So perhaps I haven’t felt particularly inspired, or I haven’t had time, or just haven’t taken time, or haven’t known where to begin—regardless, this seems to be my perpetual problem with blogging. I remain consistently inconsistent.
Perhaps a recap of this semester will help. Post our first Christmas in the DR, Tim and I took a little 3-year wedding anniversary trip around the island. That was lovely, and special since we had celebrated our honeymoon here back in the day. We began to talk about this looming question of “When will we start our family??” I joke, but it’s true—Tim has been ready and eager to take on the role of dad long before I was comfortable discussing the possibility of being a mom. But the Lord brought our hearts to a similar place, and soon after, the test was positiveJ
I had some complications early on. After some bleeding, the doctors identified a decent sized subchorionic hematoma, basically a blood clot between the gestational sac and the uterus. So our big news was met with uncertainty and a bit of anxiety as we heard a range of opinions, from very hopeful to rather disheartening. After praying and talking it over and swallowing a significant dose of dying to my pride that “no one can do my job”, I took off about 2 weeks to slow down, rest up, and let people take care of me. During most of this time, Tim was at a conference in Portland. I can honestly say though that I have never experienced community as I did during this at-home stint. People stayed with me, cooked for me, stopped by, prayed over me and “junior”, brought me goodies, watched movies with me and Beaux. I was lacking for nothing.
At the end of this time on bed rest and Tim’s time in the states, we returned to the doctor to receive beautiful news- my body had absorbed the hematoma or clot, and the pregnancy was strong and progressing well. Woohoo! I returned to school the next day and set out to treasure what became my last semester (at least for a while now) of teaching.
The Lord supplied abounding energy in this time. I was able to continue for the last 3 months without missing even one more day of classes. I began to see and aprovechar so many things I had taken for granted—lunches with kids whose parents never come, in between class chats with my YL girls, after school drop-ins of lonely middle schoolers. I soaked it up.
Now I am nearly 6 months pregnant and Tim and I are wrapping up another 4 week stateside tour that included stops in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Kansas, and Colorado. While we always enjoy our time here with friends and nephews and future grandparents, we feel ready to return home to continue doing what we love.
