Baby Stephens

It's true! We are expecting! We could not be more excited to welcome our little baby into the world April 2020. We have been praying for this baby since before we even started trying to start a family and the Lord has already blessed this child in tremendous ways. There is already a whole lot of people excited to meet baby Stephens.

Our first trimester journey has been a crazy one filled with lots of celebrating. It feels like one party after another as we get to tell all our family and close friends. The first person I told was Dan, of course! I found out on Saturday evening, August 17, but we had company in town and I didn't want to tell him with people around..so I waited until Sunday afternoon when we had our home to ourselves again. I surprised him with a couple gifts and told them they were first day of school presents since second year of PT school started on that Monday. He wasn't suspicious that way. He opened the gift containing a "Dad Bod" t-shirt, a sweet baby outfit, the pregnancy test and a kids meal from McDonalds. He read his shirt and knew before even seeing the other things. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way to get to share that special moment with just him. We sat for hours taking it all in and saying lots of thank you prayers.

About a week later we kicked off the celebrating by sharing the news! We started with my parents and siblings by taking a trip to Nebraska over Labor Day weekend. They were thrilled and we had to make a few shopping trips into Lincoln so we could buy baby things without small town Seward finding out! It was a blast and we left Nebraska with the tiniest pair of jeans I have ever seen in my life and they are going to look so precious on our little babe.

The next trip was to Kansas City to tell Dan's parents and siblings. We decided to make the announcement a little more unexpected so I wrote a phrase on every single card in a brand new deck. We decided to play No Peeky and as everyone flipped over their first two cards, they saw fun phrases written on each card. To give you an idea, I wrote things like "coming soon", "Aunt Beth", "Grandpa Stephens", etc. They were all so excited and didn't see it coming at all, which made the reactions even better!

So far, everyone is beyond excited and have had the most genuine and heartfelt reactions to our news! Screaming and jumping has been a common reaction. My sister, Joelle, just cried and cried and couldn't stop. My Grandma said it was the best day ever. My brother, David, was in shock and looked confused for a while. My mom and dad couldn't stop hugging me and the baby. Our closest friends prayed over us and our baby after we told them and it was the coolest thing. We already feel so much love and it makes me an emotional mess, let's be honest.

So getting into the first trimester fun, all is going well. I feel nauseous all the time, but that is just how my body is reacting to this new adventure of creating a human being so I will just have to go with the flow on that. Dan is the best husband and lets me be tired and helps me get things done around the house. I don't know what I would do in this process without him. The hardest things for me, more than feeling sick all the time, has been my energy level. I know this time in the pregnancy is compared to running marathon after marathon, but I'm just sitting here and feel pathetic for how low my energy and motivation is. If you know me, I am a very motivated and productive person so this is cramping my style. But it's worth it and I know I will get some energy back.

We had our first OB appointment and saw baby on the sonogram. We even saw the heartbeat! At 7 weeks our baby has a heartbeat and we just can't believe it. All is good and baby is healthy!

JoyFully His,
Helena