it's time for the weekly what's up!

Another week down, baby!  Another mile marker noted toward that final prize.  Another week logged of gimpy, faltering, grace-saturated time as a family, investing in things that will last for all eternity.  This is what one more week of homeschooling, one more week of laundry and dishes and cooking, one more week of snuggling and disciplining the kids and taking naps and running errands and reading board books over and over has purchased for me.  What I'm doing with my time matters in light of eternity, and each weekly Friday blog post is a 'deposit' entry in my bank book of worthwhile lifetime investments - a brief little glimpse at that account growing, slowly but surely.

I don't say all of that as a preface to a mind-blowing post about some crazy awesome, out-of-the-ordinary week.  I say it because the week's mundanity matters.  How we live our days is how we live our lives, and I've spent my days this week changing pee-soaked crib bedding and pooped-on clothing, wiping dripping toddler noses, and buying Gatorade for my sick husband.  This is the legacy I'm building, and I'm excited by that.  Things don't have to stop being mundane, and tedious, and even overwhelming to be exciting.  They don't have to stop being repetitive and boring to be holy.  I can hold the extremes of both realities in my hands at the same time.

Anywho.  I guess it was time for Random Philosophic Time with Paige.  You just never know when the mood's going to strike.

Now, I don't mean by all of that that nothing out of the ordinary happened; it was post-Christmas week, and of course we had items of note.  I'm just saying, as with any week, more of life was normal than wasn't.  And I guess that's why it's our 'normal' life.


For fun, I'm going to bullet-point the highlights this time.

1.  Saturday we had bagels and lox for breakfast - a postponement from our normal Christmas morning tradition, but it was nice this way, too.  It elevated the day!

2.  Saturday for lunch, we had yet another cheese board.  You'd think I'd get tired of this by now, but noper.  Penelope is becoming quite the adept soux chef.

3.  Saturday night, my parents came up for a visit and we had Second Christmas!  The kids all opened presents and partied, and we had fish tacos for dinner just like the Wise Men did that first Epiphany.  It was all very festive.

4.  Sunday morning, Todd killed it at church, preaching on Jesus the Word of God, who will return one day to bring justice.

View this post on Instagram

had the pleasure of preaching this past Sunday on Revelation 19:11-16 at Anthem ... #sundayfunday

A post shared by Todd Van Voorst (@toddhenryvanvoorst) on Jan 2, 2019 at 12:27pm PST

5.  Monday evening, we plated our last cheese board of the feasting season in honor of the end of 2018.  I even cooked stuff, so it was like Cheese Board Plus.  It was super delicious, but as it was dinner time in December, I figured I'd spare you photos.  Jalapeno poppers under incandescent lighting are just blech.

6. Wednesday afternoon, I got a text from Todd, saying he was really sick at work and needed me to come pick him up, as he was too sick to walk home.  (He's still been walking to work with our van situation.)  He said he'd been lying on the floor under his desk for twenty minutes.  Laurelai's response?  "That sounds embarrassing."  Compassion through the roof.  He got home and went right to bed around 5, and slept all the way until the next morning.

7.  Todd was home all day yesterday, fighting off whatever nasty bug had gotten him.  The kids and I had some errands to run while he rested up - chiro appointments, library returns, and a trip to the mall to see if coats are on clearance yet.  HOLY FRIJOLES.  Walking the mall with six kids in tow is kind of like doing a triathlon.  Or so I assume from how exhausted I feel just imagining completing a triathlon.  Fortunately, no one got kidnapped or lost while we were there.  Unfortunately, we didn't find the coat Penelope desperately needs.  (Well, we found it, but it's not on clearance yet, and $70 full-price is too much to swallow when I just know the spring shipments are coming in soon to bump all the prices down.  Keeping my eye on the website to see when the sales hit.)  Also unfortunately, Rocco seems to have been full-on traumatized by his maiden voyage up the escalator.

8.  My Christmas tree is still standing in my living room, shedding needles everywhere because it hasn't been watered in a week and a half.  I can't bring myself to take care of it; I can't bring myself to take it down.  Life sure is hard sometimes.


