Baby Hawley #2 & #3

It was a week or so before Christmas and I was late. I waited a few days before getting suspicious but by the 4th day I knew. I went out, got a pregnancy test, and took it all without Handsome knowing. I felt like I was in shock because I was so certain but I love anticipation and so I thought it’d be fun to surprise him. Sure enough there were two straight lines. I wasn’t surprised at all - I wrapped it up and put it in a gift bag (I know, kind of gross), went downstairs and gave it to Handsome saying that I had an early Christmas present for him, however he’d have to wait because they say it takes between 8 and 10 months to make.

He opened it and was shocked. Neither of us were expecting it, after all S was only 8 months old which means I technically got pregnant when she was 7 months old! I hadn’t let the reality sink in until I told Handsome. I didn’t want to allow myself to experience any emotions until he knew too and we could experience it together. He was excited. I was freaked out. To be fair, there were things that I was excited about but there were also things that I was worried about and I didn’t know how everything was going to work out:

• How do you have/raise two kids under the age of a year and a half? 
• How do I continue to care for a baby if I’m sick as a dog?
• I just started sleeping well for the first time in over a year, oh my, that will be hard to give up again.

As time went on, I still wondered (and tried not to worry) about these things and the things that I was excited about began to grow: 

• S will be a big sister and she’ll be so good at it! 
• They’ll be so close in age and have such a special bond! 
• Life will be insane for a while but I imagine there is such sweet joy in the insanity! 
• There is a life growing inside of me!

There was something that made me stand in awe of God’s goodness though - my sister and the life that was growing inside of her too. It turned out that she was due on August 20th...I was due August 21st. This brought me more joy than I could contain. I couldn’t believe that the Lord was allowing me to be pregnant with my sister and best friend. And not just that, but we would literally get to walk through every stage of pregnancy together. I mean, a day apart? Who could even come up with this scenario?! Blimpy (my sister) and I felt like we were living out a dream come true - in fact, through her tears of joy, those were the exact words that she said when we told my family. 

But after a while we started to fear that something wasn’t right. The spotting that had happened for a couple of days right at the beginning of my pregnancy with S did not stop with this one. It went on for weeks and gradually got worse. We went in to see the doctor and they did some blood work and told us they’d call with the results. We tried not to be anxious as we waited for the call. When they did finally call it wasn’t good news. They said we would lose the baby but that they couldn’t tell us when. It was hard to process since we weren’t actually experiencing the loss but waiting for it. But in a few days it happened just as they said it would...

(Sorry, I don't mean for this to be a depressing post - more is coming and God is still so good!)