San Antonio.

Hold on to me, as we go.

As we roll down this unfamiliar road.

And although this wave is stringing us along

Just know you're not alone

'Cause I'm gonna make this place your

Home.

--"Home"

Phillip Phillips

On a Tuesday morning, I pressed my nose to the glass cutout in our new front door.  Cars zoomed forward, then slowed as they braked for the speed bump, right in front of our house.  There was a lot of life moving around, just feet away from where I stood.  For me though, the life was foreign and felt very overwhelming.  I watched for a few minutes more, just like this.  Nose to glass, sighing every now and then.  Feeling the weight of it all.

We had rolled into San Antonio in the early evening the day before.  Ben, Caleb and Claire were ahead in the minivan while Leah, June and I followed in our white car.  It had been a long 3 day trip full of sad goodbyes, dead car batteries, washing laundry in a hotel until 2 am, and trading off sleeping sideways on a queen-sized bed next to two extremely rowdy little sleepers.  We had fun along the way though, mixed into the normal chaos.  Frozen yogurt stops, swimming, and dance parties to loud music in the car.  

I stared at the green trees lining the highway as we drove through our new city, trying hard to tell myself that one day this would all be familiar instead of new and somewhat intimidating.  As we turned onto our new street, kids playing soccer scattered out of the way of our caravan-ing cars.  This is good, I thought.  Lots of families.  

We parked in front of our new home, and I took a picture as the three oldest kids ran up the green front yard onto our porch.  Ben found the hidden key, and unlocked it.  I could hear the squeals and yells of excitement as they barreled through the entryway.  I picked up Claire from where she was waiting patiently in her car seat, handed her to Ben, and walked into our new home.  

We searched each room, noticing the size of them, the insides of the closets, the number of sinks.  It had a good feeling inside of it, with a lot of space and light.  We walked out on the back porch, and I smiled at all of the green facing us.  There were no homes behind ours, just masses of trees so thick you couldn't see through to the other side of them.  

Ben, Caleb and I unpacked our cars, and met neighbors who came outside to introduce themselves.  Our first family meal was Chick-Fil-A, eaten at 10 pm, while sitting on the floor.  Then we unrolled sleeping bags, brushed teeth, changed clothes, said a family prayer, and after finally winding down from the excitement, fell asleep. 

It has now been almost 3 weeks since the first morning we woke up in our new house, and I pressed my nose to the glass on a Tuesday.  

Some people look at a big move to a big city as a big adventure.  Ben is one of them.  I am not--but I'm trying.  I signed on to this move, with 100% support, knowing it would be difficult for my personality.  I am a lover of comfort zones, and for the past few years have felt such an intense need for setting down roots that the knowledge we are still several more years and a couple of more moves away from that makes me want to openly weep and then crawl into a hole.  And then take a big long nap.  (But that last part is irrelevant--naps always sound like a great idea, to me.)

The three weeks here have been nothing short of a little ridiculous.  The first week, Claire got a major fever, then June started up right behind her.  Soon every single one of our family was hit with some sort of a major flu bug, except for me.  June and Claire had it the worst, I have never seen June this sick.  Every night she would throw up from coughing, and her fever was 104 for 4 full days.  We had no insurance, no money, no belongings aside from one pillow and blanket for everyone, a few toys, some clothes, a couple of towels, a T.V. and a very small amount of kitchen supplies.  When June would throw up on what we had brought, we would do laundry in one of the bathroom tubs, and went without our own pillows and blankets.  

The second week, we discovered a mold problem in our master bathroom.  We're grateful they repaired it quickly, but this entire week was spent cooped up while waiting for them to finish.  Two days ago, we found a scorpion in Caleb's room.  After panicking a bit and trying to find creative ways to remove everything off of the floors we had been using as our dressers, we got a pest control company in here and bought traps.  Fingers crossed the scorpions are managed.

We are on week three now, still without our belongings.  Luckily, Ben is finally a legit member of the army, we have insurance, our friends lent us a card table, chairs, and a couple of games, June is back to her hilarious self, we were paid a portion of our move reimbursement, we are learning to live with less, and I have finally made peace with the laundromat and the homeless "regulars" who initially terrified me.  Not only that, but we've felt the love of our family and friends from far away.  They have checked in on us with phone calls, and texts, sent letters or packages...and those things have meant the absolute world to us.   

