The "Announcement"

I’m pregnant!!!

There. I said it. I could not think of a brilliant, witty way to break the news to you…or to my parents for that matter. 

I really did try with all my heart to keep it a secret for the customary “first trimester” but I started leaking the info out within minutes of knowing. And I do mean minutes.

We had been out on the road and literally not even home yet and I had a pregnancy test in the car and a suspicion that my exhaustion was more than road trip blahs. On our way home from church we went to our pastors’ house for a staff party. And when they asked if we knew anything yet, I said no, but hold on…

And I did what any normal girl would do…I took the pregnancy test in my friend’s bathroom at the dinner party.

When Ryan and I confirmed that it was positive, we went out into the dinning room where everyone was holding their breath and staring and I waved the little stick with two pink lines around like a maniac! They all cheered. And then in a really beautiful moment they gathered around me to pray that our baby would start now getting used to life on the road and ministry.

That was my first attempt at trying to keep it a secret. Now, 13 weeks later, I am ready to tell the world.

Hesitation

I hesitate to write about it because this is a forum for my thoughts, opinions, and experiences on the road and in life. While being pregnant is one of those experiences, it is not the summation, and I have no desire to start a mommy blog. Not that I have anything against mommy blogs. They are great, and cute, and they hold families and friends together who can’t be nearby to watch the kiddo-s grow-up.

Still, I would rather show you pictures of bar-b-que ribs and talk about the upcoming election than write about how much I seem to be passing gas these days or how I wake up to pee twice in the middle of the night and secretly unbutton my pants all the time now so my stomach doesn’t split in half. Awe, the joys of growing a little person inside of you.

The Basics

Here are the answers to the basic questions.

We are due on April 29th. We are finding out if it is a boy or girl in December. We will be recording a new album in February and will be on tour in March and April with Mercy Me, and yes, I will try and travel until two weeks or so before the due date. So who knows, I could be having a baby in a city near you! No, we have no idea how to make it work with a baby on the road. Yes, we are going to try. And ok, you pulled my leg, we are registering at Target!

I have been to the doctor twice, heard his crazy fast heartbeat, and I already have a picture of the little tadpole. He is adorable. Some days it’s a he and some days it’s a she. Depends on what mood I am in. And no, I have not been sick. It’s been a miracle pregnancy so far. Well, if you don't count the fact that my hormones are all crazy and my eighth grade acne has returned and I have already gained ten pounds instead of the suggested “2-5 pounds in the first trimester” I am doing great.

And here’s the deal. People have been popping out babies for thousands and thousands of years. Most of these ladies did so without twenty reference books and four websites telling them what they could and couldn’t eat, and I am quite sure they did not have a battery of tests to ensure their baby’s health, or guidelines for every possible thing to avoid during those nine months. Heck, for centuries women literally had babies in a tent and were back in the rice fields in a matter of days.

All that to say: our bodies are pretty smart. They can lead us and guide us if we listen to them. And I could be fearful and try to read the 3,000 books at Barnes and Nobles about how to be pregnant, how to be a good mom, how to have a proper organic, natural, yadda-yadda, yadda-yadda birth, but at the end of the day God has given me a pretty good intuition and I just don’t have the brain power or the money to invest in this multi-million dollar baby business.

So in a sense, yes, this is going to be a pretty organic process for me because I am not soliciting the advise of every baby expert in the world, I am just doing it the good old-fashioned way.

Basic instinct.

Tadpole

At one point she was the size of a tadpole. Every week she is something different. This week it is a medium size shrimp. I don’t get this. How can she have fingernails and be able to suck her thumb and have a heart and only be the size of a medium shrimp??? She can’t grow fast enough. She can’t possibly get here soon enough. I have never loved anything more. I talk to her everyday, just little conversations and questions and thoughts. I think she is going to be a great listener. So if I don’t do it all right by the books standards, that’s ok with me. Because I will love her well.

And that’s all that matters to me.