No sleep, just excitement.

It seems as if the pregnancy is in full force now. She's got many of the usual symptoms: hyper-sensitive to smells, only wants to eat bland food, nausea, up in the middle of the night to eat (I cooked her eggs the first time, got the cottage cheese twice since). Her appetite is raging, yet it's hard for her to eat much. Cruel irony. Yet oatmeal might as well be manna. Weird.

The nurse thinks she's at least six weeks. A friend who is a midwife thinks more like 10, based on her symptoms. January 7 is the big day: the first sonogram, and we'll know better what timeframe we're looking at. Assuming all goes well then, we've decided that's when we're going to let the news out. For now it's a very short list. Michelle's family and just a couple friends. It's been impossibly hard not to tell my family, but after my sister's many miscarriages, and a particularly painful one recently, we decided it was best to keep it from them until after Christmas. My parents will probably stop for a visit around New Year's, so hopefully we'll be able to drop the bomb on them in person. I can only imagine their faces. Yet we're keenly aware of the all-to-high probablity of a miscarriage, so we're praying and waiting until the sonogram to find out more. "Photographic evidence," as I like to say: I'm pretty sure I'll cry. A lot.

For better or worse, there will be a lot to keep us busy until sonogram day. Michelle should be boarding a plane for Philadelphia right about now, and the dog and I will follow her with the car tomorrow. We're spending the holidays with her family at her sister's house. Oh by the way: her sister is pregnant with twins! Michelle's parents will go from having one grandchild to 4. When it rains...

So we'll spend the holidays visiting various relatives, doing our best to hold back the big news and trying not to throw up. For most of us, instead of holiday feasts there will be nibbles off a triscuit or perhaps some eggs. Most of her extended family is aware that she has health issues, and fortunately most if not all are unaware of her usual symptoms and needs, so it won't be too hard to blame all the pregnancy weirdness on general bad health. I'm sure there will be suspicions from the savvy.

We'll be up north until the 29th and drive down to be home for my 27th birthday. I want nothing but a healthy baby and wife. And perhaps a bit more financial security, but God is faithful and wise: we trust Him to take care of all of our needs and bless us in His good time.

I can hardly sleep, or even think straight during the day, and it's not the midnight feedings. The first couple of days I was stressing out, as they say. If you would have asked me, I would have said I'm excited and scared, and my body was saying the same thing: acid churning in my stomach, my left eyelid twitching every twenty minutess. Thankfully that's subsided.

There is far too much to think and dream about. We're both awake in the middle of the night, so we lie there dreaming together, checking in on eachothers hopes and fears. I can only assume my fears are natural: I'm afraid that we'll lose the baby. I'm afraid of a difficult pregnancy. I'm afraid of a complicated delivery. I'm afraid of being unable to afford all of this. I'm afraid of how my sister will react, after trying so long and losing so many babies and wanting it so bad.

But the hopes are winning out. I happend to have watched "Return of the King" yesterday, and there's a brief dream scene involving Aragorn and his future child. Just seeing this cute little kid running into his daddy's arms: I started tearing up! And I don't think teaching the preschool Sunday School class will ever be the same. God has done amazing things in my heart with and through those kids: changing fear and ignorance of kids to delight and just-a-little-less-ignorance. After just a year I saw an almost-always difficult and contrary little boy turn into a ready-to-please (yet still quite active) delight. On the other hand the sweetest kid in the bunch has turned stubborn, at least on a bad day. Either way, you gotta love em. And I pray that God will fill our hearts with love for Him, for eachother, and for this tiny baby that He is now knitting together.