This life will take some getting used to, I know.  It will take a lot of pushing and stretching, again.  These are the parts that are uncomfortable, but bring the most growth--when I can look back at them. 

In the meantime, I'm trying to stay sane in this big, empty house that I can't feel settled into yet without our pictures and curtains and furniture.  I'm trying to get out and drive and find libraries and parks and fun things for our kids to do.  I'm trying to not let loneliness swallow me up, and walk outside to meet neighbors and make an effort.  

San Antonio is beautiful, and the people of Texas are friendly, and I'm trying.  

And it will take time.  

Halfway.

Today I lay against the crinkly tissue, which wrinkled and ripped each time I moved--even when the only movement I made was to crane my neck around to the left and steal glimpses of my children watching the screen above us glowing its fluorescent purple.  It was the first ultrasound they have been to, and will most likely be the last.

We were shown the brain, the eyes, the nose with the sinus cavities, the ears, the abdomen, the bladder, ten fingers and ten toes that continued to wiggle and wave as the probe pushed down against the cold, clear jelly on my stomach.

"The baby isth sthooooo cute!"  Leah lisped with excitement, her hands clasped together.

"Dat baby looks like it's gonna eat dat shark,"  June explained, trying to make sense of the images before her.

"Is it a boy or a girl?" was the only thing Caleb continued to ask, until the technician finally answered.

Girl!

I watched Caleb's face crumple as he brought his knees up to his chest and buried his head down.  Ben reached over and wrapped him in his arms.

"It's okay to be sad, Bud," I said gently, attempting to comfort him while he was out of my arm's reach.   The technician's eyes widened and shifted from my face over to Caleb's tears and I quietly explained, "We knew this would be hard for him, he's wanted a little brother for so long.  The good news is, wanting a little brother has never stopped him from loving his little sisters."

"He's not the first one to cry, it's usually the mom though," was her upbeat response.

We continued the rest of the anatomical exam with a more subdued mood than we had begun, but it was still miraculous to see.  There were so many parts and pieces working, dependent upon each other to connect  and form together.  The femur bones, the four heart chambers, the umbilical cord, the curved spine.  I stared at her perfect little profile and tried to visualize the movements on the screen happening inside of me at the same moment.

I have admittedly been one who stays emotionally unattached--or mentally unattached?-- during my pregnancies, which used to bother me.  I've wondered why I was not the type of woman to talk directly to my unborn child, or sing to them, or read them stories, or be able to associate my protruding stomach to a little baby actually alive inside of me, like I have heard so many do.

I've stopped being concerned with trying to be someone other than who I am, because the moment my child is placed in my arms the overwhelming love is so immediate, so thickly bound, that it feels like the missing piece of a puzzle I have been working on for 10 months is finally put in place.  My brain can suddenly compute and accept the reality of growing another little human, and the disconnected time during pregnancy washes away.

One thing that does connect me during pregnancy, is to decide on a name.   And I have, both a first and a middle name, one that jumped out at me a couple of months ago, and I haven't let go of since.  It is a sweet, peaceful name with the middle one also belonging to two women of strength in my life.  Ben isn't completely convinced yet, and this is the first time out of four that we haven't easily agreed, settling as soon as we heard the gender.

When the ultrasound was over, I met my midwife.  I've always wanted to work with a midwife, and was excited to hear at my last doctor's appointment that our insurance covered them, so I made the switch.  We spoke of what the next few months together looked like, and as she spoke, I felt a familiar feeling creep to the surface of my emotions--one I am currently digging through in therapy to continue to overcome.

Fear.

More specifically,  Fear of my own abilities and strength.  I have barreled through many other Fears the past few years, and yet somehow as the midwife spoke, I recognized this Fear as one of the most deeply-buried, intrinsically ingrained of all of them.  Working through this one will reach out and cause a shift, changing other areas of my life, I can sense it.  These next few months will be interesting--that I know--and if I can meet the hurdles I for see ahead with faith in God and my abilities, they may also become one of the most challenging and rewarding of my entire life.

