Baby Justus #2 is a....

Wednesday, March 28th, Brandon and I had our 18 week anatomy scan for Baby #2. Everything checked out wonderfully! The brain, kidneys, heart, arms, legs, all ten fingers (okay eight fingers and two thumbs) and ten toes, absolutely everything looked perfect!! It is so wonderful to be able to see everything so clearly on the ultrasounds; how anyone can say this child growing inside me is not a human I'll never understand! God is the ultimate creator and He has created a perfect baby for us.

Friday, April 6th, I let my students make their predictions for Baby #2. They all begged me to just go ahead and tell them. "We won't tell anyone, we promise!" Most of them are pretty excited to know, but a few high school students don't seem to get excited about anything at school. Most of them shared their reasons for why they picked GIRL or BOY. "You've acted so different this pregnancy (side note: I started school at 18 weeks pregnant with John Charles, so they didn't see this early part of that pregnancy the first time), so it has to be a girl!" "You already have a boy and families always have two boys." "I want it to be a girl, so that's what I'm putting." "I want it to be a boy, so I'm putting girl to maybe change the odds." I had a few students that wanted to write their names in both boxes, because "I think you're going to actually have a set of boy/girl twins." 

the student predictions

Saturday, April 7th, we had a small celebration with our families to share our exciting news!

We are so excited to announce Baby Justus #2 is a GIRL!!!

While it took us several months to finally choose our son's name, Brandon and I knew going into the ultrasound appointment, if it was a girl, we would name her Jillian Claire Justus. We are already so in love and can't wait to meet sweet Jillian in just 20 weeks!

At my 15 week appointment, the nurse couldn't find the heart beat on the Doppler. It didn't worry me because that had happened twice with John Charles. However, when Dr. Wilson couldn't find the heart beat, my own heart began beating a little more quickly. He calmly got out the ultrasound machine to get a look at the baby, where we were able to see the squirmy little one! He asked if I wanted him to take a peak and try to make a prediction "but you can't tell anyone if I'm wrong!" I agreed, so we got to check. Dr. Wilson said he thought girl; I agreed with what he saw, based on what we saw from John Charles's ultrasound.

When the ultrasound technician said that this baby was for sure a girl, I was a bit surprised, but excited, too. After having my sweet boy, I had prepared myself that I may always be only a boy mom and never have a daughter, just to try to keep myself from becoming disappointed if I never had a baby girl. To have dreams of a daughter thrust back into my future all at once was a bit overwhelming. Brandon had that sweet, excited smile of his all over his face immediately. Of course, when we saw Dr. Wilson a few minutes later he wanted to know "what do I do with a girl??" Dr. Wilson, having only two boys, told him he had no clue himself!! We are thrilled to have a baby girl on the way. We would ask that you pray she continues to develop properly and that everything with this pregnancy continues to go well.

Third Time is Just as Nerve-racking!

Monday night (12/18), I finally got the nerve to take a test to confirm what I had suspected for the last two weeks. Before I took the test, I had considered waiting until Christmas Day to tell Brandon the wonderful news, but as I sat there watching two pink lines form in front of my eyes, I realized there was absolutely no way I would be able to contain my excitement from him.

I walked into our bedroom, where he was diligently studying for his CFP Exam and slowly slid the test over the page he was reading. His head snapped up with a look of shock and excitement immediately filling his face. “Is this real?” he wanted to know. “Yes” is all I could manage to squeak out.

For the next 30 minutes, that sweet grin never left Brandon’s face. He (of course) couldn’t study anymore and wanted to know why I decided to take the test “randomly.” Of course, it wasn’t just a random test, I explained. See, as a nursing mommy, I knew something was different at the beginning of December, but with my history, I decided to wait two weeks before putting myself through the agony of taking a pregnancy test. I also decided not to tell Brandon my suspicion, just in case I was wrong. I didn’t want to get his hopes up, only to realize I was wrong.

After having a miscarriage and then seeing a specialist, we had decided to hold off on making a decision about when to try for our next precious baby. We hadn’t really talked about when we would begin taking steps or if we would just go straight back to the specialist. We were, however, in complete agreement that we wanted another baby. Brandon literally asked me while I was still in the hospital recovering from having John Charles “when can we have another one??”  I referenced that question several times over the coming months, with the same answer from both of us “as soon as God is ready for us to have another child, we’re ready.”

Just like we know John Charles (or any child, for that matter) is a blessing from God and was given to us at the exact moment we needed him, we also know that this baby will be a blessing from God. He completely ordained everything for us, so that we did not have to worry or stress about anything with this sweet baby. He even ordained it such that I was able to confirm with blood work the very next morning that everything was on track.

Ultrasound from 2/14/2018

We are so excited to announce that Baby Justus #2 is due to arrive August 25^th, 2018!