And that brings us to today!  I am 25 weeks along, and starting to feel the ascent into the third trimester.  I'm tired more often, gaining what feels like massive amounts of additional girth, and I'm feeling the mood fluctuations happening more often.  I haven't been craving anything super specific, though the affinity for seafood is still idling on high.  I ordered the Trim Healthy Mama cookbook with some of my Christmas gift money (finally! I've checked it out from the library at least five times in the last two years) and once it arrives, I will be making some necessary adjustments as I get ready for the baby's arrival.  It is just so helpful with hormone balance for me - the difference in my mood, outlook, and physical health are just astounding when I'm disciplined in this way.  Looking forward to getting back in the saddle!  (If only I were limber enough to actually get back in the saddle.  I think they're going to have to get some kind of horse sidecar for me; I've really been gaining weight quickly lately... thanks a lot, Ghirardelli.)

callista at eighteen months.

Oh, this pretty daughter.  She is such a joy.

She's already 18 months old?! She looks just as confounded by this as I am.

She is on the move lately, motoring around like she owns the place.  She is the favorite of all of her siblings, and I will often go on the hunt for her, to find her squirrelled away with one or more of the older kids, playing house or reading books.  They fight over the privilege of getting to play with her.  Likewise, she loves them back - she loves getting to help tuck Rocco in for nap; she'll reach her arm through the bar of his crib, rub his head, tilt her head to one side, and babble soothingly at him.  If anyone is hurt or crying (and in a family our size, someone is always hurt or crying), she loves rubbing and patting their back to help console them.

On the flip side, she is an absolute destructo.  She is into everything, all the time, always.  I do not remember any of the rest of my kids being quite like this.  She somehow always has a contraband crayon in one hand, and a board book in the other hand.  Defacement and pillaging number among her top joys.

Because she plays hard, she sleeps hard.  She is still taking two naps each day - the rest of the kids had all dropped their morning naps by 16 months, but not Callista.  She is fully committed to recharging her batteries for the maelstrom she intends to inflict once she's awake.  When I lay her down, she likes to have a paci in her mouth, and a Wubbanub in each hand, to rub in her ears.  Such an adorable little weirdo.

She hates baths.  She hates having her diaper changed (and I hate changing it - she's got some tummy issues we're needing to resolve, and she often does serious damage to the diapers, clothing, changing pads, bedding, humans, and air quality in her general vicinity).  The only way I can get her to lay still while I change her is to give her a small, decorative gold snail that sits on her shelf, and even that's not foolproof.  That poor snail has seen some stuff.

The one thing she does love is eating.  This girl can pack it away.  Three eggs for breakfast is standard fare; she'll eat a whole can of tuna by herself without batting an eyelash.  (Though, when she's dissatisfied with the service, or the food, or the ambiance, or anything else, she'll let us know by throwing every single last bit of food on the floor with wild swipes of her arm and loud shrieks.  It's sure endearing.)

She is not afraid to voice her displeasure.

She can say a few words at this point - "Mama," "Dada," "Baby," "Bubble," "Yeah," "Hi," and "Neh neh neh neh neh" ("No no no no no") are all regulars, in addition to the nonstop conversational-sounding babble she produces.  (She even wakes up around 4 a.m. each morning, just to talk to herself for a bit.)  We also asked her to say "Wahoo!" the other day, and she threw her arm up in the air without prompting, and nonchalantly went, "Weh."  Like, "yeah, yeah, yeah, wahoo and whatever."

She got a toy for Christmas that plays classical music, and she holds it as tightly to her face as she can possibly get it in order to listen.  She then either stands stock-still, mesmerized, or she goes nutso and starts dancing.  My favorite of her dances is when she waggles her funny little pointer finger around like a maniac while swaying back and forth.

She hates wearing shoes or socks.  She loves doing exercises with her older siblings.  She loves sitting backwards on the bottom step of the kitchen stool, using the top step as a toddler-sized table.  She loves pretending to take imaginary food out of containers to "eat" it or pretend to feed it to everyone around her.

She is such a blessing to us, and I'm excited to see her become a big sister soon.  It's hard to imagine as she still seems so tiny (not only is she the current 'baby' of the family, but she's also literally tiny, swimming in her 12-month clothing), but I know once we bring the new baby home, she will seem so huge.  I'm taking these last few months to just bask in the glow of her littleness!

happy new year! who do you want to be?

