Happy Valentine's Day

After sharing about my husband's gift of giving, now I get to share about my Heavenly Father and His extravagant love. Last night, we had a wonderful surprise when we found out that I am pregnant with my third child. After going out to eat and running a few errands (one of which was purchasing a pregnancy test), I dutifully performed the task and watched in amazement as the test showed a very clear positive result. After staring in disbelief for a few moments, I declared "Happy Belated Valentine's Day!" to my husband and handed him the stick to see for himself. Needless to say, we are absolutely thrilled (and somewhat in shock). The girls were tickled pink (or blue?), as were our parents, when we shared the news.

Now for the rest of the surprise... I suspect that I am about 3 months along. I am usually very aware of my body and the signals it sends to let me know that things are not normal. This time, my body sent quite a few obvious signals, and I just missed them all (actually, I had a perfectly good explanation for all of them).

First, the biggie... I missed my cycle for 3 months. Lest I seem too blond, I took a pt in December and it was negative; so when I missed two more times, I just assumed something was wrong with my hormones and started trying to contact my doctor for a yearly exam.

Then there was weight gain, which I easily blamed on overeating during the holidays... except that I kept gaining after the first of the year. I blamed that on winter and lack of exercise.

Next came the chronic stuffy nose, the head cold I couldn't seem to get over (well, it was cold and flu season). And the extreme tiredness that made me want to fall into bed at 7pm every night (must have been the lingering head cold).

I also had low backache and sore breasts, which I thought was linked to my whacked out hormones (and they were :o) I just never put all these symptoms together to come to the conclusion that I was pregnant.

Now for the 'God thing'... friends and family have been asking me for a couple of years if we were going to have another child. My response was always, "I don't know... I don't know (wistfully) if Anna will be my last baby, and I don't know (cautiously) if I should go through another pregnancy. I don't know how to make that decision."

Well, I didn't have to decide... my gracious Lord, who knows all and controls all, has decided in His infinite wisdom to give us another child. Halleluiah! And if that was not blessing enough, He has also given me an easy start (i.e. no morning sickness). For that, I am also truly thankful.