The White Family: February 2013

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Writing Skills

Avery is doing a wonderful job writing her letters... In the case below, I wrote in blue and she wrote in red! Love seeing her sense of pride and accomplishment!

Friday, February 8, 2013

#3

We are excited, humbled, anxious and filled with joy to share with everyone publicly that we are expecting a baby this August! Baby White #3 is due on August 6th.

It's no secret that we had a desire to have another baby after our devastating loss of Lucy, but there was so much to wrap our minds around and we really had to trust God's plan and timing. We hadn't ever "planned" on having three children, and we never wanted to feel like we were replacing Lucy. She can't be replaced and she will now always be our middle child.

This pregnancy has been a challenge already in several ways (emotionally and physically) and is a totally different experience from our first two. I feel grateful for every day and every moment in a new way. With the emotion comes healing.

This baby is a gift, as each and every one is. To us, this baby is truly a spiritual and transformative gift.

After much thought and prayer we decided to have the first trimester screening done this time around, which means I had a blood test done about three weeks ago and then we followed that with an ultrasound on January 30th. We got to see the blood test results that day as well. (The test is a non-invasive screening and is performed to look for certain signs of a genetic disorder, several of which can be identified this early in a pregnancy - and many linked to known trisomies like Down's Syndrome, Trisomy 13 & Trisomy 18). We needed to know "what we were working with," for lack of a better way to say it. I prayed long and hard for clear results either way. We were relieved to receive great news that everything looked wonderful (he or she is adorable and they found no signs of genetic anomalies!), growth was "perfect" (doc's words!!), and my risk rate calculated similar to that of a 20 year old (ego boost!!!). We know that the worries aren't over, but these results were just what we needed to hear to have some sort of peace of mind to balance out the paranoia and fear.

Here's a blurry picture of Baby White #3:

Baby on January 30th, 2013

Avery is disappointed it will take a while to meet this baby, saying "I really want to see the baby OUTSIDE of Mommy's belly." This will be a lesson in patience for a 3 1/2 year old. She's already complaining that Valentine's Day isn't coming quick enough, so explaining the baby waiting game over and over will be a lesson in patience for Jeff and I as well. There could be other challenges too... when I asked her if she was going to be a "good big sister" to this baby, she paused and said, "well, I'm still going to be a little bit bad. Not TOO bad. I'll be a good big sister." Hmm. :)

Thanks for celebrating with us. Our next ultrasound is the anatomy scan on March 6th and we will be anxious to see sweet baby again.