"If we would do our best for our children, grow we must, and on our power of growth surely depends, not only our future happiness, but our future usefulness." - A.,  Volume III, no. 2, The Parents' Review (A Charlotte Mason publication)

Well, another year is in the books!  I'm proud of 2018 and all that happened.  I'm happy with the amount and quality of reading I got accomplished through the year, we made some amazing strides in our homeschooling adventure, and I'm excited about the traditions we are endeavoring to set in place moving forward.  Admittedly, with the pace and season of life right now, I don't feel like I'm able to stop and reflect and plan as much as I'd like to, but I'm happy with where we're at.

The new year is such an easy time to evaluate what's going well, and what's not, and identify what we hope to accomplish in the future.  I have been thinking over the last few weeks and months, however, that perhaps we get too nearsighted in our goals.  Perhaps, in looking only at the upcoming year, we fail to plan for the big picture.  Perhaps our eyes as mothers are often focused too much on our children's growth and futures, to the neglect of our own.

**Now, before you go thinking I'm going to endorse some kind of self-centric view of motherhood and push the importance of 'self-care,' I will tell you outright that this is not what I am talking about.  In fact, I have been stewing on some pretty firey thoughts about how appallingly and disgustingly selfish modern 'mommy culture' is, and how the last thing we need right now is yet another crackhead telling us that we just need to love ourselves more and how 'self care is never selfish.'  BARF AND BARF.  Lies from the pit of hell that will absolutely ruin you, friend; that's what that garbage is.  I'll grace you with an impassioned letter to the editor on this topic soon, but in short, this is NOT what I'm promoting.

In the meantime, let me clarify what I do mean.  I do mean what Charlotte Mason would call investing in 'mother culture,' as distinguished from 'mommy culture' - the intentional growth of the mother into the kind of person that is fulfilled and purposeful in any season of life.  What I do mean is the Biblical call to continue to strive, both as individuals and as members of a vibrant church body, to grow in sanctification.  To put on a new man.  To be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

I have been wrestling lately with how much time I spend thinking about who I want my kids to become, and not nearly enough with who I am becoming.  I will become merely an older, more entrenched version of my current self if I put no effort into renewal.  If I am short-tempered or critical now, a different life stage will not change who I am at my core.  If I am bitter or lazy or cowardly now, time does not change that.  It only ages it; sets it into deeper and deeper patterns of habit.

To get even more specific, what I'm saying is this: One day, my toddlers will no longer need my efforts at troubleshooting the 'me do it' stage.  One day, my homeschoolers will graduate.  One day, I will have a much smaller household to run.  One day, if I have done my job well, I will have worked myself out of a large part of my current job.  And on that day, who will I be?  Who will I be on my way to becoming?

I am far from having everything figured out.  I don't know what it's like to live life in the stages beyond where I'm currently at.  However, from what I've observed, I have noticed two really terrifying patterns occurring in women who have not planned well (read: Biblically) for the inevitable day when they are empty nesters:  in the first camp are the mothers who fall apart, suffering an identity crisis when they are no longer able to place their whole identity in their role as someone's necessary Mommy.  These women seem to insert themselves in unhealthy way into their adult children's lives, through emotional manipulation or control, or a permissiveness toward extended adolescence in their adult kids.  They become needy.

In the second camp are the mothers who embrace what they see as the finish line, and with so much time and money now freed up, they spend it all on themselves and their own whims.  They don't continue to be intentional about investing those resources into the next generation, or their Christian legacy; they fritter away the second act of motherhood under the delusion that they are no longer under any obligation of sacrifice or costly service to their children.  Their main concerns become their own wants, their own hobbies, their own pursuit of fulfillment, their own jobs, their own vacations, their own lives.  They become negligent.

I realize that's super simplistic, and there are so many different degrees and manifestations of each of these things, but I'm guessing I'm not the only one who's noticed these trends among older women.  But trends aren't destiny, and Christians are not determinists (well, many of us are predeterminists, but that's a different thing) - the Holy Spirit promises a third way, if we are committed to pursuing our own relationship with the Lord and our own sanctification at continued cost to ourselves: "We do not lose heart.  Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day."

If we lean into the Holy Spirit, and get intentional about our own growth, we become younger with each passing day.  As we age, we have the opportunity to become more and more fresh, full of more and more usefulness and vigor and purpose.  As our bodies change, break down, and wear out, our spirits - our deepest selves - can be Benjamin Buttoning - if we identify that as our goal and point our feet in that direction.

