LONG overdue post

Hi, my name is Kristin and I am the world's WORST blogger.

I feel better.

I have a lot of excuses-moved to a new house, fixing it up, the end of school, moving classrooms, getting together a nursery, etc. but I won't bore you with all the details.

Baby Crowder's due date is QUICKLY approaching. I can't wrap my brain around the fact that he will be here in 6 weeks or less (or more but I'm not letting myself think about being OVERDUE). I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and everything is cruising right along. Colby has moved into the head down position (praise the LORD!) and is in the 55th percentile. I know these are often off but he was measured weighing about 5 lbs 3 oz. That means if he gains 1/2 lb a month and I go to 40 weeks, he will weigh 8 lbs 11 oz!!! Yikes!

I'm SO thankful it is summer now and I am able to sleep when I want, eat when I want, etc and not feel too guilty about it. I often forget just how pregnant I am and end up tiring out quicker than expected. We're trying to get as much of this house stuff finished before sweet Colby arrives but I'm pretty much useless. I am pretty fabulous at the post cleanup!

Gender Reveal-It's A.....

BOY!

We actually found out last week but I wanted to have pictures and the whole nine yards. I have not had 10 seconds to blog let alone scan in the ultra sound pics so I hope you don't mind settling for the story.

My OB decided that due to my past miscarriages, difficulty getting pregnant, and my family history of autoimmune diseases that sending me to a specialist would be appropriate. Of course I freaked out slightly and thought that was an indicator of a possible problem. I was excited to find out the gender but I was mostly just anxious to see a perfect baby on that screen.

Wednesday, Chris and I met at Lewisville Hospital to have our anatomy scan done. The first thing I told the doctor was "we want to know the gender". I was so afraid she would do the whole thing and not tell us. She started at the head and did all the scan from head to "goods" and posted a pic on the screen. She asked if we wanted to guess what the baby was. It was CLEARLY obvious to me. I said "that's a boy, right?" and she typed on the screen "IT'S A BOY". Chris of course beamed ear to ear and I started crying. Something about knowing exactly what you are growing inside you makes it SO much more real. I cried off and on for the rest of the day. I was beyond excited to know that I would have a son. I still love thinking about it.

Everything on the scan looked great. In fact, the baby is measuring a little larger than expected. He is in the 80th percentile for size. We'll see if that changes as he grows. Chris and I are elated because we are small people (I'm 5 ft 4 in and I won't tell you how tall Chris is...he'll lie about it anyway...HA!). I do need to go back in three weeks because he was not cooperating while showing his heart. There are clearly 4 chambers and the aorta looks great but she needs to look more in depth before saying everything is wonderful. I'm excited to get to see him again so soon. Pray that everything looks great with his little heart!

We are so excited to welcome Colby Samuel Crowder to the world in July. Pray for his growth and development to continue to be perfect!

Waiting on God

A sweet mom of one of the kiddos in my class gave me the sweetest gift the other day. She gave me her book "Prayers for Expectant Mothers", a letter, and an excerpt from the book A Mother's Heart. I wanted to share the part of the book she have me because I really think it's true and gives such hope to women waiting to be blessed with a baby.

Waiting On God-For Children

Before I was pregnant with Matthew, I studied the lives of biblical women who had waited for a child. These women were Sarah, the mother of Isaac; Hannah, the mother of Samuel; Rebekah, the mother of Jacob; Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist; and Samson's mother. From my study I gained a conviction that every child comes from God and ought to live for God's purposes.

Each of these women was initially barren. they waited and waited to conceive a child. Since failure to bear a child in their culture was often considered a curse, they experienced torment and ridicule. All of them endured a painful wait. Two of them-Sarah and Elizabeth-reached old age before conceiving.

Was it really necessary for these women to experience the agony of a long wait? Yes, there was a purpose.

God had something special in mind. He wanted to give each of these mothers a special child-a child with a specific purpose-and He wanted to receive the glory. Everyone must know that God did it. The awe of wonder of conception is often lost on us, since almost anyone can conceive-rich or poor, educated or uneducated, godly or ungodly. We can easily forget the part God plays in every birth.

Unless a sense of wonder accompanies parenthood, w may either take our responsibility too lightly or else cling too tightly to our children. God knows that withholding children often produces a different mentality in a waiting mother or father-to-be.

