ahh! my ligaments are stretching!

my cousin aj came a few weeks ago and we (well, really HE- I was more like the vanna white of the week, smiling and weakly assisting) put new wood floors in 80% of our house. at the end of the fourth day, I had the strangest feeling...like a weird stretching feeling...as if i could feel something inside me WHILE it was srtetching.

i asked the doctor about it when i had a check up the next week. "well what you are feeling IS stretching, " she confirmed, "your ligaments are stretching, to be exact."

hmm....didn't think that I would actually be able to feel it happening.

not that I didn't expect to be stretching.

pregnancy does that to a woman.

*grin*

ta da! the secret is out! we are expecting!

its kind of fun to be able to type that...after all, I have been keeping the secret for almost 10 weeks now.

so there you have it, sometime around the end of may, shawn and I will become parents. It was and still is very shocking and surprising to us both...we were not planning to have children for a few more years, but it seems God has other plans for our life and family.

i woke up the morning before shawn was leaving for tour this fall after having the strangest dream...i dreamt that I had found out I was pregnant while he was gone and couldn't fly out to tell him in person because of all of the workers and remodeling at our house. the dream bothered me so much that i got a pregnancy test and took it. i was so sure i wasn't pregnant (we were preventing), that i got ready without even looking at the results. when i finally looked down and saw the two pink lines indicating a positive test, i immediately burst into tears! shawn, who was still sleeping, woke up that morning to a hysterically crying wife who couldn't even tell him why she was crying... i wish i could say they were tears of joy, but that would be a lie. it was hard to find out something so life altering (not to mention unexpected) right before he left for two months.

it took us each about a week to get okay with the idea once the initial shock wore off. he flew home for the ultrasound mid october and then i think it really hit us...'we are having a baby'. there is nothing in the world like seeing that tiny little life and its beating heart. seriously. we were in awe. (even though at 8 weeks it doesn't look very baby-like yet)

here's the pic we came home with. i wasn't kidding about the not-very-baby-like thing, huh? anyway...the circle at the bottom right is the head and the body is attached (whew!) just to the left of the head. the circle above the body is the yolk sac..this becomes the placenta that attaches and feeds the baby.

(ok pic isn't working, so i will put it in my photos on my profile)

so yeah...there is a little BabyMac...growing arms and legs and a heart and brain...right inside of me...what an amazing miracle life is!

okay i keep getting the same questions- the same ones i have been asking pregnant women all my life- so i figured i i will go ahead and answer them for all of you (in case this interests you in the least)

-yes, i was sick for 4 weeks and it was miserable...the only thing worse than puking constantly is feeling like you are about to puke 24/7... food tastes different when you are pregnant, it has taken me awhile to find things i still like to eat...even commericals with food on them made me puke. no kidding. anyway, now i feel awesome minus the whole stretching ligament thing.

-yes, i have a tiny bump..i haven't gained but a few pounds but with the organs shifting early on...it only takes a few pounds to see a difference!

-no, we are not going to find out the sex. we want to keep that whole 'man this is a surprise!' theme going

-we will be happy no matter what, but we both would love to have a little boy

-no, we haven't decided on any names....(maybe i should say 'agreed' on any names) our kid will probably going home with a birth certificate that says 'baby girl/boy'

-yes, we are still going to africa... i may be 6 and a half months preggo, but i am still going! (hey brangelina did it, right? *grin*)

so...anyway...now you know and now hopefully i can write more and finish those other blogs. i think its hard for me to write when i am keeping a secret...heck, i am not even good at keeping secrets- even my own! i would sit down to write and all i wanted to say was 'i am pregnant!'

so there you go, i am pregnant. now let's see if i can get those other posts done!

**i am working on a silly website for the baby...i'll post the address when its finished!