Precious Little Girl!!!

We will be 20 weeks on Monday and we found out we are having a daughter! We are SO thrilled! Just before the sonogram appointment Ryan and I were tallying the votes of boy/girl predictions. And though the majority vote was boy, Ryan said: "Your mom and sister are the only one's who think it's a girl." I responded with: "Yes but my mom was wrong about both Sofia and Makafui." To which he said "Right, which means she's gonna be right about us. You can only be wrong on a 50/50 guess so many times." LOL My husband cracks me up and we both still went into the appointment leaning more towards the guess of boy and were both very surprised! But NOT disappointed! Ryan does hope to be the first out of he and his sister to have a boy but that is still a possibility and he is already so smitten with his little girl!

My confession is that when we first found out we were finally pregnant, I tried so hard not to desire one gender more than the other. I am SO sensitive to the feelings and emotions of children, even unborn, and I never want any of my children ever to feel like they weren't wanted at any time in their lives.
I struggled with this during the early weeks because most of our foster children were boys and I began longing for the frills and curls of a little girl. I wanted to look at tiny dresses and accessories for a baby girl the moment we found out we were pregnant. I was so concerned about being disappointed if it was a boy. I prayed and gave my anxieties to my most gracious God and he assured me with a precious dream that I will love my baby be it boy or girl more than anything in the world. (save my God and my Husband) So in my mind, I was about to be thrilled to work on trees and birds in our nursery but instead I was thrilled and surprised to find that it will be red poppies with all the girly frills!

Knowing that I have a little daughter on the way changes the way I feel about my pregnancy drastically. I don't know if it just hadn't really set in because of the long waiting or the crazy change of atmosphere shortly after finding out or being terrified of losing what we had just gained.... but whatever the reason, SHE is so much more real to me now than ever before and I am so excited!

I went to right down the precious memory of Thursday in my journal and happened across so many pages of despair and heart cries to God for understanding and patience in the waiting part of our journey. Re-reading some of those agonizing entries, recalling the tears, anger, and sadness. The unmet longing in my heart to be a good mommy, like I believed God had called me to be... All of those intense and painful emotions and entries MAGNIFIED my joy and gratefulness of the memory I was about to record. I was overwhelmed with a gratitude that hadn't clicked yet, and with the realization of just how glorious and victorious this baby girl is to us. When Ryan got home from school I was thrilled to tell him about it and he smiled and spoke sweetly to our sweet girl.

To this day I still don't understand why God had us wait, and I still currently live in situations that I know are God's plan for our family but are difficult and make me sad. The difference is: NOW I have the patience and the experience to truly rely on God, and know that He really does love us, and His master plan really is better than anything we could come up with on our own.