My Journal and Journey: As a Wife

Justin and I found out that I was pregnant shortly after we celebrated our two-month wedding anniversary. We officially announced our news to family and friends over the course of about a month. We told the parents on Christmas and attempted to keep it a secret from everyone else until I was a little closer to the end of the first trimester. Here I am now, just fifty days away from the official due date, and I am only now officially announcing it on sarah.taron.net!

A lot of people told me that the first pregnancy seems to last the longest. Perhaps because I stayed working full-time up until week thirty, my pregnancy has just flown by! And, all things considered, everything has been pretty easy. We have a wonderful obstetrician, both of our families have been wonderfully supportive as have been our employers.

Justin has been able to come to every single baby doctor visit. With the exception of the last Lamaze class, we have made it to every one and really enjoyed the instructor. Yesterday we went on the tour of the local Child Birth Center. Each week I become more and more excited about being pregnant in general and as the arrival date gets closer I get more eager to meet the baby.

My last day at Christian Childcare is July 3rd. That gives me just over a month to put the house in order for Claire’s August 12th estimated arrival!

Justin has done a beautiful job getting her room and furniture painted. All we need to do now is set it up! We are so excited to meet our little girl!

Aunt Carol (soon to be great-aunt!) sent us a huge box of clothing and toys several months ago. A couple of Justin’s co-workers have given us toys for Claire and two baby showers (hosted by our work places) are planned. A couple of clients at Christian Childcare have offered second-hand clothes for our daughter. My children at daycare talk about “Clairie Cherry” all of the time. They are full of questions, comments and plans for the little gal! This pregnancy has indeed been a lot of fun!

And so, announcing, announcing! We hope to receive a little girl into our family August 12th, 2009!

According to official wedding etiquette, a couple has one year to issue thank-you notes to their party, guests and everyone else who was involved in creating their day. We have been married for almost seven months and we are only now getting our thank-you cards put together.

The vision we have had all of this time for our thank-you notes is to follow much the same format that families typically use for their holiday greeting cards–a picture with text off to a side, the back of the can be hand-written on for a personal note.

Here is the picture that we decided on…

The thing that has really been holding us up is finding documentation stating that we may in fact reprint our wedding pictures. Now that we have obtained that permittance, I will probably post some more pictures.

When my husband kissed me good-bye as he left for work at 6:30 this morning I still felt sick enough to call in.  But now, ten hours later I feel almost all the way better. My throat hurts when I swallow and a Iittle when I talk.  The aweful weakness that I have felt for the last four days is mostly gone.  Rather than being out of bed by 3:30 in the afternoon like yesterday, I was up by 9:30 for a cup of tea and then up and about by 10:30.  My two big accomplishments for the day were keeping the fire going and sewing a night shirt for my sister-in-law (her Christmas present). 

My mom is probably the only one who reads my blog, so I won’t go into a lot of explanation about these next paragraphs…

About ten minutes ago the door of our warm house was banged open by the wind as I opened the door to the tiny knock of one of my little six-year old neices.  Her blond hair, coat, jeans and shoes were dripping with the heavy rain the strong wind is blowing everywhere.  Right behind her stomped her upset twelve year old sister and then in came her shivering little twin.  Bringing up the rear came Steve (my sister-in-law’s husband), carrying his five-month old daughter in her wet car seat with the diaper bag thrown over his shoulder.  And then our heavy green door banged shut behind them…and a trail of mud followed as they took refuge in the house. 

And there I made my exit… I left the broom that I was using to sweep propped up against the wall and scooted my sewing project to a safe area, took my cell phone, drink and headed upstairs to blog.

And so it goes…

Steve and Alicia have been living with us since we were married for a week.  At first it was really hard to have a house-hold of six and our brand-new family squished together.  But now we have worked it out pretty well how things work.  Sometimes we do get frustrated with each other…but then, after Justin and I pray together about it for awhile, we do feel better again.

Next week everyone is supposed to move out…move to their property right next door where their new manufactured home is finally situated and hooked up.  Yay!

Staying at home these last days has given me a tiny peek into what it might be like when one day we have a baby and I get to be a stay-at-home mama.  It will be different because the only noise today was the country music radio station and my sewing machine.  It will be different too because other people’s belongings won’t be stacked everywhere. 

Even though my heart really is looking forward to being a mom, I did miss work today.  I was dissappointed in myself for still not having my Christmas decorations up in my classroom.  And I missed serving breakfast to the big kids, hearing their strange and creative stories.  I missed giving Secret Santa gifts and then having those same gifts shown off to me. 

I guess the point of this blog post, is that I am thankful either way! I am thankful just to be married, to have Justin, for whatever situation the Lord puts us in, whether we have people living with us or not, whether I am sick or not, whether my clean floor gets stomped all over or not and so on.  I love my husband and I am so thankful to God for him!

Yesterday marked my one-year anniversary of working at Christian Childcare!  That is the longest I have stayed at one childcare center in my nearly four years as a Childcare Provider.  I am so thankful to the Lord for my job.  There have been some really rough days, but most every day is wonderful. The director, assistant director and all of the teachers (for the most part) are all positive, supportive gals.  Negative attitudes on the part of the administration is what has lead to my leaving every other center in the past. 

Every morning that I come into work I am excited for the day and glad to be at Christian Childcare.  I plan to stay there until I have a baby and then our plan is for me to be a full-time stay-at-home mama.  So, with no positive pregnancy tests so far, I am going to enjoy being a Christian Childcare teacher for awhile!

I spent me anniversary flat on my back sick with what I expect to be the Strep Throat.  My fear when I call in sick–aside from leaving the daycare short handed–is that I may get bored staying at home.  Such has not been the case.  I sleep and sleep and sleep.  Flu-ish symptoms have accompanied the Strep Throat symptums and that has left we so tired.  I went in to the walk-in clinic on Tuesday and here it is–Thursday and the throat swab results haven’t come back from the lab. 

The doctor has told me not to go into work until we have determined what I have.  I slept until about 3:30pm today and since then have done all of the laundry, cleaned our bedroom and the kitchen, worked on making a Christmas gift for Justin’s godson and now, written a blog entry.  All of that has left me tired again.  I am still not bored.  I do miss work and am disappointed in myself for not getting better more quickly.  I don’t remember ever being this sick for a whole week.  We missed both Sunday worship services because Justin and I had the Pink Eye and then all week I have been out due to suspected Strep Throat, fever, head-ache, sinus issues and flue symptoms.  Miserable, miserable. 

Aside from getting sick being a result of Adam’s sin, I think God lets us get sick so that we can understand the blessing of being healthy.  There is something good in every “bad” thing that happens to us.

Over the years that I have had this blog its theme and tone has changed a lot.  It just missed a major mile-stone–its author getting married!

So, over the next period of time as my blog under goes construction as far as its appearance, I will try and un-date it as far as what has happened in the last six months. 

Life is finally taking on some regularity and ever-desired routine.  All of the routine that I have known is that of a lonely single person.  Dating Justin came with incredible experiences, places to see, people to meet and of course, getting to know the man that I have been praying for for years! In the midst of all of that I had no time for blogging and hardly enough to stay in touch with my family.

Now I am back to my blog! I have no intention at all to blog daily, in fact, I have a resolution not to.  But I am here because I do enjoy it and like to hear from you.