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Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Thoughts on our little girl...

This is my favorite picture, because it reminds me when we found out.  Girl?  Really?  Shock and excitement :)

When we were in the ultrasound room 5 weeks ago (has it already been 5 weeks???)… Andrew and I were so excited.

So much anticipation leading to that moment.

Anatomy scan to find out the development of our little NOLA baby. And then of course to out the answer to the question everyone had been asking us since day one… boy or girl?

Andrew was so sure baby S was going to be a boy, and I have to admit, I always thought I would have boys. I think something about both of us growing up with brothers made us feel like having a boy would feel normal. As we got closer to the ultrasound I became more and more unsure of the prediction.

That day, we got to the ultrasound room. The technician asked if we were ready to know… and I said wait, I haven’t even heard the heartbeat yet. So to build the suspense some more I made her show us that baby was healthy with a beating heart before we found out. Then she said, “It’s a girl.” And I think Andrew’s response was, “A Girl???” Now I assure you this shock was out of disappointment, but out of surprise. He was really so sure it was going to be a boy… lol.

So since then we have had so many thoughts about this precious little girl that we have named Bailey Drew. I don’t think Andrew has written for the blog before… so this is exciting!

Thoughts from Andrew:

My first thought was total shock. I was almost 100% sure that we were having a boy for some reason that I just had to ask her again if I had heard her right. After a minute of letting the realization sink in, I felt two very strong emotions: excitement and nervousness. Excitement because I am ecstatic about experiencing having a little baby girl to care for and look after. I never had a sister so this is my first experience with a baby girl and I can't wait to know the love a father has for his daughter.


I also felt a a lot of nervousness. I am afraid of raising my daughter in a world where she will experience pain and hurt. Where she will have times when she is afraid and vulnerable and when I will be powerless to help her. Many of my friends know that I am protective of the people I love, so knowing all of this causes a feeling of uneasiness to creep into my mind. Also, I don't know a thing about Barbie or American dolls (which are popular apparently?). I've never done little girl things and I have no clue how to raise a girl in a way that honors the Lord. All of these things cause me to doubt myself and my ability to be a good father to my daughter.

However, I know without a doubt that God will give me the wisdom to lovingly raise a God-fearing daughter. With each passing day I grow more and more excited to meet my little girl. I will probably always experience some fear and uneasiness just like any other parent, but I look forward to watching Bailey Drew grow in the Lord alongside my best friend, Stasia.

Thoughts from Stasia:


This may be silly, but one of my first thoughts was that I am just not that girly. It may have come form growing up with brothers; I was always the girl playing football at recess with the boys. I have come a long way in terms of my “girliness,” but I would still rather toss the football outside than chill in the kitchen. This sounds silly but I worried that my lack of girliness be a detriment to our little girl. As I prayed through this idea of being a mother to a little girl, it was more about teaching our daughter about being a godly woman than about whether I could teach her to be “girly” enough. So my prayer for each day is that I can become more like Christ, so I can be a Proverbs 31 woman and pass that to our daughter.

The second thought that plagued buy thoughts, and honestly still does is this idea of a mother-daughter relationship. For some reason the mother-son relationship does not scare me as much as the mother-daughter relationship. It probably should, but it doesn’t. Maybe it is because I am a girl and I know the ups and downs of a mother-daughter relationship. I know how hard it can be. This all hit me as I was driving around running errands for our gender reveal party thinking about our little girl. To be honest I was brought to tears as I though about how much I longed to have a positive relationship with our daughter. How do I become one of those mothers who is a mother and friend? One that as my daughter grows will come to for advise? Nurturing this relationship just scares me! And I am just brought to my knees about it, that God will help us build a relationship that is healthy and glorifying to Him.

So after all of that, my honest concerns, my heart is SO excited to meet Bailey Drew in March, to have this journey with our little girl that we already love so much!



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2 comments:

  1. I loved this post, and I know what you mean about not being a "girly" girl. Congrats Stasia!

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  2. Oh Stasia! You guys are going to be the best parents. I'm pretty sure that no matter how prepared (or unprepared) we feel about any parenting circumstance... we basically clueless! So thankful we serve a God with enough grace to make up for every parenting shortcoming we will inevitably face. It is so so apparent that you will be terrific shepherds of your baby girl based on all the love you already have for her!!! She is blessed to be entrusted to you and Andrew :)

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