Baby Update - Boy or Girl?

Soooo...I'm 14 weeks today! I'm starting to feel a little better, slowly but surely. We had another doctors appointment and got to see our little one today. How I love every u/s, seeing the baby move and grow, its amazing. And because we've been able to have an ultrasound at every appointment we already know what we are having! So...do you want to know? Hmmmm....?
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You sure you want to know?
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For real?
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Ok ok, I'll tell you....
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Its a....
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We could not be more excited!! (well I might be just a tad more excited than Zach just because I love PINK and everything girly!) I really really wanted another girl. For lots of reasons, we already have all the stuff for a girl and I really want a little one to dress in pretty dresses and make fun bows for. But I did wonder if having a boy would be easier because it would be completely different from Alexis, in that we'd have to get all new clothes, etc. But I knew that nothing could replace my first baby, and that I still really wanted another girl. This baby will just benefit from all of her big sister's things! :) Everything looked just great on the ultrasound, I had lots of questions about possible problems but the doctor said everything he can look for right now looks just perfect. Wow, what a relief so far. Now I can't wait to be able to feel this one move!! I don't remember the exact time I first felt Lexi move, and it makes me sad I can't remember. I do remember the first time Zach felt her, it was classic! He had said that he thought it might be kind of weird to feel this thing moving inside of me, but the first time he could feel her move he got the BIGGEST smile on his face. It was the cutest dang thing ever. Oh how grateful I am for both my little girls!

p.s. I'm still worried about my angel mommy friends and how posts like these make them feel. :( I hope you all know I'm praying for you. And I've decided that I'm not going to post a lot of updates about this baby on Lexi's blog, those will be done on this blog, of course I may mention this baby in relation to Alexis, etc. But if you just don't want to read this blog because its too hard I TOTALLY understand, when I'm going to talk about the baby I will put something in the post title so you'll know too. {hugs!}

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Oh Holy Night

Our systems are down at work, so I thought I'd take the time to post a little something. I love Christmas music. It's all so cheerful and full of fun lyrics and beautiful chords. But one of my all time favorite Christmas songs is "Oh Holy Night." I just love the picture it portrays of a quiet still winter night when Christ was born. It describes the mission and love that Christ had and the love we have for him because if it. It's a song of hope, cheer and rejoicing for the birth and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It's such a beautiful, reverent song. I love this song so much, in fact, that I have a CD that I made with different artists singing the song. 12 tracks of Oh Holy Nightness. It's awesome.

Amy and I were fortunate enough to be able to attend the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert on Friday night (Thanks Mom and Dad Hansen for inviting us!). I'd never been to the concert, but knew it would be an amazing experience. The music of the Tabernacle Choir is amazing and so heavenly. It's no wonder they are world known. The Tabernacle Choir has always had special meaning to me and my family because of my grandfather's love of the choir (My mom's dad.)

My grandfather was orphaned when he was young and living in Kentucky. While in the orphanage, each child would get the chance to pick a radio program to listen to in the evenings. When it was my grandfather's turn, he always picked the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Even though he wasn't a member of the Church, he loved the music and would tell the other orphans that one day he would go to Salt Lake and see them in person. Even though the other kids made fun of him for such an outrageous statement, he insisted that he would.

When my grandfather was 17, he joined the air force to get out of the orphanage. He traveled to Europe and fought in World War II. At one point he was stationed in Utah and finally got the chance to see the Tabernacle Choir in person. A childhood dream fulfilled. He later met my grandmother in Utah, they were married and he was baptized into the Church. It's an amazing story and I've always thought of it when I hear the Tabernacle Choir sing.

Imagine how my excitment doubled when during the Christmas concert sang my most favorite Christmas song! It was a slightly different arrangement, but it was beautiful. Sent chills through me.



Here is the choir singing it at the Christmas devotional. Just amazing.

The concert also had a part where David McCullough narrated the story behind the song "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem." I think it's so interesting to know the story behind songs, so I looked up the story behind my favorite Christmas song.

The accounts I found say it is adapted from a French hymn "Minuit, Chrétiens" which was written in 1847 by poet Placide Cappeau as comission for his local parish priest. Cappeau was on his way to Paris when he wrote it and gave the poem to well known ballet and opera composer Adolphe Adam. The song was translated into English in 1855 by Sullivan Dwight, a Unitarian minister and American music critic. Apparently there was a lot of controversy over the hymm because of it's anti-slavery lyrics:

"Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,
And in His name all oppression shall cease."

It's an amazing song and has an amazing message. I love it!

-Zach

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Thank you!

Thank you to everyone for your kind words of support and love! It means so much to me, really. We are really excited but at the same time its such a different experience being pregnant after a loss, gone is the naive innocent giddiness and all the hopeful planning. Instead I have an appointment on Tuesday and I'm TERRIFIED that the baby won't be alive. *sigh* Though it is very hard, I have a deeper sense of gratitude and hopefulness that I wouldn't have if I hadn't been through the opposite. My joy is greater because my sorrow has and is so deep.

For anyone that might be curious, we are doing well for the most part. We are still living at and managing a storage unit property. At first it was cool and exciting but that has worn off now and I often find myself feeling lonely, with no neighbors and the monotony of the same thing every day. I'm getting more anxious for Zach to get a reporter job so we can have some stability for a least a year. As things are right now we don't know what the future holds and its just a very unsettling feeling. If I knew we would be here for another year that would be one thing but I don't, as soon as Zach gets offered a job we'll be gone. I yearn for that feeling of knowing we will be staying in one place for an extended period of time.

Details about the baby...my technical due date is June 21, 2010...however, I won't go that long. At 36 weeks they will do an amnio to check the baby's lungs and if they are developed enough they will induce me...so we are 99% sure the baby will be here the third or fourth week of May. How I can't wait for that day!!!

Other things we have been up to....

For Halloween we carved pumpkins with Zach's family, Zach got a REALLY big pumpkin, and on actual Halloween night we went and saw my nephew go trick or treating and visited some good friends.


For Thanksgiving we went up to my sister's and had a scrumptious dinner there with her and some of her in laws. Its my family's turn this year but my whole family wasn't getting together
(boo! I'm not happy about this) so us Utahans had dinner together.

For Christmas we will be with Zach's family which should be fun. We just got out all the decorations so our house feels more like Christmas...kinda bitter sweet. I think I was subconsciously putting it off, and as we unwrapped the nativity, etc. I realized that the last time I saw these things was when I was putting them all away, just days after my baby had died. Lots of somber feelings coming back as her one year approaches.