Oh my.

This has been the craziest two weeks. When Zac was off last week on vacation I think I mentioned that I got his horrible cold. Just as I was beginning to feel almost totally recovered from that, I got the stomach flu.

How, you ask, since the only place I went all week was to the grocery store for all of 5 minutes? Apparently I picked up probably the only stomach flu germ floating around there.

I started throwing up Wednesday night and just got worse on Friday. Lots of pain, fever, the whole deal. I even had to call Zac and ask him to come home from work on Thursday morning. That's a huge deal for me and has happened only one other time since we've had kids, I think. And it's a good thing he came because I collapsed into bed and barely got out for the next 36 hours. Ugh.

But, I am feeling much better again! At first, I was afraid I was starting to get morning sickness (but a little late because I'm almost 11 weeks pregnant). I was sort of disappointed because--knock on wood--this has been my best pregnancy yet!! I have only felt a few waves of nausea but have pretty much just carried on as normal. I haven't even felt any extra tired, which is so different than last time when I literally RAN straight to my bed as soon as I put the other boys down for their naps every day. I truly felt like someone was giving me a constant IV drip of Ambien or something. It was awful. I am embarrassed to admit that I almost fell asleep while waiting at a red light once. And this is coming from the person who normally has a hard time sleeping.

One side note, being able to nap during pregnancy is one good reason to have your kids close together. Even now all 3 boys will nap at the same time (if I plan it correctly :) and I can still manage at least an hour to myself. Nice!

Anyway, back to important things. Like vomit. I threw up most often while pregnant with Joel (for 7 months, daily) and didn't want to be pregnant ever again. It wasn't nearly as bad with Jesse, good thing because Joel was just turning one and needed lots of attention--obviously I had miraculously gotten over my fear of being pregnant again. I was reminiscing about how I would just bring him into the bathroom with me when I threw up because he thought the sound was funny and he would just giggle away. I was a fair amount sicker with Brody and ended up taking Zofran around 15 weeks because I was so tired of being sick (and I now had a one and two year old that needed their mommy to be a bit more chipper). It helped a little and the nausea really went away around 20 weeks.

I recap all of that not to bore you or completely gross you out, but to just share what a miracle it is that I have been feeling so great! Aside from the whole stomach flu and cold thing, I really don't think I'm going to have to endure the dreadfulness of what I have previously known as the first 4-5 months of pregnancy. And this friends, is truly a miracle. When I found out I was pregnant with this "surprise blessing" baby, my first two thoughts were:

What if it's another boy?!

How in the world can I endure pregnancy again, especially with a little baby still at home?

Then I just prayed. God knows all of these things and more. Even the things I hadn't thought to worry about yet. So I prayed that he would carry me through the known fears and the unknown ones too, but especially that he would show me mercy over the upcoming months of pregnancy. And he graciously has. Wow!