I want to do that.  I want to become younger as my kids grow older.  I want to be whole in Christ, lacking no good thing, even when my kids leave home.  Even when I get sick or frail.  Even when I feel alone.  Even when loss and tragedy strike.  I want to be a little newer each day.  But I have to intention to head that direction now, or I won't find myself at that destination later.  It will not happen by accident.

I am committing to spending some time here at the beginning of 2019, asking myself who I want to become, and really evaluating what steps I can be taking now to ensure I get there.  Want to join me?

One thing I have found supremely helpful in terms of planning for my future is looking to women who have lived these life stages before me.  This week, I read The Silver Lining: A Practical Guide for Christian Grandmothers, which talks about many of the roles we face as aging Christian women: wives in decades-long marriages, mothers to adult children, mothers-in-law, adult children of aging parents, future elderly parents of adult children, grandmothers, Titus 2 women in the church.  Some of these roles I'd not thought much about, so it was so helpful for me to have it laid out - when I face these roles, who do I want to be?  How do I want to live these things?  Do I really want to be thinking about these things for the first time when they're already happening?  It's a really great read, one I'll likely go back to frequently over time, and I'm grateful for and inspired by the wisdom in these pages.  I'd highly recommend it if you're wanting to start planning for your future in this way.  (Plus, it's only 122 pages, so it's a very quick read - it's not heavy or hard to get through.)


Here's to a strong start to 2019: may the entire year be a strong start to the rest of our lives.

weekly 'what's up.'

Even though I missed posting last week's 'what's up', I'm not sure there's been much going on around here that I haven't already filled you in on.  It's been mainly just a flurry of baking, eating, cooking, eating, wrapping presents, unwrapping presents, eating, cooking, and eating.  It's been fun, but I will say, if I never eat again in my life, I'll be okay with it.  We've eaten really well, but after our big New Year's Eve dinner has come and gone, I am decidedly ready for something a bit more... austere, diet-wise.

I'm considering doing another Whole 30 (or perhaps something along those lines, but a bit less strict) in January.  First of all, I need to kick the Carb Demon again.  I've gained quite a bit of weight already this pregnancy (more than is typical for me at this point, I think), and to be honest, I feel pretty sick a lot of the time - not 'morning sickness' sick; more like 'carb loading' sick.  Just tired and grouchy and queasy and slow.  It's a good feeling, let me tell you.  Plus, Callista's been having some pretty serious stomach issues for a while now that are just not resolving themselves with the limited number of 'fixes' we've tried, so it's time to get more serious about figuring out the root cause and helping her to feel better.

Beyond food-related stuff, the rest of life has been pretty same-old, same-old around here as well.  (Minus Christmas, of course! But I already filled you in on that.)  I'm working hard on trying to get the laundry room ready for a bit of a redesign.  I need to figure out some better storage solutions in my kitchen, so I think one wall of my laundry room is going to become pantry overflow, which will free up space in the kitchen.

There are only two problems with this plan: 1) We bought a house with a pantry; why do I now need to buy the stuff to make a new pantry?  IT SHOULD HAVE COME WITH THE COST OF THE HOUSE.  Maybe I'm being unreasonable, but I fully expect that a house should be exactly what you want when you buy it.  Is that just me?  And 2) We are not handy people.  Like, at all.  Hanging shelves is perhaps one of the easiest projects I could undertake (or, so I've heard from people who have experience in doing projects) and yet I'm intimidated.  I can birth a million babies like 'whatever, shrug, shrug', but I can't muster the courage to go to Lowe's and buy shelf brackets.  (What if I get the wrong ones?!?!?)  What's wrong with me?


So, in an effort to keep feeling like things are moving along in the house, without spending any money or attempting anything handy, I got Todd to help me roll up the family room rug on Christmas Eve.  Big stuff.  The blue-and-white rug from our Cedar Falls living room was too big for our current living room when we moved (yes, our current living room is even smaller than the one in CF! I didn't think that was possible), so we put it in the basement family room.  But because it's been sitting on top of carpet, it kind of slides around, and has actually been getting ripped and warped.  It's so sad - I love that rug.  So it was time to get the sectional off of it and roll it up.  Small but fruitful project, and it has me making big, potentially unrealistic, plans for the basement (paint the ceiling, paint the walls, paint the trim, hang some shelves, put up some shiplap??, hang curtains, etc. etc.).  All simple stuff, but like I said, we're not handy, and I haven't figured out alchemy yet, so we'll see.