My little family went to lunch together after the appointment, all five of us sitting in a rounded booth.  The girls passed the ultrasound pictures back and forth, and Caleb cheered up over his pasta and mandarin oranges.  I found myself wondering how the dynamics of another girl will alter what we have in this moment, and could tell Ben was contemplating the same.

I am almost 20 weeks along, and feel that Halfway is very much a metaphor of my life right now.  There are so many things unsettled, unfinished, unknown, waiting on one thing or another, still in Forming Mode.

Ben's need for full-time work that will make enough to support us continues, his dissertation is set to be finished (finished!  I can hardly understand this concept! ) and defended by August 20th, our house may be sold while we are renting it, beginning any time after August we could be handed a slip of paper and told to find somewhere new, Ben will begin the application for interviews again in October, and---if all goes well--leave again for the majority of December and January while I do my best to juggle a newborn and three tiny people without the support of family close by.

The unknown of all of this can feel suffocating and terrifying, if I let it.

Like the tiny body parts I watched on the screen today, these pieces of our lives are dependent upon each other in order to grow, systematically working together to create what will become Our Future.  Ben and I are doing our best to hang on,  trying not to stress over how it will all come together.

We are trusting the process we are in, trying to believe in our own abilities and strength, waiting patiently while Halfway continues to develop, in both our lives and with our baby.

crawling out.

It feels as if the last almost-four months has been dedicated to sleeping, or laying down wishing I was sleeping.  Also simultaneously wishing my olfactory system no longer worked so I wasn't constantly fighting the feeling of an impending vomit session.  I have really come to believe my highly advanced sense of smell needs to take much of the credit for the non-stop nauseousness as it kicks into overdrive when pregnancy arrives.  Why do I blame my nose?  Because around week 12, I was hit with a nasty sinus infection that lasted a total of around five days.  At that same time, I was tricked into believing the nausea was finally coming to an end.  I couldn't breathe properly whenever I lay down, but I didn't care.  I stuffed tissues up my nose and reveled in the glorious idea I was feeling human again.  Until the sinus infection was over, and suddenly it returned.  It was a mean little trick to play on me, as I felt swept back under into the darkness of exhaustion and nausea that doesn't care if it's morning, afternoon, evening, or waking me in the middle of my sleep as the sun began to rise.

I am slowly crawling out though, with one or two good days each week now.  It isn't consistent, and I can't figure out what causes the temporary relief, but have learned to just take each day as it comes.  {Otherwise I've been found to spend them feeling sorry for myself on those hard days of sickness, asking overly-dramatic and obnoxious questions like, Will this everrrrrrrr ennnnnnnddddd????}

In spite of feeling as though I've lived in a cave, life has carried on.


Before I was sick, there was Valentine's Day:

Beautiful, imaginative, emotional, soft-hearted, constantly singing and dancing Leah turned 5:

We took a real family vacation, with Andrea and her family!

Ben finished his FINAL, LAST EVER class, and celebrated with a nap on the stairs:

I took a quick trip to Vegas and Utah for a siblings weekend:

Then the sickness hit, and the next thing I could remember was my sister and her family visited over Easter weekend.  I was so sick and felt so badly I could barely get out of bed, but did manage one night to get a babysitter, go out to a fancy dinner and REALLY celebrate their company and the end of doctoral classes:

Preschool graduation:

Mother's Day:

Our awesome, energetic Caleb turned 9:

Then finished 3rd grade:

And those are the highlights!  

Ben has been the champion of champions while I've basically checked out of life,

only putting on makeup maybe once per week, and emerging from the house about the same.  

Before he started his new job, he took on kid-duty, grocery shopping,

laundry and cleaning.  Those were a couple of weeks I barely remember, but am so grateful for, 

because I'm sure he remembers them.  

Now he's working in a new job and is gone several nights a week again,

and I say a lot of prayers and honestly?  The kids watch a lot of t.v.  

I'm hoping I'm getting to the end of it though.  First trimesters are rough, what else can I say?