love and haiti

I got an email from godaddy.com informing me that i have a blog. who knew, huh? sorry about that FULL MONTH long absence. Before the nesting/doing/making/preparing hormone rush of pregnancy, for me there is always an anti-all-of-those-things rush where i am pretty solidly worthless. That's over now...maybe probably. 

In other news, my Jesse boo-thang has been across an ocean for 6 days now but is coming home TODAY (trumpet fanfare: today, TODAY!). He is in Haiti leading a mission trip from our church. I was supposed to go on the trip too, but I came down with an acute case of Vaginarium Pregnitis. I was vurrrry bummed because in addition to being an awesome chance to serve with our church, this trip would have landed me within 5 minutes of my internet BFF/hero/mentor (bc she's way older than me), Tara Livesay (read her...she's beyond dope), and her fam who are permanent missionaries in Port Au Prince, and whom I have been dying to do more than electronically-snuggle with for nigh on 4 years now (fun fact, i found them through CNN.com who quoted them and linked to their family blog right after the earthquake).

living the Livesay dream. specifically, MY livesay dream. you lucky, magnificent Adonis.

Jesse got to fulfill this my internet-crush-become-IRL-friends wish for the both of us, luckily. He immediately reported that Tara's husband Troy is total BFF material for him too, citing his ownership of an electric tennis racquet bug-zapper as reason #1 and Troy's excellent theology and personality as a distant #2 and 3. Boys are weird.

 using "find my iPhone" was a fun visual this week.

I've made it no secret that Jesse is the score of a century. Beyond being the most likable human being I have ever known and basically the person with a DNA sequence most perfectly attuned to make me gaga, he is the most devoted, involved and committed dad and husband my greedy paws could have ever itched for. So hear me when i say his absence is FELT when he is gone. 

As much as I have been fervently praying that Jesse and the team wouldnt contract the nasty Chikungunya virus that is running rampant through the Caribbean right now, I think he has been praying just as much for extra grace for me as i pregnantly solo-parent this week while not taking time off from my job (jobS if you count beach bag etsy sweat shop employee). 

Thankfully grace has abounded in a crazy way and so many of our local friends have stepped in to make this time easier for me with meals, playdates, pool usage, babysitting and general body-of-christness that reminds me how utterly drenched with community and loving humans our little family is.

during the VBS our team put on. great gosh, those smiles!

The contrast between the infrastructure of resources and people that came together to make our family's life easier while Jesse was gone has been humbling and stark compared to what Jesse has seen in Haiti and the communities he's visited, where it seems like there is no help to be found for people with much bigger, realer problems than being a one-parent household for a week. 

He has been broken by how hard everything seems for them, especially in comparison to how easy the same things are for us--through absolutely no difference in anything other than the circumstances, geography, cultures and economies we were born into.  It's incredibly unfair to our little brains and stirs up gratitude, guilt, compassion and anger all at once. After hearing lots of these stories, you're just like, "bump this, Jesus, can you just come back--like NOW--and unbreak this world and our hearts for good and ever?" 

But that's probably not going to be happening today, so we have to figure out, and be led to, what on earth he wants two boneheads like us to do with the abundance we have (materially and in Him) in situations where nothing makes sense and there aren't easy answers.

if i wasnt positive he was just being himself and doing what he loved i would accuse him of flagrant intent to cause panty-droppage.

being hardcore with a friend.

face time. not surprisingly, it was very choppy and pixellated and mostly not worth it...except you can see his face...which is always fantastic.  #mesojowly

Just a glimpse into my insane brain: the whole time Jesse has been gone i have worn a tiny heart necklace. I dont usually wear necklaces around the clock so its presence has been a constant reminder to pray for him and the team. Last night, i was turning it back around (kiss + wish! not really) and it broke! Curse you, F21 $2 craftsmanship!!! I immediately started panicking because clearly this was my Apollo 13 moment! You remember when, on the day of the launch, Tom Hanks' wife drops her wedding ring down the shower drain, which obviously foretold the whole "Houston, we have a problem" scenario. So i'm like, "I broke our love necklace! WHAT DOES IT MEAN!?!?! for the love of everything, someone find me some tiny pliers!!!!" 

Jesse assures me that he, like Jim Lovell, will be just fine. Just to be safe, i DID acquire tiny pliers and the necklace is good as $2 new! I will have them check the FLANGES double twice though. (phoebs, anyone?)

if you know my BFF steph, who is our children's minister, you know that customs should check her luggage extra carefully because if anyone was going to smuggle 100 beautiful haitian orphans home in her bags, it would be her. Aint nobody loves a kiddo like our stephie.