Do I need to tell you how much I miss this pretty living room?  Look at that rug, why don't you, in all her shining glory.

Her last hurrah on active duty.

Okay, enough blahblahblah.  Here are some photos.

Callista doesn't like baths, but at least she's subtle about it:

SISTERS ARE JUST THE BEST:

I chew on stuff when I blog: my hair, my shirt, the blanket.  I'm chewing on my shirt at this exact moment, to tell you the truth.  I don't know why I do it, and I don't know why I only do it when blogging and at no other time, but there you have it.  Here's an intimate look at how the sausage gets made:

Racy.


24 WEEKS ALONG, SUCKERS!  I'm not really craving anything at this point; probably because the very idea of food sickens me.  I've been having terrible round ligament pain and Braxton Hicks contractions, which seem to come earlier and become more intense with each pregnancy.  So, that's cool.  BUT my headaches seem to have finally subsided (for the time being, anyway), and the baby is moving and shaking, and can actually be felt (and sometimes seen!) from the outside at this point.  As far as her development goes, we have no newer information than the results of my blood test, so everything seems to be normal, as far as we know.  We do have an ultrasound and a heart echo scheduled for January 8, if you'd be so kind as to pray that goes well!

And just like that, another week has flown by!

christmas shenanigans with the van voorsts.

You guys, Christmas was SO FUN this year!  I am just loving the opportunity to watch the kids grow and change each year, and witness how their perspective and appreciation for this season grows and changes with them.

We had a whole day of fun on Christmas Eve, eating lots of great food and playing board games and cards.  In the evening, we opened Christmas jammies, and then popped some popcorn, drank some cider, and cuddled on the couch to watch the Nativity Story.

Callista was NOT thrilled with present-opening.  She was kind of in meltdown mode.  I handed her her box of jammies, and she promptly kicked it on the floor, which is what that blurry thing is in the lower left corner.  Needless to say, she went to bed almost immediately after this photo was taken.

Stairstep kids, headed down the stairs for movie time.

The kids begged and begged for a slumber party after that, so we caved and let them carry their Christmas Eve celebrations on into the night.  I really have no idea what time they all fell asleep, but I'm sure it was after 11:00.

The next day, they woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at around high noon.  HAHAHA, I mean, 6:00 a.m.

By the time Todd and I got up around 8:30, they'd already been playing in the basement like maniacs for a couple of hours (read our wake time policy here) and were getting hungry for breakfast.  Unfortunately, I'd forgotten to buy bagels, so we did some last minute rearranging of the food schedule.  I put our snowflake bread in the oven to warm up, and while we waited, we dug into our stockings.

Once everyone was fed, and heavily equipped with the prizes from their stockings, they spent a little time playing cards (all the kids got card games in their stockings) and eating the candy they'd received.  (I only do a little candy each year, and this year, I just let them eat it all after breakfast so it's not hanging around the house after this.)  We tried Dutch (read: hard, chewy, black, cat-shaped) licorice for the first time.  It was polarizing.  The candy canes were a universal win, though.

Around 10:00 or 10:30, we all sat down to open gifts from under the tree.  It seemed to work well this year to sort everything into piles first, instead of trying to distribute them one by one during gift-opening time.  As it was just our little nuclear family this year, we only opened gifts from one another, and it was wonderful.  Just enough unwrapping to really scratch the excitement itch, not so much that everyone ended up overwhelmed and exhausted.

(Well, I was still exhausted, but that's always true.  Todd caught this glamor shot of me, mid-yawn, and I yawn every time I look at it.  I'm literally yawning right now as I type this.)

The kids really loved their gifts from us and each other.

Mittens from Laurelai were a big hit!

Atticus splurged on a book of Egyptian gods and goddesses for Penelope, and she was 'speechless.  Just... speechless.  That's why I'm not saying anything.  I'm just... speechless.'

This mermaid tail blanket was so Lolo.

