14 weeks and a bag of prunes

14 weeks today… It still seems unbelievable that I have a new life growing inside of me. The physical changes aside, I don’t feel any different.

Still, the books say that by now the baby’s “pieces and parts” should all be in place – the cells have all differentiated and the little one already has everything you can see on your own body – from fingernails to its first hairs. The body is now growing faster than the head. The heart has been beating for weeks. The baby makes random movements that I cannot yet feel, and is swallowing amniotic fluid and peeing it out again. For the next 26 weeks, the baby will grow in size and the massive neural network will make all of the necessary connections. Last but not least, the lungs and other organs will mature and prepare themselves to function “out in the world”.

A few weeks ago, Lucas sat on my lap and told me he was very worried about something and needed to ask me about it. Then he said, “Mommy, what if something is wrong with the baby?” “Like what?” I said. “Like maybe its heart won’t work right.” “Well,” I responded, wondering with amazement at the depth of this child’s thought process, “hopefully the doctors would find out about it right away and fix it.” “What if they make it worse?” he said.

I decided to try a different tactic, which I think was more successful. I explained to my lovely son that I thought it would be better for the baby if he tried to think positive thoughts. I told him that I could not promise him that the baby will be perfect. I explained to him that if something turns out to be wrong, he would be able to say I was a liar if I told him now that there would not be. I said that sometimes God decides to share special children with special needs with the world, and these children need special homes. If we have such a child, we would be blessed to have the opportunity to raise him or her and spend time with that person. He seemed quite content with the answer.

Wow, that was heavy! A big change from the “how is the baby getting built in there?” discussion.

So, here I sit, happy that it’s Friday and happy that spring is filling the air with warmth and our house with Easter decorations. I believe today will be the last day until at least Christmas that I’ll be able to wear these jeans. Next week I’ll have to search for something a bit more comfortable, but I don’t want to end up feeling dowdy and old. I want to be that beautiful, glowing pregnant woman people are always talking about…. (HA – THAT would be a first!)

In the meantime, I’ll try to find some recent photos of the boys…. I want to include them here too!

Have a terrific day!

A sigh of relief and a glimpse of a miracle

Dear family and friends,

Welcome to our blog. We plan to share the lastest news from our side of the globe with you here, as well as photos, updates, and just our general thoughts. At the end of every post, there is a place you can click to write your comments, thoughts and jokes of the day.

So let's get started....

We have waited many weeks to be able to share today's news with you -- each and every one of you holds a special place in our hearts and in our lives. For that reason, we are so happy to introduce you to the person who (we pray) will be joining our family somewhere around September 29...

The picture is a bit blurry, but that's mostly because right now the baby is only 6 cm long. During this morning's scan, we could see hands, facial features, legs, head, etc. It was an amazing, moving experience and we're just so blessed and happy that the technician could see no problems at this point.


The details:

• I am 12 and a half weeks pregnant.
• One of my very best friends at the moment is the toilet bowl and has been for about 7 weeks.
• This morning's scan was part of an analysis to determine the risk for Downe's Syndrome. Based on the test results, the baby's risk is 1 in 1,063. Without the test, the average risk for babies born to women my age is 1 in 246.
• The boys were thrilled. Matt wants a girl and feels we should have ordered one. Lucas just wants the baby to be healthy and is very concerned about whether God is putting the pieces together in the right order.

That's about it for now. Keep checking back. We want to keep this blog as a record of the coming months and years of events, thoughts and news in our family.


All our love,


The Pedersen's

A note to an Aunt and Uncle

Dear Kathi and Tim --

Well, it's time for you to know as well.... please read on below.

Hugs to all of you!

love,

Us

Looking towards the future....

Hi Mom and Dad!

We hope that you are enjoying your trip to Branson.... Are you curious as to what is going on? Why in the world do you have to look at this website? What kind of crazy thing is Tina up to now?

Well, we have some news to share and we wanted to do it in a special, more memorable way than a simple phone call. So we looked into all kind of things -- candy with funny labels, event tickets inviting you to the party, or something else like that. We decided on a website for several reasons -- first of all, we can use this from now on to share news with you and photos too. Second, you can share the web address with whomever you like.

So here's the big question....

How about a trip to Sweden in October????

On January 19th, something happened.... and here it is:

You see, rumor has it that the next member of your family will be born in October, if all goes well and if we remain as blessed as we have been the past 12 weeks. We thought you might want to meet your new grandchild... the 7th in a row of grandchildren produced all over the world.

OK, now the tears are pouring down my face. You have no idea how hard it has been to keep this a secret from you for the past many weeks... But now it is a secret no more!!!! Yeah!!! Yipee!!!!

We go for our first ultrasound on Tuesday (March 20th). Well, it's not really the first one -- the gyne did a quick scan 5 days after we had a positive result, but this will be the first "real" scan.

All our love,

The Mom and Dad to be