I wonder if Abraham could have laid his son Isaac on the altar if the long wait had not prepared his hear (see Genesis 22). Would Hannah have given her beloved you Samuel to God's service if he had come much earlier? Did the wait produce a conviction that Samuel came from God and should live for God's purposes, a conviction she otherwise might not have experienced? Perhaps another reason God allowed these mothers to endure a long wait was to lay a groundwork of prayer. they knew that these children were children of purpose and promise, and undoubtedly each of them was much prayed for.

I too wanted the convictions of a mother who had waited on God, even though my wait was comparatively short. I prayed, "God, please give me the sense that these women had that this child will be from You and for You."

I really hope this encourages anyone in the waiting to continue praying for your child and know that the God of miracles has an amazing plan for you. When your gift comes, remember to give Him the glory because He is so, so worthy.

Snowy Anniversary

You want to know the thing I love most about Texas? The WEATHER! You just never know what's going to happen around here. I also love that every time something does happen with the weather, Texans act like it's never happened before. For example-the school districts do not schedule in snow days like the northern states do. In Missouri, we had 3 days of snow that did not need to be made up, then we tacked the rest of the snow days on to the end of the year. Here we have two "scheduled" snow days. We make up one at the end of our spring break and one at the end of the year. The rest are waived. EVERY year, teachers gripe about the possibility of a snow day. I have taught in Texas for 5 years now and have had a snow day EVERY YEAR. I say bring on the snow days!

The weather started out Tuesday with some ice. The roads were pretty terrible and the whole city of DFW shut down. We still have not reached above freezing so the roads are pretty nasty. To add a little insult to injury, we got about 4-5 inches of snow Thursday night. Driving is not fun. Neither is being locked in your house like a prisoner to the weather for 4 days. Chris does not sit well. He went to the grocery store AT LEAST once a day (Kroger is practically in our neighborhood...you don't even go to a main road). On Thursday, I had the itch to get out too. We went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch and I decided that getting out was not all that great. The roads were awful and parking lots were RIDICULOUS. Texans do not know much about salt or shovels :-)

Friday was our 5 year wedding anniversary. How in the world have we been married FIVE years? We enjoyed most of the day indoors with a fire in the fireplace and watched our wedding video (a little tradition I stole from the Curry's). I LOVE our wedding. I could watch it a hundred times but Chris was not quite as thrilled so we just watched it once. The plan was to go out to dinner to celebrate but I was a little concerned about driving on the roads. Chris had already been to the gym and said the roads were okay and that we needed to get out. So we drove to Patrizio's in Highland Village. I was a little afraid for my life. The roads were not okay. We glided in, ate dinner, talked about our plans for the future, and went home. A pretty great anniversary snowed in most the day with my husband.

Yes, I am 15 weeks today. I do plan on having Chris take a pic of my belly but it will have to be tonight. I'm not showered, he's not here, so it will be later.

I leave you with a little picture of us from our wedding day :-)

Chris LOVES Hide and Seek

My day started off AWESOME. By awesome I of course mean totally stressful and the worst morning ever.

Last night Chris and I went to the grocery store. No big deal. Chris drove us home, we unloaded the groceries, and had a great end of the night. No big deal.

This morning, I got ready for work and just like every morning, I'm running like 10 minutes late. I grab my purse, coat, and run to the hook in the laundry room to grab my keys. Not there. I look in the kitchen. Not there either. Nor the kitchen, the bathroom, the couch cushions, the hamper, the trash, etc. You name it, I checked there. NO WHERE.

As I'm frantically running around the house searching, I'm calling Chris's cell phone 581 times. No answer. He's in basketball practice and has his ringer off. At this point, I'm in hormonal tears and can't figure out what to do. So I call his school. I get my crazy stalker wife on and tell the secretary the story and she pages him. Chris calls me and has no idea where they are. I'm so crazy at this point I pretty much just demand that he comes to pick me up so I can get to work. He's good with that. About 2 minutes later he calls back and tells me to look in the backseat of the car where the groceries were. Guess what? There were the dang keys. He texted me sorry 101 times and now things are all good. Did I mention this is the same guy who lost his cell phone and found it in a potato chip bag?? Good thing my husband is so stinkin likable because I thought I might kill him and I would not look pretty in an orange jumper. :)

Isn't that a fun game? If you want to borrow him for a day or so to see what other tricks are up his sleeve, I'll let you!

