What is it???

We still don't know... Yes, we resisted the temptation to find out at our last sonogram. But my friend Katie thinks she may have scientific proof as to why she has 3 boys. Do you know what the most common phrase you might hear a dietitian say about meals? You have probably heard it before, but just in case: "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day". Being a dietitian makes it a cardinal sin to skip breakfast. No dietitian skips breakfast. That is why she sent me this article explaining why she thinks my baby is a boy. It says:

The odds of an XY, or male outcome to a pregnancy also went up sharply "for women who consumed at least one bowl of breakfast cereal daily compared with those who ate less than or equal to one bowl of week," the study reported.

Baby Update: Week 31.5

You must not like the ultrasound technician. Or you are playing hide-and-go-seek with her. We have had the same tech three times in a row and I think she's a nice lady. But you went and hid from her again. Last time you had your back to her. This time you were hiding behind the placenta.
Here's the last picture of you we will see before we meet you! Can you see it's little well-defined lips??? I think they look like Travis' lips. My Great-Aunt Maggie did complement those "beautiful lips" when we were dating... and we remember her in our prayers as she is very ill in the hospital in Virginia.

Prayer

I have been lately burdened for my friends and family- whether it be a girl at work, a caregroup conversation or our Dinner Club couples, all of us have needs to bring to the throne of God. I have felt a burden to spend time in prayer for all their significant needs right now.

Here is a quote from Spurgeon that I read in conjunction with my meditations on Psalm 16 for the week, along with a sermon by Piper on prayer.

"Be content to live unknown for a little while, and to walk your weary way through the fields of poverty, or up the hills of affliction; for by-and-by you shall reign with Christ, for HE has 'made us kings and priests unto God'\, and we shall reign for ever and ever'. Oh! wonderful thought for the children of God! We have Christ for our glorious representative in heaven's courts now and soon He will come and receive us to Himself, to be with Him there, to behold His glory and to share His joy."

Ps 16 " You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

One of the most difficult things with trials is the unknown. I felt impressed to pray that God would help us to remember who we are known by, the God John Piper describes:

..is infinitely strong and can do all that he pleases, and that he is infinitely righteous so that he only does what is right, and that he is infinitely good so that everything he does is perfectly good, and that he is infinitely wise so that he always knows perfectly what is right and good, and that he is infinitely loving so that in all his strength and righteousness and goodness and wisdom he raises the eternal joy of his loved ones as high as it can be raised—when you pause to consider this, then the lavish invitations of this God to ask him for good things, with the promise that he will give them, is unimaginably wonderful" ~December 31, 2006

The Handsome Man

Have I mentioned my Handsome Man lately? I don't think I have honored him near enough-or ever will. Over the past few weeks I have begun to review all of the ways I am grateful for him in my life. In a novel I read about a New England fisherman's widow recently, I came across this quote:

"You were his greatest blessing, Cousin. He once told me so. He said he'd never seen the bottom of your courage and that he took half of his from you. So I teased him. I said, "She'd need courage, taking up with the like of you,' but he didn't come along with the joke. I don't even think he heard it. He went off on a line of his own. 'Tis the hardest part of life,' he said, 'to be half of something and yet remain whole.' I didn't know the first thing of what he meant and I told him so-- I told him he was turning into last winter's squash, but he said his wife knew what he meant and that was all that needed to. " ~ The Widow's War by Sally Gunning.

Enough said. As the years begin to pass in our marriage, our love only deepens. We have become whole, yet remain half every day. This is particularly poignant in our marriage right now as we have very little time together alone. Travis is working more than full-time in his profession, as well as putting in about thirty hours a week in school. Yet I know that we will walk away from this season in August being a deeper, stronger, more intimate husband and wife. As I walk through this life, God gave me the greatest gift on earth in this man. He is my best friend, my best companion, my best thoughts, my best memories, my faithful provider and my lover. What could be better than to look forward to the imminent future, knowing that with this person we made a new little life that will soon enter our world? I cannot wait for one more adventure to begin with this man.

Waves of Mercy

When I was about five, my family went to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for a week vacation with the Jansen family. One day as I held my Aunt Nelda's hand standing in the edge of the water, the tide brought in a high, powerful wave that knocked us apart. I remember the moment distinctly as I somersaulted in the powerful curl. I have often thought that the months ahead are like an approaching wave. It as if I can see an advancing wall of water, a tide of change coming towards me that I am powerless to great threatening wave. I was reading a friend's blog (you know how it is...) and came across this quote, which encouraged me greatly as I think about the coming challenge of motherhood and the whirlwind of the next couple months as Travis finishes school, we move to another temporary living situation and we prepare to be parents.

We have great demands, but Christ has great supplies. Between here and heaven, we may have greater wants than we have yet known. But all along the journey, every resting place is ready; provisions are laid up, good cheer is stored and nothing has been overlooked. The commissary of the Eternal is absolutely perfect.
Do you sometimes feel so thirsty for grace that you could drink the Jordan dry? More than a river could hold is given to you, so drink abundantly, for Christ has prepared a bottomless sea of grace to fill you with all the fullness of God. Do not be frugal. Do not doubt your Savior. Do not limit the Holy One of Israel. Be great in your experience of His-all-sufficiency. Be great in your praises of His bounty, and in heaven you will pour great treasures of gratitude at His feet. ~ Besides Still Waters by CH Spurgeon

What are we doing???

