day since I was there anyways. Sure whatever, you dumb jerk, whatever gets me out of here! I left, called my friend Toni to vent and was interrupted by the clinic calling. "Congratulations! You're pregnant!" I practically hung up on the guy and burst into tears! I had NO clue! Whoa!
So here's where God's perfect timing comes into place. That Thursday, we found out? It was 2 days before we were supposed to leave for Cass Lake, which we couldn't afford, so 2 days before we were supposed to leave for Greece which ended up out of control. It was 3 days after we got smacked in the face with court papers, right after we thought we were getting our budget figured out to get our debt paid off. Which in turn forced us to reevaluate our finances again and we made some changes to not only pay off that bill, but get all our debt paid off sooner than we imagined. God knew all along, and His plans are always better than our own!
Now that we have all the background... here's what we know about this pregnancy so far. I am 9 weeks yesterday, due March 26th, the day before Jim's birthday. I have been completely nauseous the last 3 weeks and while I only got sick once (the morning of my sister's wedding, of course!) I am living on peppermint oil and mints. I had my first ultrasound around 6 weeks and while they couldn't guarantee it because it was so early, she was pretty sure there was only 1 baby. But they did find a subchorionic hemorrhage (a blood clot in my uterine lining). Which I also had with the girls and was why I spent 7 weeks on bedrest at home, because I was bleeding. This one is significantly smaller than the one I had with the girls, but I'm not sure if they grow or can change. So I'm trying not to freak out, but our support system has grown so dramatically since we were pregnant with the girls I'm not quite as worried. My first real doctor's appointment is on the 30th and maybe I can find out more about it then. In the meantime, I keep trying to remind myself, this baby was never part of Jim and my plan, this is all for God and in His hands. "I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. So now, I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord." 1 Samuel 1:27-28
God's blessings, Heather, Jim, Anabell, Isabell and Baby Toodles.
p.s. The girls are very excited and decided the baby shall be named Toodles, watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse if you're unsure who Toodles is! Every morning Isabell asks me, "you have Baby Toodles in your tummy?" and Anabell follows up with, "ME TOO!" She is determined I swallowed Baby Toodles to get it in my tummy, and whatever mom eats, she eats, so she must have a Baby Toodles in her tummy also. I'm not quite ready to completely correct this, so while I've tried telling her she does not have a baby in her tummy, I'm not ready to explain how one got in my tummy.