13 weeks

I'm 13 weeks!

I haven't decided if I'm going to post one of these every week or not but I do want the memory of exactly what I was feeling throughout this pregnancy. This is 4 days late, I change weeks on Saturdays.

Pregnancy Highlights:

How Far Along: 13 weeks

Size of baby: the size of a peach (2.9 in and .81 oz)

Total Weight Gain/Loss: About a pound
Maternity Clothes: not so much. I can't button any of my pants so the Belly Band has been my BFF. That thing is amazing! I may need to use it after pregnancy to hide the good ole muffin top...HA!

Gender: Don't know yet but can't WAIT to find out. We will be so excited either way :)

Movement: Nope. Can't wait for that day!

Sleep: All the time. Still. I though energy was suppose to come back in the second trimester??

What I miss: Coffee. I've tried drinking organic decaf but coffee doesn't even taste good. I really, really want it to!

Cravings: Anything salty. Or sweet. I guess just food. Sometimes things will sound SO good and then I start eating them and hate it.

Symptoms: Tired, major growing belly. I think the nausea may be leaving but it still comes and goes. I was mostly getting sick at night.

Best Moment this week: Getting to meet Jason Garret and Terrence Newman at my brother in law's event for his foundation "Get in the Box". I'm so mad I didn't think to get autographs for the baby book!

Want to see a miracle?

God is so unbelievably good. Want to see how good?

Can you even believe that? Here's the story.

Chris and I were 100% ready to adopt. After 3 years of trying and 2 miscarriages, I was done. I wanted much more to be a mother than to be pregnant. Chris completely agreed and we dove head first into the adoption plan as I'm sure has been very evident through this blog. We began fundraising, went to the first meeting with the adoption agency, were tracking families, etc. I truly believe that the Lord wanted us to start the process and through it He has brought some amazing stories and great friendships. Pregnancy was COMPLETELY off the radar. I didn't care about being pregnant, just wanted to be a mom.

And then it happened.

Chris and I were in St. Louis visiting my family for Thanksgiving. I was a few days late but didn't think much of it because being a few days late is not completely abnormal for me, especially after my miscarriage in July. Chris really wanted me to test and I was incredibly frustrated with him. I was finally fine with not being pregnant and all he wanted was for me to test. I waited several days because I was crampy and then Chris finally talked me into it. He went into Walgreens, bought the test, and we headed home. I went in the bathroom with the test and really was pretty angry. I've taken a TON of pregnancy tests and even the ones that were positive never ended well. It seemed like this whole pregnancy thing was just not for us. I waited for the words to pop up on the screen and there it was-PREGNANT. I have never felt anxiety like I felt in that moment. I walked out of the bathroom, looked at Chris and said "You're not going to believe this". We both just started laughing! What in the world? I've tried FOREVER to get pregnant and now I pregnant in the middle of this adoption process! I called my doctor in Texas immediately and they called in a prescription for progesterone right away. I started taking it that day. I'm so thankful my doctor was so gracious to do that without ever seeing me or confirming the pregnancy. After 2 losses, my heart couldn't handle another one.

My doctor has done a TON of sonograms because of my history. Get ready for some pics!

Here's baby at 5w5d. I about went in to cardiac arrest because the gestational sac measured a week small. I off course thought that I had lost the pregnancy because of my history. Let's just say sonograms have not been friendly to me. After that ultrasound, I was totally discouraged. I mentally prepared myself to lose the pregnancy. I know that sounds terrible but I just knew that it was too good to be true. The doctor was not concerned with the measurement but put me on high risk because of my history and asked me to come back in two weeks.

We went back to the doctor and saw a sweet heartbeat and only measured 3 days small. The heartbeat was the most INCREDIBLE thing I have ever heard. The first fetal heartbeat measured at 130.

Here's baby at 8w2d and measuring 8w1d. The fetal heartbeat this time was 180! I drank a Sprite before and I think baby may have had a sugar rush. My doctor said everything looked great and she saw no reason to keep me high risk. WOOHOO!

The latest and greatest-sweet baby at 12w2d. The heartbeat was 158. I still cannot believe that I am carrying a baby. It has been such a journey to get here and I am reminded every time I look at my stomach how amazing God's faithfulness is.