It’s amazing that it has already been almost 24 weeks! 19 weeks ago we found out that Melissa was pregnant and our lives were turned upside down.

Let me catch you up on what has been happening so far.

Re-wind to sometime in late-December. Melissa and I were enjoying a relaxing time “house-sitting” my folk’s home in Monument. Without going into the details, we had a pregnancy “scare”. I say “scare” because the sudden possibility of being pregnant when you’re completely not trying or expecting it can be very disconcerting. Well, as it turned out, a few days later we confirmed that my lovely wife was not with child. At first, it was a sigh of relief… but something had been “birthed” (forgive the use of the word) in us and both of us felt disappointed that she had not in fact, been pregnant.

We began to really talk about it and decided that maybe we did want to be parents now and so after having stopped using any form of birth control when we thought she was pregnant, Missy and I started to actively try.  When the next month rolled around and she had not become pregnant, there was a mixture of relief and disappointment. I, for one, was disappointed because I had gotten so worked up and excited about the possibility of being a daddy that I didn’t stop to think about how Missy was feeling. She actually had come to the place of not feeling ready again. After a few days of not fully understanding each other, we both agreed that we would wait until the next fall and then begin talking about starting a family.

Now, during this time, and in fact, before we had suspected a pregnancy in December, our friends Alejandro and Renee (click for their blog), had gotten pregnant. This excitement is what initially got us hyped up about getting pregnant ourselves. Well, after we found out that we were not pregnant, we had talked with them about their choice of using “Natural Family Planning” which is a fully natural way of preventing (or trying if the case may be) pregnancy. We both adopted this method full heartedly because we loved how much better Melissa felt not being on the pill. We began to follow the system religiously and it worked for a couple months.

In late February, we flew to the East Coast for a wedding that I was in for my friend Seth. During the final days of that trip and especially during the return flight home, Melissa started to experience bizarre jaw and tooth pain. Without going into another full story, we wound up in the ER on the way back from the airport because of the severity of the pain. Melissa likened the pain to someone stabbing hot needles through her teeth and into her jaw.  After seeing a specialist, he quickly remedied the problem with a simple mouth piece…. but not before the incredible stress of the pain threw off the cycle…

In the final week of March, 2009, Melissa and I were in the heat of home shopping. We had decided it was time to move out of our town home and into a “real” home. After searching for a week or so, we happened on an amazing deal of a house. It was placed on the market on the same day we went to view it. We liked loved it! We decided right there and then that we were going to put an offer in on the house. We knew we had until the morning and so we left and headed home to pray and believe that God would confirm our choice.

Melissa had been thinking there was a chance she was pregnant for a few days.  After we got home that night she kept saying, “Honey, what if I’m pregnant? I don’t know if we can buy a house right now until we know.” See, Melissa wants to be a stay-at-home mom, and not only respecting that wish, but also desiring the same, we knew that my income alone would not be enough to safely purchase a home of the caliber we were planning on. So we prayed about it and went to sleep both feeling uneasy.

The next morning I asked Missy to take a pregnancy test. I expected it to be negative as the previous tests had been. When I heard a “Holy Crap!” exclamation from the bathroom, I sat up out of bed and suddenly, I knew. She wouldn’t play around, she was pregnant. I walked into the bathroom and put my arms around her saying something like “This is a good thing honey” while in complete shock myself.

Wow, how do you describe the feeling of being totally caught by surprise, especially after you had already been through the shock initially just a few months before?  Well, it’s hard to explain. In the coming days, I’ll elaborate more of my side of the story of how I’ve felt and the ups and downs.

It’s interesting though… how one thing I had really wanted was for God to decide when our first baby comes. I didn’t want to be the one to say “ok, now we’re ready!”. I mean, how do you do that? I bow to those who have done that, but seriously, I still feel like a kid myself most days, so who am I to say I’m ready. Well, God apparently took matters into His so very capable hands and decided for us. Thank God! I don’t for a moment regret that this has happened! It’s a miracle and a gift from Almighty God. Was it a shock to my system? Yes. Have I doubted myself and my ability and potential to be a good father and provider? Yes, every day. But I know that not only is God in control, but that this little boy named Caleb Joshua will be the perfect gift from God. Not that he will be perfect, but that we know God’s timing was perfect.

Am I ready? Some days it doesn’t feel like it. But God knew what he was doing and I’ll trust him ANY day over myself.

A David Psalm (Psalm 139 – The Message)

^1-6 God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand.
I’m an open book to you;
even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
I’m never out of your sight.
You know everything I’m going to say
before I start the first sentence.
I look behind me and you’re there,
then up ahead and you’re there, too—
your reassuring presence, coming and going.
This is too much, too wonderful—
I can’t take it all in!

^7-12 Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?
to be out of your sight?
If I climb to the sky, you’re there!
If I go underground, you’re there!
If I flew on morning’s wings
to the far western horizon,
You’d find me in a minute—
you’re already there waiting!
Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark!
At night I’m immersed in the light!”
It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you;
night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you.

^13-16 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I’d even lived one day.

^17-22 Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!
God, I’ll never comprehend them!
I couldn’t even begin to count them—
any more than I could count the sand of the sea.
Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!
And please, God, do away with wickedness for good!
And you murderers—out of here!—
all the men and women who belittle you, God,
infatuated with cheap god-imitations.
See how I hate those who hate you, God,
see how I loathe all this godless arrogance;
I hate it with pure, unadulterated hatred.
Your enemies are my enemies!

^23-24 Investigate my life, O God,
find out everything about me;
Cross-examine and test me,
get a clear picture of what I’m about;
See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong—
then guide me on the road to eternal life.