Playing catch up- The story of Klaire

Wow, I can't believe I haven't blogged in over 6 months. To say "so much has happened" would be such an understatement! I'm going to do my best to do a "catch-up" blog on one BIG aspect of our life.

The big news is that we found out we were pregnant with baby #2 on May 2nd (The night before my 26th birthday)! We were absolutely thrilled! Aaron had just given me my birthday present (A new camera! How appropriate with a new baby on the way!), and then I decided to take a pregnancy test. It was a digital test that just said "YES." It was the greatest feeling in the world, and that made for a birthday celebration I will never forget. We didn't get pregnant with baby #2 right off the bat, and I was nervous it may take us a long time. I am so grateful that God didn't make us wait too long. I guess he knew the suspense could have killed me! Ha! Even though in the grand scheme of things, it didn't take us very long to get pregnant, that time really taught me a lot about what my friends who deal with infertility face. I can see how easily it could captivate your every thought. I have a new compassion for my friends who struggle with infertility, while, I would never say I fully understand how hard it is.

On my birthday, many of my friends and family called me. It was SO HARD to hold in my exciting secret. We wanted to wait to be able to tell our families in person. The evening of my birthday I had stayed home from a church event because I was having really bad allergy problems. I went to the bathroom and noticed a lot of bleeding. I was devastated. I'd had 24 hours to believe I was pregnant, and now I was convinced I wasn't anymore. I thought I was having a miscarriage, and called Aaron in the middle of the church program to please come home. I talked to a doctor, talked with a few special prayer warrior friends, and prayed with Aaron. We tried to just leave it up to God. The next day I went in for blood work, and the doctor said the numbers still showed that I was pregnant. Two days later I went in for more blood work, and the numbers had almost tripled. That was a GREAT sign! I ended up having several more terrifying episodes of bleeding during my first trimester, and there was never a valid explanation from a doctor on why it was happening. Every time it happened though, I got to see my sweet little baby's heart beating on the ultrasound, and it was the greatest feeling in the world to know that God was still allowing that baby's heart to beat.

I am now 24...almost 25 weeks along, and I'm here to tell you that we have a growing, wonderful, healthy little GIRL! She will continue to be a miracle baby to me. All babies are miracles, but there were so many times I was convinced I was losing this baby and I begged God to save her. I know God is the reason for her every heart beat. I am so grateful.

We found out when I was 20 weeks pregnant that we were having a girl! It was SO hard to wait that long! We told our families that we were going for our big ultrasound on Monday, August 23rd, but we secretly moved up our appointment until Friday, August 20th. We wanted to be able to catch them off guard with the big news!

I was 99.9% sure we were going to have another boy. The funny thing about that is that the only name I felt like God had laid on my heart was for a girl. We knew we wanted to call her Klaire, and we probably wanted Klaire to be her middle name, just like Korben's. We never had a peace about a boy name. So we spent that entire week searching boy names so we could have a name picked out for him by the time of our ultrasound. We found a hand full of names that we liked that started with "N" and we shared them with Korben. Names like Noah, Noble, and Nolan. Korben instantly said "Korben likes Noble." No matter what name we told him after that he would just say over and over, "Korben likes Noble." We thought that was so cute...little did we know how much it would play into our God-story.

We took Korben with us for the ultrasound. Thankfully our ultrasound tech was kind enough to try to tell us the sex of the baby first. She seemed to search for what seemed like 5 full minutes, and after a lot of silence, she said "Well, I can't say that I am 100% sure if you are having a girl or not, but I don't see ANY boy parts." And I said, "I DON'T EITHER!" And Aaron said, "I DON'T EITHER." We had all just sat there in silence until that moment and then we all exploded in disbelief that this could possibly be a GIRL. Then we went through a 40 minute extensive ultrasound making sure everything about the baby looked healthy. Praise the Lord, everything looked great. That whole time, I was scared to get my mind set that it was a girl since she never was able to get a perfect look. Finally, right before we left, the baby had settled down a little and she got several clear shots. She said "I'm 100% sure now, you can buy pink!" My very favorite part of the ultrasound was when the tech was able to zoom in on her face. We got the clearest view of her little nose and big lips! She was beautiful! Aaron told me later on in the car that he had 100% peace after seeing her face that her name needed to be "Klaire." I wish we had a picture of the face we were able to see that day, but in 3 months we will get to see it in person! We do actually have a very short video clip of her clapping her hands! Is that not amazing? What a blessing to have a clip of her clapping her hands in the womb!

As soon as we got home we let Korben call all of the grandparents and tell them over the phone. Of course, they were completely caught off guard because they didn't think we were actually going for the ultrasound for 3 more days! He got on the phone and kept saying "Little Sister" over and over. They eventually got it!

Then, that night, we got to searching for a first name for little Klaire! After seriously considering about 10 names we found the name "Adalyn" on a list online. I read it to Aaron and said, "What do you think about Adalyn Klaire." He said that he loved it. He asked me what it meant, so I looked down at the meaning and about fell off the couch. The meaning of the name Adalyn is NOBLE. All I could hear was "Korben likes Noble, Korben likes Noble" in my head. We had total peace that God had helped us decide our daughter's first name with the help of our little boy! We also thought, what better thing to wish upon our daughter than to be noble and wise! Oh, how we need more noble women in this world! I would honestly pray for wisdom upon my daughter over any other quality. It was set. We called all our family members again the next day to announce the name! Then we shared our good news with our Grand Family at church the next day! What an exciting weekend!

As for now, I'm enjoying being pregnant! The first trimester I was really sick. I definitely felt worse this time around, but I feel great now. We have a scheduled c-section for December 31st (new years eve), bright and early in the morning. But who knows, Klaire could make her debut before that. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out...especially with the Christmas just the week before!

We are all so excited about this little girl! We just put her crib together this weekend. Her bedding is on it, and her curtains are hung. There is so much left to do in the room, but it definitely feels like a little girl's room when you walk in. Korben loves to go in there and say "It's SOOOO pretty." It melts my heart. When people ask Korben what he is going to do with Baby Klaire he says "Be nice and play toys." He also has deemed ANYTHING that he finds that is the color pink to be Baby Klaire's. For instance, one day he brought me the heavy gallon jug of skim milk and told me it was Baby Klaire's milk (just because the cap on it was pink)! If he sees a shape that is pink on a game, It is "Baby Klaire's rectangle, triangle, etc." He is just so sweet. I know he will be the best big brother.


Here are a few pictures leading up to this point:

The night we found out! We re-enacted our pictures from the night we found out we were pregnant with Korben!


































We told our mom's on Mother's day! All we had to do was get Korben out of the car with his "I'm a big brother" t-shirt on!



































This is the sweet little boy I had to wake up from a nap on August 20th, because it was time to see whether he was going to have a little brother or a little sister!























Here were are, in the waiting room before the ultrasound.



















This picture is almost 5 weeks old, but it was the first belly shot I did, which was at the midway point (20 weeks).