Pregnancy Update and Name Reveal!

Note: under normal circumstances our blog rules are to use lots of pictures and a little bit of text. I’m breaking that rule tonight because I can barely time find to blog these days but I realized I have not documented this pregnancy really at all. Lots to say!

Wow. It takes a long time to grow a babe. I started taking these shots at 14 weeks, skipping a few weeks in the mid-20s. This week is 34. It’s wild to look at all of these lined up together. That one ultrasound shot of brother is at 28 weeks, which is amazing, seeing that we can get a glimpse of how he actually might look outside of the womb. A true miracle from the Lord, for sure.

This pregnancy has been, um….interesting. After two miscarriages, one in October of 2011 and one in March of 2012, then this pregnancy starting in July of 2012, if I’m being honest I feel like I've been pregnant for a rather long time. It’s been a journey with the Lord for sure, some really hard parts, some joyful parts, learning how both of those things can go together simultaneously. I took almost weekly pregnancy pictures with Grayson, because, well, she was our first and that’s just what you do. Then with Finley, I was so caught up with Grayson that I’m not even sure I knew what week I was if you had asked me at any given time, let alone take a picture to document it. This time with brother, the weekly pictures are a sort of happy-count-down-while holding-my-breath, wondering if we are really going to make it to the end.

There has also been quite the interesting array of mild complications this time around. Progesterone supplements got me (and him!) through the first trimester with lots of praying and feeling extremely nauseous. On top of that towards the end of the first trimester, I broke out in some kind of weird, extremely itchy rash all over my legs. Thankfully that cleared up on its own after a few exhausting weeks, without any major medication. Second trimester brought a very short-lived bit of energy, but overall, this pregnancy has been much more tiring than my others. Maybe because I’m a bit older, maybe because I have two kids to chase around now instead of just one. Either way, about halfway through I just resigned myself to taking a nap every day when the girls have rest time. Good for rest, not as good for getting things done outside of growing a babe. Tis the season.

At the 19 week ultrasound they figured out I had previa, where the placenta was partially covering the cervix. They also saw one small tiny “bright spot” on his heart. Both were hopefully expected to resolve themselves, which after a few more ultrasounds, they did! Praise the Lord. After the previa was resolved, they then noticed I had high amniotic fluid. Extended diabetes test came back clear, so now I’m just in the office for weekly ultrasounds to monitor it all. Fluid has still been high each week, and brother is measuring quite large. At 34 weeks he was already 6.5 lbs. So maybe he will come early or just be a 10-plus pounder at 40 weeks. Because of the high fluid, he is also ‘swimming around in there’ as the doctors like to say, so he is flipping head up, head down week to week. Currently he is head down and we are praying he stays that way. It is so much more comfortable! (Comfortable being an understatement for any 30 plus week pregnant mama.)

Although spending a chunk of time each week at the doctor’s office for ultrasounds is not exactly how I would choose to spend my time, part of me does often wonder if that was/is the Lord’s provision for us in relieving anxiety around this pregnancy. I get to see brother on that screen each week, which in many ways in a huge blessing. He also moves, kicks, & turns more than I remember the girls moving. Which may just be his thing or may be that I have a bad memory. Both possibilities.

Once we found out he was a boy, we started to talk names here and there. I found one name fairly early that we both agreed was a possibility (a small miracle). With the girls, we could not settle until the very end, so both of their names we just announced at birth. This time, we've kept coming back to this same name, so we finally called it done and put the “E” initial up on the nursery wall (along with yes, a moose head). 

Grayson was fairly certain it was "E" for “Eugene Munster”, a name she had nominated for brother based on a character from her Adventures in Odyssey CDs (his name is really Eugene Meltsner but Munster is what she heard!). And yes, this means our children will have the initials “E, F, G”, in ascending age order, but although quirky, not done on purpose!

According to the baby name books, his first name means “brave & strong”, which we loved being spoken over him as being our first son. I also loved it for this pregnancy, as there has been much to be brave and strong about in the last couple of years as we journeyed toward meeting him. One of our favorite verses is Joshua 1:9, which now hangs on his nursery wall:

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

His middle name is a family name from Justin’s side…Peeps being the most recent owner of it himself. It just seemed to fit too perfectly with the meaning of his first name. We long and pray for him to be brave and strong and have a wild heart for the Lord.

So…

Everett Wilds Smith, we can’t wait to meet you very soon!

(We will call him Everett!)