Baby McDaniel #2

Now that the post I was avoiding writing is out of the way, I can write about the most exciting thing coming up for the McDaniels - baby #2!  I'll just answer a few questions that I've been getting.

How far along are you? I am 16 weeks into this pregnancy!

What’s your due date? Baby is due February 12th.

Will you find out what you are having? Our ultrasound will be at 20 weeks, which is September 25th, and we are planning to find out the gender then if all goes well (but we may not announce it immediately).  

Do you have names figured out? We haven’t talked about names much at all.  We probably won't discuss them until after we find out the gender.  With Aynsley, we incorporated a family name from my side (my grandmother's name is Patricia, which is also my mother's middle name and my middle name).  My hope is that we can incorporate a family name from Matt's side for this baby.

Will you still watch Gwen?  And other kids? I am planning to keep watching kiddos!  It makes my life easier.  I can't imagine not having Gwen here; I don't think I'll ever let her go to pre-school.

How have you been feeling? I am one lucky pregnant lady.  I felt good from beginning to end with Aynsley, my only complaints (pretty mild!) being some heartburn and back pain (although Matt and my close friends may remember a few other things).  Honestly, I could have gone another week before Aynsley's arrival because I felt so great (maybe because I was expecting to feel so awful?).  

With this pregnancy, I've felt very similar.  Several days of nausea but no actual sickness, several days of being picky about food, and a strong dislike for a cup of coffee with creamer.  This baby likes the fancy coffee - something from Starbucks or Coffee Crossing is perfect, but a regular cup of joe from the home coffeepot is a no-no.  Today is the first day that I drank an entire cup of regular coffee at home!  Finally!

Will you attempt a VBAC?  You may remember that, after 6 hours of laboring at home, Matt and I found out that I was 9 cm and I was feeling ready to push when we arrived at the hospital...And then we found out that Aynsley was breech.  We won't ever know when Aynsley moved - several midwives believed her to be head-down up until delivery.  So I went through a c-section unexpectedly.  For those of you who don't know, VBAC stands for Vaginal Birth After Cesarian.  The first thing my operating doctor told me after delivery was that I had every hope for a successful VBAC next time around.  Something about the type of incision and my healing, maybe?  Two midwives have several times told me that I'm a great candidate for VBAC, and we want a big family, so I'm definitely going to attempt a VBAC.  

This does change things for my prenatal care, though.  I think I'm listed as high-risk on some of the paperwork at the office (but maybe I would be either way I chose to deliver?).  I have to meet with a doctor in the office (where I go, the staff is made up of several doctors as well as several midwives) to get "approved" for a VBAC (no idea what this will mean - my incision scar has faded, so maybe the doctor will just review my case and discuss the risks with me?).  Also, I'll have an additional ultrasound around 36 weeks to check on baby's position (with low-risk prenatal care provided by my midwives, one ultrasound to check for anatomy at 20 weeks is typical, so that's all we had with Aynsley).  Of course, an ultrasound that near to the end of the pregnancy doesn't guarantee anything, but it'll be nice to have another quick look at our baby then.

If attempts at a VBAC are unsuccessful, then another c-section will be fine.  Honestly, my only real concern with having multiple c-sections is that I'm afraid I will feel limited in how many kids we can have.  My recovery after the c-section with Aynsley was amazing - after the initial medication wore off, I took Ibuprofen before bed one night in the hospital and that was it.  I took home my prescription paper and wrote a to-do list on it!  I was never in pain, just uncomfortable, and I didn't want to take medicine just because of that.  So if I have to have another c-section, I have every expectation that it'll be okay.

So thank you for all of the prayers, congratulations, and well wishes that everyone has sent our way!  It's kind of funny how many people weren't too surprised by our news - many of our friends and family members know that we want a big family (and I'm not getting any younger!), so it was kind of expected that we wouldn't be waiting too long to keep adding to the family.  We can't wait to have another wonderful blessing in the family!

The Post I've Been Avoiding...

I've TOTALLY been avoiding this blog.  It's been quite awhile since I posted and a lot has happened since then.  I'll have days where I have time to write a post but I'll find something else to do instead.  Day after day after day after day...Maybe I thought that by writing about what's been going on over the last several months, I'd really have to deal with it and work through it.

Many of you probably know that Matt and I have been very involved in our church since we moved here.  We started attending shortly after we got married and, even though we didn't love everything about it (obviously!), we made some great friendships and kept attending, even becoming members before long.  I immediately joined the worship team and got involved with children's ministries (two things I'm a part of almost five years later!) and I even worked as the office manager there for more than a year, as well as became a wedding facilitator for the church (something that I still do and that I love).  Matt has been a part of many of the men's ministries activities and is even a member of the church board now, along with being the head usher for the service that we attend.

When we started at the church, the pastor had been there for several (um, almost 30) years.  He moved onto another position within the denomination and we found a new pastor after a few months.  A lot of staff changes went on over time, but an amazing team was put in place.  I loved absolutely every member of the staff and the way that ministry was moving - it truly seemed like what God makes clear in the Bible that His church should be doing.  I was so excited and happy to go to church on Sunday mornings.  If you know me well, you probably know that I've enjoyed church and related activities pretty well since I became confirmed in the Catholic church and then started high school shortly thereafter (I've been involved in children's ministries for about fifteen years?  Can I be that old?).

Fast forward to the last few months, which have involved Saturday nights of dreading Sunday mornings, breakdowns in the church bathroom, falling apart as I'm doing announcements in the service, etc.  It's been rough.

I won't go into all the drama that still angers me and hurts me and breaks my heart every single time I think about it, but the pastor left and, within a few months, so did the rest of the staff.  Including two of my best friends (if you know me well, they're the ones with the four boys, as I always say).

Doing all the same Sunday morning things without them felt...weird.  Wrong.  Off.  And maybe that sounds like I wasn't doing it for God, but I don't think that was it.  The situation was messed up (to say the very least) and people left when they shouldn't have had to leave.  I know that since the church is made of people, it isn't perfect, blah blah blah.  But when you know that people are supposed to be leaders of a church, they are supposed to have a relationship with Christ, and they are supposed to make decisions based on what God wants, you expect more than that.  And maybe that sounds judgmental, but the words spoken about others that I heard with my own ears and that attitudes and looks and so on...Those were not based on Jesus.  And I couldn't believe the things that I heard leaders in my church say, the attitudes that they had, the rudeness...It almost became too much.  I just didn't want to be at church, and I have never felt like that (well, maybe when I was little and the promise of a treat if I was good worked like a charm).

Anyway, it's...okay now.  Things aren't perfect, of course, and I know that they never will be, but I'm not sure that I'll ever be able to walk into that church again without my heart breaking a little bit.  To know what was and what could have been...It shouldn't have happened the way it did, and I'm so hurt for the people who were treated the way that they were.  They've all moved on to different ministries that seem pretty perfect for each of them, and I'm happy that they're happy.  But, oh, to have them back and to be able to do the work that God was calling us to do...

There are so many more emotions that I could go through but this will probably be all that I post about it because it's still, months later, so raw.  Maybe because I had friends on staff and a husband on the board that I felt it more personally and knew more than some of the other congregants, this was really a rough time for me.  It's definitely getting better, but it just makes me long for heaven, where things will be perfect and the silly things won't matter.

For those of you who have been praying for me on this journey, thank you.  I still need prayers if you're still willing to send them up.