We are halfway there and we couldn’t be happier about it! My morning/daytime/nighttime sickness is only coming around a couple days a week instead of every day, I am having slightly more energy, and my house seems quite a bit cleaner than it was the last 3 months. Although this has been my hardest pregnancy so far, and even my normal yoga routine wears me out to pieces, I am too excited about carrying another child to dwell on it. Plus I finally feel ok enough to have a cup of decaf once in a while and that in itself is a miracle! These 20 weeks have been full of migraines, stomach aches, restlessness, and have left me completely drained. The old me would be so depressed and mopey about it all, but in the last few years God decided to change my heart and all the negativity I used to store in there. I use to dwell on everything negative in my life and you know what? It was exhausting. After a lot of prayer and positive changes, I am proud of the new me and all God has done to help me see who I am supposed to be.

The really fun part of this pregnancy has been the role the boys are playing in it. They are so excited to have a new baby sibling. They ask me daily how the baby is doing and get excited when we pull out the doppler to listen to the heartbeat. I am so very thankful of the way they handled me being so sick. I stressed so much about how little attention I was able to give to them while I spent so much time taking care of myself. It was like they just knew they had to let me rest and occupy themselves for a while and they totally  understood what was happening. It certainly made things a lot easier for all of us so thanks you little love bugs!

I must say when we started telling people I was pregnant with our 4th child I couldn’t believe how many people would say things like, “Oh! Were you trying to get pregnant?”, or “Wow you really want more kids?”, “Congratulations! This is it for you guys then right?” Gosh I just love getting these comments! They don’t really surprise me or upset me, but they often just make me sad. Sad that the world we live in today only thinks having a few kids is socially acceptable and that there is some magic number that you need to stop at. Well let me politely clear up all these questions for everyone right now. We love having kids. We love raising kids. I am blessed to be able to stay at home with the kids and take great pride in doing so. We are open to life and feel grateful that God has blessed us with a “big” family and we only hope it continues to grow. I was an only child for most of my life and I always knew I wanted a big family. We aren’t trying to keep up with the Duggars or anything and we don’t see having 4 children as having “a lot of kids”. Also we are Catholic….if you’re into stereotypes. There! Are we done with that now? Fantastic.

In the last week or so I developed a strong sense that we are having another little boy. I’m not quite sure why but I just am so certain that it is. Maybe because boys are all I know and I really do adore having all boys.Also having a girl kinda sorta scares me a bit. Either way we will be thrilled! We finally agreed on a name for a girl and a boy, which was actually really difficult this time around. I really wanted to be prepared this time because when I had Liam, we didn’t have a name for him right away.

I am prayerful and confident that I can make it through another natural birth this time around. I was blessed to meet a group of fabulous women, including a handful of doulas and midwives, a few months back that get together every month and discuss pregnancy and birthing options. Even though it is my fourth time being pregnant I have learned so much that I can’t believe I didn’t already know. This sounds really crazy but I am actually really excited to go into labor so I can use all my new techniques they have taught me to deal with labor pains.

When we told my mother-in-law we were pregnant this time around she said something that I had never heard before and I will always cherish. She said, “That is so exciting that God is trusting you with another soul!” I couldn’t stop thinking about how right she was, and what a blessed way to look at having another child.