Cashew

Yep, it’s that time again!  Much to our delight (and surprise!) kiddo number three is on the way.  I’m 15.5 weeks pregnant giving us a due date of January 13th, 2012.

Abe is very excited and convinced it’s a girl.  He’s already even named her: Adalynn.  Although, just this morning he informed me that he had a boy name: Abraham. April, of course, is clueless.  She’ll be not quite two (assuming everything goes according to schedule) and it makes me sad to realize that she’ll remain clueless until her world is rocked when Cashew arrives.  Abe really “got it” when April came.  Not to say there wasn’t some adjustment, but he understood; she won’t.  The 6 month difference in age is a key one.

On a more serious note, I can’t help but feel that our 2011 is being defined by these two big pieces of news – April’s surgery and Cashew’s coming arrival.  (Yes, Mike has had two surgeries this year, but, well, they’re the normal, growing old, falling apart surgeries.  They really don’t seem like a big deal, and we hope they stay that way. Of course, now that Mike’s shoulder recovery is going to be so much longer than we thought, that may change.)  The fact that these two big news items happened at exactly the same time compounds that feeling even more.  We found out we were expecting about 2.5 weeks before we knew anything about April’s heart.  In fact, as far as I can figure, I was conceiving almost to the day that our pediatrician was hearing April’s first heart murmur.  We heard Cashew’s heart beat just one day before we got the news about April.  May was quite the roller coaster month.

I know God’s hand is all over this, but I can’t quite see exactly what He’s doing.  How does the saying go:  I can’t see the forest because of the trees in front of me?  But in this roller coaster we’ve been on, I’ve come to a couple of conclusions.  I KNOW God is able to both heal April and bring a healthy baby.  I BELIEVE He will do exactly that.  But if He CHOOSES not to, I will still not give my praise or worship to another.  I know I speak for Mike too when I say we will trust Him and continue spending the rest of our lives proclaiming His goodness, regardless of the roads He asks us to walk.  Because our God is awesome, powerful, and loving, even if we don’t always understand Him.