In just a few hours, if you hear an ungodly screech coming from the general vicinity of the metro-Atlanta area, dont worry, it's just me spying my man as he emerges from immigration. No guarantees on my not shoving my kids down so that big mommy can get her hands on Jesse first. Sorry, chumps, you've got youth, perfect skin, and childlike wonder, but I've got preggo-hulk strength and a snarling rabidity for your papa. 

Stay classy, Hartsfield-Jackson International Terminal!

hey baby!

here's what we know:

#1 (all others being a distant second and beyond): this baby looks healthy, happy and is OURS!

this kid is cute.

this kid has the longest, bicycling-est legs i've ever seen on a fetus.

oh yeah, and one more thing...

this kid is a SHE!!!

tuesday's the day!

We are getting our gender ultrasound on tuesday morning. Ummm, I'm straight freakin'. Either way, I'm gonna flip out because we're going to be lopsided! Right now we have two boys, two girls and a token "baby" in our family, but come next week, that baby is taking sides! Oh man. Or woman!

please get your protrusion off her head, young man.

With Judah we just found out during the ultrasound. We let the tech tell us as soon as she saw and then show us the evidence. With Layla, we wanted to wait and do it later, maybe months later, so we got it in an envelope...and we made it to the parking lot where we recorded this little gem.

We know we want to do the envelope again this time and do something a little special. Nothing pink or blue on the inside or with other people, but probably just another video of our blammo-first reactions.

Here's what I know. 

-last appointment the heartrate was in the "girl" range according to that little belief

-the chinese lunar predictor says boy

-I have had 3 dreams about the baby and it was a boy in all of them.

-Layla thinks insists it's a girl named Pink Lollipop

-Judah thinks insists it's a boy

-I keep thinking of it as a "she" possibly because Layla talks about the baby a LOT and that's the pronoun she uses, and possibly because my last fetus was a She so that's freshest.

-I craved Captain D's (dont judge) constantly with Layla and when i ate it once this pregnancy I immediately barfed. I ate Krystal a lot with Judah (pregnancy nutrition expert, here!) and have been loving that this go round as well

-I have always pictured myself with 2 boys and one girl

-Sometimes when Judah is in an insane wrestle-fight-ninja frenzy with Jesse on the living room floor and Layla is just sweetly sitting next to me having girl talk, I think, "maybe doubling the estrogen wouldn't be so bad!"
-I was sick for 10 weeks with Judah, 14 with Layla and about 12 with this baby.

Accounting for some time for us to find out ourselves, to tell our families, and to generally process, we'll probably let you in on the news Tuesday. Until then, take your best guess on the little poll I added up at the top right of the page.

As much as we can't wait to find out on Tuesday, this is also a cool time that is coming to an end. I mean, for the rest of our lives we will know if this child is a boy or a girl, so I want to enjoy these last 4 days of "anything is possible" and letting it kind of be both in our minds. As a mom of older kids, it's INSANE to look back and realize that Judah and Layla were once just these genderless, blank little ideas to us, all the while being utterly themselves ready to explode into our hearts...we just didnt know it yet. 

For us, the gender ultrasound is huge. Of course, just having a baby in there (and starting to feel it like crazy!) is very special in itself. But we really don't know anything about this child besides it is one. Finding out the sex is like getting the first insight into our child's personality. Of course, there are plenty kids who bust the gender stereotype roles, but nevertheless, when we can start saying "he/she" instead of  "it" (which isnt the sweetest term, but i refuse to use the grammatically incorrect "they" as a neutral) our baby becomes SO much more real and we can start imagining--in broad strokes--what their life might look like. 

Another big deal for us is the ever-sacred "Naming of the Child." We take this very seriously (read what jesse wrote about that way back in 2009!!) and look at the naming of our kids as a chance to speak a blessing over their lives, or to claim something for them. Jesse is the master of the deep-thinking on these and wrote about how we came up with Judah and Layla's full names and what they mean to us. And make fun of us as you will (it's totally okay if you think we sound insane, you just name your kids Katniss and move on), you know it's true that 99% of the people you meet just SO fit their name.We definitely think there's power in a name. 

Ok then, log your vote and the next time you hear from us will probably be with the big ol' news. STRAIGHT FREAKIN'!