Have I told you about Finneas' Dead Things Collection?  Basically, it's a collection of dead things.  Snakes. Bugs. Etc.  This set of acrylic-encased bugs came with a magnifying glass, and paired with the flashlight he got in his stocking, it has already provided HOURS of intense study.

This is his "Captin Mare-ka" face.  He does not break character for ANYTHING, other than to ask, "Does Captin Mare-ka have muscles?  Big, stwong muscles like DIIIIIIS??"

Todd and I didn't skimp on gifts for each other, either.  I got the whole set of Harry Potter, which was the realization of a five-years-long dream, and couldn't have come at a better time - later in the day, while reading the library's copy of the Order of the Phoenix, I was dismayed to discover that fifty pages were missing in it... something weird with the printing.  Luckily, I had another copy at my fingertips so I didn't have to miss a second wondering what was happening in the Department of Mysteries.

Todd got an inordinate number of stroopwafels, and some Christmasy beard baubles (among other, more dignified but less noteworthy gifts).

The rest of our day was spent reading, playing, examining dead bugs, and, in the case of Penelope, investing hours and hours into creating her own little woodland creatures from her new kit.

It was a very merry Christmas!

just call me the keebler christmas elf.

I BAKED SOME STUFF!

That was part of the reason I wasn't around toward the end of last week - I was busy being busy.  I had big plans for Christmas food, and I needed to get on top of things.

I pulled out my stand mixer for the second time since we've lived here.  I love that thing with my whole heart, but it's been in Rolling Stones retirement (which is, fully committed to not being at all committed to retirement) for the last few years, since I haven't baked all that much since we moved.  It felt good to hug see it again.

I started out with some gluten-free cinnamon rolls (which were only okay) and some gluten-full cinnamon rolls (which I didn't try, but looked amazing.  "I don't know what gluten is, but apparently it's the stuff that makes bread taste good").

Pre-icing.  Someone please explain to me how they came out looking SO PERFECT. 

I also made some mini quiches, a birthday cake (for Jesus, of course), and even got a wild hair to try making snowflake bread, which is basically just a cinnamon roll that you fuss over way too much, but looks beautiful.  Again, it is not gluten-free, so I will just have to take everyone else's word for it that it ended up tasting good.  (Well, it's Sugar Butter Bread with Sugar Butter Sauce on it... I really don't think it could have gone wrong.)

I actually let the kids help me with some of this.  I know, I know.  I'm supposed to be all 'domestic arts instructor' and take advantage of any and every opportunity to let the kids come alongside me in stuff like this.  But you know what?  My kitchen is so tiny, and I have a million kids, and when one 'helps' (read: makes the job fourteen times harder), they all want to 'help'.  It is so stressful, I can't even tell you.  Which is why I usually don't even bake in the first place, and when I do, I don't usually invite the kids.  But, in the spirit of Christmas and everything, I let the big kids help out with the snowflake bread.  *patting self on back*  *really congratulating self*  *seriously, can't stop feeling superior to Normal Self*

I served the quiches and the cinnamon rolls for breakfast on Christmas Eve, and while the snowflake bread wasn't planned until lunch time on Christmas Day, it had to unexpectedly get moved up to the breakfast slot.  See, we normally have bagels and lox for breakfast on Christmas, and I'd gotten everything - the lox, the cream cheese, the tomatoes, the red onion, the dill... I just forgot the bagels.  Which are a pretty necessary component.  So I was glad I had something fancier than scrambled eggs to serve as a stand-in.

Now, I'm off to rest on my laurels, and not have to bake anything for the next 360 days.

what i haven't told you about the baby, and an update.

Last week, I shared the exciting news that we'd had our ultrasound, and we are thrilled to be welcoming a baby girl!

What I didn't share at the time was that the ultrasound appeared to show some significant anomalies, and we have spent the last week awaiting the results of some further tests.

Essentially, the sonographer noticed a few things that caused her concern, and so she left the room to go get a doctor to speak with us.  What the ultrasound was showing was some thick webbing around the baby's neck, and a stunted growth trajectory - intrauterine growth restriction.  Specifically, the baby's thighs are not measuring where they should be according to her gestational age.  All of these are soft markers for chromosomal abnormalities - most typically, Down Syndrome.