It's Baby Update: week 30.
Yes, thirty weeks you have been with me little one. Only ten weeks or so left together.
You are now kicking away. Apparently in the next two week movement will peak, but I have already felt you slow down. You are no longer doing sommersaults in my womb, but are just wriggling around and kicking back. Yesterday morning as I leaned over to write in a patient's chart, you started to "tickle" my lower ribs. Those long legs or toes were right under my right rib. It won't be long before you truly run out of room. You can even kick with force that hurts as your limbs are stronger and longer.
Mommy has been starting to feel the effects of "TOBP" as Nana calls it-- Tired-of-Being-Pregnant. But I think after talking with Rachel, I might just be maxing out my iron stores and need some more prenatal iron supplementation. All the same signs are there--the yawning, the fatigue, the out-of-breath feeling. I even had steak on Sunday and didn't feel any great surge of energy.
I have funny pregnant moments like not wanting to bend over or having to scooch out of bed with my elbows because I have no ab muscle strength left. I also had an overwhelming experience at Baby's R'Us finishing my registry. How can one stand at a wall of bottles, or a wall of pacifiers, and choose the best one??? Thank goodness Hayley came with me to navigate. She pointed, I clicked the trigger. Thanks friend!
I must admit that I am not sad that you are still inside of me, because I know that once outside, you can never go back to being inside. It is easier, Rachel and I agreed, to take care of them in the womb than it is to take care of a newborn. That is why I have been reading all my mommy books. Check out the side bar to see my favorites.

A Promotion

Did you hear about my promotion?
Check out what the Chandler Gazette had to say about me here in my comments about the cookie diet. Apparently, my credentials were mistaken.

Rocking the world

Here's a quote my sister found in Female Piety by John Angell James that we found sweet, inspiring and encouraging. The last part we dedicate to my Oma, a very strongly minded woman, who believed that truth whole-heartedly...we would agree with a touch more humility, yet we acknowledge that you never know what the Lord has planned for your child. This is a sobering and exciting thought as I embark on motherhood. I am anticipating the joy of watching my child become the man or woman they are meant to be.

"What associations with all that is lovely are connected with that blissful word, "mother"! To that sound the tenderest emotions of the human heart, whether in the bosom of the savage or the sage, wake up. The beauty of that term is seen, and its power felt, alike by the prince and the peasant, the rustic and the philosopher. It is one of the words which infant lips are first taught to lisp, and the charm of which the infant heart first feels. It is a note to the music of which it is difficult to say child. Humanity, however semi-brutalized by oppression, ignorance, or even vice, has rarely been sunk so low as to have the last spark of maternal love extinguished, or the last sensibility of this kind crushed out of it. This strength of woman's love for her child must be turned to good account, and be directed by its exercises to the best and most useful of purposes...woman's heart is made to love; and love is exerted more gently, sweetly, and constrainingly upon her child by her than by the other sex. It makes her more patient, more ingenious, and therefore, more influential...Hence, to repeat an expression of Monod, "The greatest moral power in the world is that which a mother exercises over her young child. Nor is there much exaggeration in that other expression, "She who rocks the cradle rules the world."

When pregnancy makes you desperate

My trip to DC was quick and painless. And when my mother dropped me off at BWI in Baltimore to return to Phoenix, I sailed through checkin and security without hesitating. I thought "Good start." But I knew I was in for a longer trip home. First, when I booked my ticket, I had to choose what I thought the lesser of two evils. I had to pick a layover. The last time I flew through Memphis, Northwest Airlines was on a pilot strike and I was routed through Dallas, then through Salt Lake City, then home. That was a long day. So I chose a bigger hub. I figured it was better than Chicago, which could be snowy. I didn't quite realize that even though it was basically April, that Minneapolis is farther north. When we arrived in Minneapolis our plane was already running late because we had to fly around the snow storm.


Yes, a snow storm. With six inches of snow on the ground.


I was just excited to have the oppurtunity to switch airplane. This airplane was old, dirty and hot with less than stellar cabin pressure. And no movies.

When we touched down, I was just worried about having time to get to my gate, potty and get a snack. I was hoping to hold out until I got to Phoenix so that I could have dinner with my husband.

I got off the plane and then turned around to see that I was deparating from the the same gate. With the same airplane. The estimated departure was ten minutes after the original schedule. I thought, "Great! Now I have time to go to the bathroom and grab a snack". When I surveyed the snack options, I decided just to go with something small figuring we'd be on our way and to Phoenix in under three hours.


Little did I know that I would be sitting at the gate for an extra thirty minutes, and then on the runway for an hour being de-iced, and then flying almost three hours.

About two hours into this ordeal, I started to get desperate. I wasn't that hungry. I think I was just tired, bored and a little hungry. I needed a distraction. Any distraction.


The snack box was on $5. And inside were Wheat Thins (yeah!), imitation cheese spread (yuk!), Oreos (well...I am pregnant), stale trail mix (disappointment!)...and a summer sausage.


I cannot begin to tell you my dislike of all dried beef products. I haven't eaten one since I was in tenth grade in the back seat with Joe Ward on the way home from an away basketball game. And the memory I have of it was that it does not go well with Ben & Jerry's icecream.


After the disappointing trail mix, I turned the sausage over and read the ingredient label and it didn't have any fillers, so I thought, "Why not? Let's just smell it." And it smelled good. So I ate it. To those who are unaware of what pregnancy does to you: being pregnant can make you desperate enough to eat summer sausage.