4th Time Around

First off, thanks so much for all of your excitement you shared with us on facebook concerning our news!! I thought I'd share a little more detail about it all for those interested.
I am actually still early, a few weeks shy of exiting the first trimester, so the journey has just begun. Oddly enough, I feel like I've been pregnant for a long time because I've already had about 4 ultrasounds. I had some "issues" early on that mimicked a potential miscarriage (hence, the numerous ultrasounds) but it turned out to be a subchronic hematoma (i.e. blood clot) which seems to have now mostly resolved. That was a crazy experience going from  being certain I was losing the baby one weekend, to the next, being able to see everything was actually just fine. Very thankful for the Lord's protection over this little one.

10 Things:

1. Yes (believe it or not) this one was planned. In fact, Lincoln has been the only child not planned (yes, we actually planned to get pregnant when Lincoln was only 6 months old...ha). We really wanted 4 kids and didn't want to spread them out. I love how close in age our kids are, and how they always have little playmates around. So we knew if we wanted 4, the time was now.

2. Now, when this one is born, none of our kids will yet be in Kindergarten. My due date is late April and Lincoln will start in August, but we will have 4 kids under the age of five. I understand my love for them being "close in age" will also be total chaos and madness. Lincoln is my helper and I actually think it will be a lot harder with him gone to school.

3. No, I am not going to home school him, though :)

4. The boys are excited! Lincoln is so stinking sweet. He got crazy excited when we told him and he goes, "Now I get to take care of TWO babies!!" He does so great in this area. The other day, he went and got Adelynn out of the bathtub - all by himself - dried her off, and carried her to her room for us to put her PJ's on. Love that kid. Noah is excited too and wants a girl. Lincoln wants a boy because we already have a baby girl. He also says "I want her to be our only sweet girl."

5. Jason agrees with Lincoln - he wants Adelynn to be the only girl; I'm kind of the same, though for her to have a sister would be super special.

6. Noah said if it's a "boy" he wants us to either name him "Max", "Gideon", or "Jesus".

7. This pregnancy has been the worst (physically) so far. Each one gets harder with the sickness and such, and this one beats them all. I just feel plain pitiful most of the time. Hoping it soon subsides.

8. I didn't show until 17-20 weeks with Lincoln (my 1st), and with this one, I'm showing now. The joy of multiple pregnancies.

9. Yes, I already have some names (I, as in "I haven't discussed with Jason")

10. More than anything, we're so thrilled the Lord has given us this new little child and cannot wait to teach him/her about the wonderful Savior who is Jesus. We take Matthew 28 seriously - just making disciples up in this house. Ha. :)