Because of these things, I was scheduled to have a follow-up ultrasound at 25 weeks, along with an echo of Baby's heart.  Then, at 32 weeks, I would begin weekly ultrasounds to track her growth, and at 38 weeks they would induce me, if I hadn't gone into labor by that point.

All of this was a bit overwhelming to learn, but I was surprised by the complete peace I felt as the doctor was speaking to me.  I wasn't shocked.  I wasn't afraid.  I honestly didn't even feel a need to run further tests at that point - whatever our daughter is like, in whatever unique way she is knit together, we will welcome her with excitement, joy and gratitude!  All a test can give you is information in cases like this - it can't offer a fix for anything, and as I already felt peace, test results couldn't even offer me that, either.  So we declined further testing.

Later in the day, however, after discussing it more, we decided it would be a good idea to at least have a blood test run.  While an amniocentesis is the most accurate and most thorough test we could have pursued, it comes with a lot of risks to the baby that we weren't willing to take.  But there is a simple blood test that they could run on me that would test for the three most common chromosomal anomalies - Trisomy 13, Trisomy 18, and Trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome, by far the most commonly occurring abnormality), as well as any sex chromosome abnormalities such as Turner's Syndrome.  While the test isn't 100% accurate if it comes back with positives (though it is very accurate if it reports negative findings), it would at least give us a glimpse at what we could be facing, which could help us not only mentally prepare for the birth, but also know if we needed to pursue extra medical help shortly after the birth.  (Often.children with chromosomal uniquenesses have secondary issues, such as heart, intestinal, or kidney problems that require intervention.)

It has been a long week of waiting to hear back.  Of imagining worst-case scenarios in which our baby doesn't make it, or suffers after the birth.  Of stressing out over being induced, which I am strongly opposed to except in cases of clear medical necessity - which I wasn't convinced this would be.  While I felt at peace about whatever the potential diagnosis might or might not be, I felt anxiety about all of the other unknowns.  And then when I fell while I was up at the Amish, it just exacerbated the stress.  ("What if all the worst-case scenarios I had been imagining have just been trumped by a worse-than-worst-case scenario, of my own doing?")  Needless to say, the week has felt heavy and strange.

Todd has spent the last week fasting and praying for miraculous health and healing for our little girl, and that the results of our tests, as well as what we find during our upcoming ultrasound, would astound the doctors.  I've spent the week praying that God would equip us for whatever is coming.  Whatever happens, I just want to receive our daughter with gratitude and joy, knowing that God is a God of purpose and goodness, whose ways are always good.  I want to receive his blessings in whatever form he offers them, knowing that they're perfect gifts from a good God who loves us.   Todd and I make a good prayer team.

On Sunday, we were talking about how the weight of the unknown just wouldn't leave either of us.  Even when I was sleeping, I have been aware of the waiting.  I have been aware of the heaviness all the time.  I took a lot of comfort at church on Sunday when Todd preached about Jesus, and called back to Genesis 1, when "the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was over the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.  And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light.  And God saw that the light was good."  I was reminded that God makes light in dark places, that he forms beautiful things in places where there is nothing.  That my womb is not too far away, or too dark a place for him to hover, and create, and make light, and declare it good.

And then on Sunday afternoon, the mental weight just... let up.  It stopped.  I moved through Sunday afternoon and all day Monday aware that something had definitely shifted.  I was aware of the fact that life felt very normal all of a sudden.  Which is why, on Tuesday morning, when the doctor called to give me the results of the blood test, I wasn't surprised.

Every marker came back negative.  From what they're able to tell from this specific test, every single thing about our baby is fine.  Normal.  Underwhelming.  Boring.  Miraculous.

I called Todd to tell him he could break his fast - the wait was over!  As a celebration and a sign post, we took the kids out for pizza last night.   We want them to see that God answers prayers, and we want to give them an event to remember this by.  We are all so grateful to learn that our baby is healthy and safe - whatever her chromosomal makeup looks like, our ultimate goal is simply a safe, healthy baby - and the kids' joy was palpable.  (They even performed a 'thank you God' parade when we got home from the pizza place.)

So, now you're caught up and in the loop, and what has been true all along is still the case: we're all thrilled to meet this baby in the next few months!  While we're still not completely out of the woods in some ways, we're so glad to be reminded that God is writing her unique story already - we're privileged to get front row seats to see his hand at work in her individual life!