Pregnant Life Lately

Wow. I am insanely bad about updating this thing.  Prepare yourself for a lengthy post!

Let's see...I am 23 weeks pregnant now and time is flying by faster than I can comprehend. We are having a baby GIRL! Her name is Celia "Celie" Raye Lipscomb. For those of you who don't know how to pronounce Celia or Celie: Seelyah or Seeleigh (or like Sealy if that makes more sense). ;)

We had our middle name, Raye, set all along. Raye is my grandmother's middle name. I never got to meet her, but I'm thrilled to carry on a part of her with our little Celie. If we had a boy, we would have chosen David as a middle name to honor DJ's dad. Celia just came to us one day. I kept going back to Celie, but saw it more as a nickname. I know you mom's understand, but when you hear your baby's name, you just know. In the same way that my heart quickly knew that DJ would be my husband, in fact!

This pregnancy has been similiar to my pregnancy with Penelope, but there are a few differences:

-I am craving tomatoes. Seriously, I would drink salsa right now if it were socially acceptable.
-My emotions are way more balanced this time around. I've only had a few of those "hormonal moments" where DJ looks at me like, "Who are you and what have you done with my wife?" Hopefully, I can carry on with this stable mood for the rest of my pregnancy.
-My belly is oh so tired from carting my other baby around when we go out. She's a heavy little thing so I'm trying to be more open to letting her walk around whenever we go somewhere.

Monday night, I started having consistent contractions that I had just barely noticed throughout the day. By dinner time I was really noticing them as they were getting more painful. I tried taking a bath, drinking a boat-load of water, but nothing seemed to help. I called my OB and she instructed me to drink 1 more liter of water and rest in a dark room for 1 hour. She said that if they weren't stopping at that point I would need to come to the hospital. At this point, my contractions were 10-20 min apart! Obviously, I was freaking out because I was only 22 weeks pregnant. After about an hour, my contractions eased up and faded away. I want to thank all of you again who prayed for me during that time. I can't tell you what it feels like to have the support of other mamas who have walked this journey before. I'm so glad I don't have to do this alone!

Other than that, this has been a smooth pregnancy. I am still battling with morning sickness, but that is the name of the game for me. I felt like I was going to be sick every single day with Penelope. I'm just keeping my eyes on the prize. My Celia Raye will be here before I know it and I'll forget all about the puking, right? :)

I find myself daydreaming a lot about what my sweet girl will look like. What kind of personality she will have. What Penelope will think of her. I can't wait for the delivery. Other than the kicks, labor and delivery was my FAVORITE part of pregnancy. All of this anticipation and waiting...and then it's finally time. Ahh! I get teary eyed just thinking about it.

I checked into the hospital with Penelope right before noon and had her a little after 5. I only pushed for 10 min with her so my biggest fear is that we won't make it to the hospital in time! Don't they say you deliver faster your second time around??? I'll probably be hovering around Baptist Hospital come August. ;)

Man, I just can't get over how blessed we are to have this family. I am often overwhelmed with gratitude for everything that's been given to us after so much was taken away. In the same way, I have these moments where I picture how David would have interacted with Penelope. Oh man, he would have had a ball with that little girl. I would give anything to have those moments. Sometimes it hits me that he's really gone and I can't help but wonder why this happened to our family.  We miss him so much.

I should probably stop here. I promise I'll update more so these entries aren't so long! :)