Finding Out That We Are Pregnant...

Finding out that I was pregnant was a total shock. For years we've wanted another baby but the few times that we did get pregnant we kept miscarrying very early on. We never saw heart beats. We never made it past 8 weeks. We truly wondered if God's plan for us was not to have another baby biologically. We had given up completely and accepted that fate. Of course that's when it happened. Took me totally by surprise to say the least. 

Brian and the kids had went to visit his parents on the day before Halloween. I stayed home so I could catch up on some cleaning. I hadn't felt myself for several days but didn't think much of it. My boobs were sore and I had a horrible migraine. I thought that maybe my boobs hurt because my period might be coming and that I had a headache because of sinuses but then I realized that I had been spotting for a few days and that spotting never turned into a period. I thought to myself 'I'm pregnant!'. I went straight to town and bought some tests. When I got home I didn't really have to pee but I made myself do it ha. Instantly there were TWO PINK LINES! 

I started shaking and bawling. I snap chatted my best girl friends and looking back I wish that I had saved those snaps. It was such raw joy and emotion. My friends all said that it made them cry watching it. After about 10 minutes of hysterically bawling and shaking I calmed down enough to call my mom. She knew how bad I've wanted this. It was a good convo. She kept me excited but also guarded. At that point it had been about an hour since I took the test. I was dying for Brian to get home so that I could tell him in person. One of my friends mentioned the idea of putting a bun in the oven. My brain was so scattered that I hadn't even thought about how I'd tell Brian. I loved her idea so that's exactly what I did. 

Brian got home a few hours later. I told him that there was something in the oven for him so he went and looked. He said, "Why is there one hot roll in the oven? You got me a hot roll?". I was dying on the inside. He just kept trying to figure out what was going on. When it finally clicked it was the cutest thing ever. He was so excited about our little bun. I bet he said, "Really? No way! Are you playing?! How long have you known? How far are you?" a thousand times. He's wanted another baby since Hudson was a year old. That evening the kids went to the corn maze with their grandparents so Brian and I got to spend time alone. We talked baby names, birth plans, and nursery themes. We cuddled and cried. It was probably one of my top 5 favorite moments ever. Just us in all of our happiness. We knew because of past losses that we would not be telling our children or announcing it publicly until I was further along. I wanted to have 2 successful ultrasounds where we heard and saw the heartbeat first. (I've had 3 now, praise God.)

Amazingly the timing worked out to where a Christmas time announcement was perfect. 

(We had planned for years to have a Christmas baby. In May of 2015 we lost that Santa Baby who was due on December 23rd. It was the biggest heart break. I've written about that loss before in our introduction blog if you'd like to catch up.) 

Anyways, we were getting our greatly prayed for and wanted Santa Baby! Not in the way that we had originally planned but in an even more perfect way. God's way! The moment when I realized that it was so surreal. God is good. Always! His timing is always amazing. 

We are going on 9 weeks pregnant now and things are progressing well. We aren't finding out the gender of this baby and are super excited about that surprise at birth. I have a helpful blog post full of advice for anyone who is planning a birth gender reveal surprise. I'll link it here:

http://lifewiththelanes8109.blogspot.com/2016/11/how-to-prepare-for-birth-gender-surprise.html?m=0

Our Rainbow Baby's growth progress:

Ive had 4 ultrasounds already because of current losses. My doctor likes to monitor my progress closely.

Telling my dad that I'm pregnant:

As you know my dad has spent 3 weeks in ICU and was in a medically induced coma for 8 days on life support. I originally wanted to wait to tell him about the pregnancy because last time our loss was very hard on him. I wanted to be farther along before we brought him into it. However, when faced with the thought of losing him and having never told him about this baby I just couldn't do it. He needed to know so right before they put him into a coma I went into his room and gave him a gift. He started to cry. He couldn't say much at that point but I knew what he was feeling. He smiled so big and was peaceful for the first time in weeks. It was a beautiful moment. This was the gift:

Telling our children that we are having a baby:

We told them the day of our announcement pictures. At that point I had seen the heart beat 3 times and knew that the risk of losing the baby was significantly less. We felt comfortable sharing our big news with them. I wanted to do it in a fun way so I decided that Tellie, our elf on the shelf, would help us tell them. They came running into the living room that morning ready to go on their daily hunt to find what she is up to that day. That morning she was easy to find though ha. The big balloons must of gave it away. 

Charlee, our 5 year old, caught on instantly. She read the word BABY and saw the onesie then started yelling that SHE was having a baby. Just her. No one else. Andlee chimed in on how it was her baby and next thing that we knew they were fighting over whose baby it is. All Hudson cared about was that he was still the baby too. He said, "Now we are going to have two babies. Me the baby and baby the baby.". It was so funny. We asked them what sex they preferred and they all 3 said girls. Hudson insisted that he stays the only 'brudder'. Apparently the girls agree that one Hudson is enough. All in all it was perfect. They are very excited. I've never got to experience having a tiny new baby while having older children so this will be so different to me. I can not wait! They will be 4, 5, and almost 6 when the baby is born. It's going to be so different than having a 10 month old then a 10 & 20 month old with a newborn.