We're having a .... the 20 week scan.

So this was the week of the anticipated scan. I was somewhat indecisive about whether or not to find out the sex of our baby, but in the end, we decided to go for it. Having correctly guessed the gender of 8 babies in the past twelve months, I was convinced I knew what we were having, but thought I'd be in for a big laugh if I was wrong. And I can happily say that my intuition is in fact, pretty spot on when it comes to determining the gender of babies. Yep, we are having a baby girl.



So not only did we have that exciting news, but even better, it looks like our baby does not have a club foot after all! Everything looked wonderful. Whether the first scan misdiagnosed the left club foot or whether this was just an amazing answer to all of our prayers, I want to thank God for this gift. I had really felt at peace about the whole thing, anticipating that God would give us the strength we needed to go through the process of correcting her foot, but it is such a gift to not have to go through that process, as I know it would have been challenging.

Another blessing was that there were no signs of bleeding, the placenta was far away from my cervix, and the hemorrhage had healed. So we left the hospital feeling incredibly excited. I felt like for the first time, I could really just embrace this little girl and let my joy run wild.

Then three hours later, I started bleeding. I couldn't make any sense of this, as the scan had showed that everything was fine. We went to the doctor who did not really have any answers but could at least check to make sure the baby's heartbeat was okay. Which it was, but only after an agonizing five minutes trying to find it.

Again, another answer to prayer. I have not had any more bleeding since Friday, so I am just praying that everything is okay. Simon is very excited about having a baby girl. Every time we'd ask him what he wanted to have he'd say, "Baby girl", so I decided he has good intuition, too. He's had a great week, playing with his older cousins, Caleb and Ella, who are back from a 2 year stint in Canada.





We've also loved seeing Tim and Jen, Andrew's brother and sister-in-law, and their six month old gorgeous little boy, Cassidy, who was born in Canada. It's been a fun week of family reunions, and I'll include some pictures of the time together. The whole family came together last Saturday. It was so much fun to be surrounded by babies (Cat's little Lu Lu, Cassidy, and Jen's sister, Angie, was there and she is only 2 weeks away from her due date!). We talked about babies and giving birth and babies non-stop all weekend. I loved it.





Andrew's given me the day off to rest and keep my feet up! I am itching to go swimming and exercise, as it's been about 4 months since I've been active, due to the complications of my pregnancy thus far. This is forever for me. I had planned on starting water aerobics and swimming this weekend, and then the bleeding started, so I have a few more days of rest required. The weather has been insanely wonderful, with predictions it will reach 33 degrees Celsius today (this is winter!). Andrew told me to go see a movie, instead. I think I just might, as I think the last time I went to the theater was over a year ago!

Oh, I must share this brilliant story about Simon. On Saturday we went garage sale-ing, and at one of the houses discovered a toddler potty for sale. I am always trying to interest Simon in the toilet so I asked him what you do on the potty. In the middle of the garage sale, he sits down on the potty and goes, "PPPPPPPPPPPPPPP..." multiple times. It was absolutely priceless and we were doubled over laughing.

Another cute thing Simon always says is "Mama stay. Bye Bye Dada. Dada school. Mama stay." Whenever he hears mention of me doing anything in a conversation he says this, like he's afraid I'm going to leave him. Then this morning he said, "Mama stay, you." He was calling himself "you". Later when we were looking at pictures on the computer he saw himself and got a big smile and said, "You"! This is the first time he's called himself something besides "boy". When I ask him who Mama's sweetie is, he says "Boy". He also started counting to 10 this week, without any prompting from us. I think it happened as a result of me giving him time outs and counting to ten out loud. He is really chattering away, although much of it is hard to understand or is his own little language. He is such a little wrestler, strong as an ox and also loves to just run around, crashing into things and jabbering and screaming away happily to himself. We are so blessed. I continually catch myself looking at him, smiling to myself just trying to believe how lucky we are to have this little boy in our lives.

And soon, twenty weeks away, we will meet this other little blessing who is moving around inside of me. I can feel her move a lot which I find comforting and connecting. We've even seen a few movements from the outside, which seems really early. The past week my belly has grown significantly and I'll end with a mirror shot of me at 20 weeks.