Catching up

So I've never been much of a blogger, I have never started one because I figure it will be something I'll do at first and then after a while will never update, just like any other share page I've ever had. However, there are two main reasons why I have decided to give it a try now, number one because I am past the halfway point of my pregnancy and haven't recorded a single thing about it; number two since we are having a baby soon and my entire family lives across the country from us, so I want to create a way for them to always be updated on what is going on and be able to see lots of pics and videos of their lil grandson/nephew/etc. So hopefully I will do a good job of keeping this updated, especially once the baby comes.
Well since I'm already 21 weeks pregnant I'll just try and recap some of the "highlights" of what has already happened. Mark and I found out that we were pregnant on August 15 (had to go look at the calendar for that date!) When we found out for me it was a complete mix of emotions, so happy and excited and amazed that it FINALLY happened again, but anxious and fearful about what would happen with this pregnancy, wondering if the same thing was going to happen again. For those who don't know our history, I was actually pregnant almost exactly a year before we found out we were pregnant this time, we found out very end of July 2007, but when we went in for the first ultrasound around 8 weeks they detected a problem, and the next week we found out for sure that it was indeed a miscarraige. It was such a sad and hard trial, but God is Good and His grace was sufficient and we experienced so much growth along the way. We continued to learn and grow for the entire year after that, as we just weren't able to get pregnant again right away like we so deeply desired. I could go into so much detail about this experience, how much we learned from it, and how blessed we were to have our awesome families and our sweet church body supporting and encouraging us through it, but because of space and time I won't. If anyone would like to know more please feel free to contact me about it though. I will just summarize by saying that it wasn't easy, but it was for our good to make us more like Christ, and He is faithful.
So, when we found out we were pregnant this time, we were just so incredibly thankful to God for choosing to bless us with this baby at this time, knowing that this pregnancy is also for our good to make us more like Christ. However as I said before it was a tremendous struggle to not be anxious and fearful about it, especially going in to the first ultrasound. Once again God's grace was sufficient though, enabling me so many times to be able to trust Him and be at peace knowing that this baby is completely in His hands, and if it is His will for this baby to grow and thrive and be born into this world then NOTHING can stop that, and if it isn't His will He will give me to grace to endure, as He did before. Not that I didn't fall short and give in to fear and anxiety and have to repent, because that happened as well, and it is still a temptation now, and I'm confident it will always be a temptation for me to be anxious about the well-being of my child as long as he is on this earth, but I have seen small areas of growth and I have seen that if I discipline myself to do my part and meditate on the Truth, He is absolutely faithful to do His part, it is not something that I have to struggle with. In fact Christ died so that I dont have to struggle with it but can have victory over this sin, along with EVERY other one.
So as far as highlights of the pregnancy go, the first part was definitely filled with that battle against anxiety, and we were definitely very careful and guarded with our emotions not to get ourselves overly excited about it, but to just work on the things that we need to be working on. We had the first u/s at 10 weeks, where we saw the baby and heard the heartbeat, and everything looked great. We were just so overwhelmed with joy and thankfulness to God for this. We had our second u/s last Monday, December 1st, where once again everything looked great and we found out we are having a BOY! Again, our hearts were filled with joy and thanksgiving, and I have thoroughly enjoyed being able to finally buy things b/c I know what to buy for.
As far as the physical part of it, the first trimester was filled with sickness. I was sick everyday, but I am so thankful for the perspective that I had, because had we not lost that first baby I believe I would have grumbled and complained every day and wished that I never got pregnant, because it just isn't easy being sick all the time. But because of what happened last year I was able to be thankful for the sickness, because it meant that there was a precious baby growing in there. Not that I never complained, I am ashamed to admit that there were times that I did, but for the most part I had a completely different perspective on the sickness than I normally would have. The everyday sickness slowed down and pretty much ended at 15 weeks, and that made such a huge difference in my days as far as how I felt and how much energy I had. Not that I haven't been sick at all since then, because one thing I have realized with pregnancy is you can never count on never being sick again, because those horomones are strong!
In the second trimester the main thing that has happened as far as symptoms go (that I am going to mention on here) is round ligament pain. I have realized in pregnancy that there are so many different symptoms and something can happen to you that you never knew was a part of pregnancy, but it turns out to be just another "normal" pregnancy thing. On more than once occasion I have had incredibly sharp, shooting pain usually on my lower right side, to the point where I can barely walk. It ends up going away after a while, sometimes right away sometimes longer.
I have also had heartburn like crazy this entire time. Acid reflux is something that I have had medication for pre-pregnancy, but it has definitely gotten so much more intense since I've been pregnant.
Another "milestone" I want to note is around 18 weeks I first started to really feel the baby move. I had felt a little something here and there before that, but never was sure if it was the baby or something else, but at 18 weeks what I felt was definitely the baby. That is probably one of the coolest things of pregnancy, and Mark has also been able to feel him move twice now, which he was so excited about!
Well this has been a long post, there was lots to catch up on that I wanted to record for myself, and anyone else who was interested. Hopefully I will make this a regular thing!