22 weeks

Si seems to be doing great! It is really fun to talk, sing and read to him. My mother and sister are so great at making up songs....that must be a learned skill that you develop with motherhood because I am a little rusty in the creativity department! I'll keep practicing.

We also got news the other day that "the ultrasound pictures were not clear enough" (says my nurse) and we need to go back (on April 13) for another altrasound. A little ensettling, but she assured us that there was nothing that they saw that was cause for concern, rather they just didn't get good enough pictures (maybe due to his position during the last ultrasound). Part of me is excited to get to see him again, but it is also unnerving to hear about anything even slightly out of the ordinary. I'll keep you posted.

I just copied one of the email updates I get each week so you could see baby's progress during week 22! We're flying here! I will try to copy one of these each week so you can follow along with me. The picture is always kind of cute.

Week 22: Get Moving--No ExcusesYour Week-by-Week Guide to Pregnancy --

By BabyFit

Your Baby This Week You and baby are both eager to meet each other! Your baby is kicking up a storm, and you feel like you're getting bigger every day. Your baby weighs more than 12 ounces (.35 kg) and is more than 7 inches (18 cm) long! Baby's eyelids and eyebrows have developed and her muscles are growing stronger--something you can feel by the strength of the movement in your tummy! Your baby is probably moving more regularly now-not just once in a while!

After birth, she'll recognize the songs you sing or play for her now, resulting in a soothing effect.Your Body This Week Although your tummy is growing, you should still feel comfortable and energetic enough to bend over easily and move around.

If you are feeling exceptionally tired, make certain to get a blood test for anemia, which is common during pregnancy. Time for a Nutrition Check-up You've recently passed the halfway point of your pregnancy, so the day you set your nutritional and health goals may seem like a long time ago. How well are you acquainted with your good intentions? As we settle back down into personal everyday routines, falling back into some old habits can be easy, painless and even without recognition. Think about or dig up your initial nutrition goals. What has been easy? A challenge? Something you forgot to try? A change you didn't like or couldn't keep for very long? One way to test of how well you're sticking with your program is by comparing some healthy snack rehab ideas.

Your Best Excuse Not To Exercise Excuses. When it comes to exercise, they're as varied as the individuals who voice them. Lost interest. Lost my workout buddy. Lost my motivation. Lost directions to the gym. Lost my shoes. But one excuse is pretty universal among most--no time! In our frenzied way of thinking, one of the hardest concepts to understand is that taking time to exercise has such an impact on the rest of your life that it can actually save you time. More energy, clearer thinking, more endurance--these are all things that can help you take care of the rest of the day more efficiently. No more excuses. Check out this collection of ways to be inefficient on purpose.

Josiah David Fields

We finally have decided on the perfect name for our son. We are very excited to announce that Josiah is doing well and really starting to kick up a storm. As you may remember Caleb and I were having a terrible time deciding on a name. We went round and round with many possibilities and wanted to share with you not only our decision (which we think is final but of course, always subject to change) but also the reason for our decision and the meaning behind the name Josiah.

Josiah literally means "Fire of God". So, come on, how cool is that!? We could have stopped there, but the actual reason we chose the name is because of who the person Josiah was in the Bible. Feel free to read all about our inspiration starting around 2 Kings 22. Some of you may know that there were a long line of Kings who ruled both Judah and Israel throughout history. In the beginning Judah and Israel were united and there was a King who ruled the entire nation. Those Kings were Saul, David and then Solomon. After those first 3 kings, the kingdoms were seperated and seperate kings ruled the two territories. Well, many generations passed and there was never, ever a good king in Israel and in the whole history there were only recorded to have ever been 4 good kings in Judah. Josiah was one of those good kings.

Josiah was the son of a very evil king. His father died and Josiah became king of Judah when he was just 8 years old. Even from that early age, he was a very good and faithful king. At the age of 25, Josiah initiated total reform of Judah and reintroduced the scriptures to the people of Judah. He took down all the objects of pagan worship that other generations had errected and he completely brought the entire nation back to the Lord. Until that time, the scriptures had been completely lost, but Josiah found a copy of what is probably the book of Deuteronomy and had it read to all the people. He reestablished scripture as the cornerstone of what people should base their life on. We see Josiah, today as being a man of faith, wisdom, obedience and most of all, an incredible passion to serve God.

It is so obvious when you read the bible that names are so important to God. The Lord often gave a new name to a person to reflect their character or a specific role He was calling them too. Also, all throughout scripture, the meaning of names are given to help you understand the significance of the person that is being talked about. For our son, we wanted to honor how much God cares about the meaning of a name and we wanted to honor our son by giving him a name that represents the character that we are praying that he posess. We plan to raise him to love the Lord and to serve Him and we especially love that Josiah of the bible loved God and remained faithful from the time he was a small child. We are believing that our Josiah will also become a faithful man of God who is a reformer and a leader.

So there you have it! Thus the reason for naming him what most of our youth think is "weird". I have been using the nickname "Si" a lot when I talk to him (No "Joe" please).

David (our choice for the middle name) was also a king (and also a very good king) but rather than having a fixation with royalty, we just thought David sounded good with Josiah. What do you think?

So...a bible lesson and homework assignment had the makings of a pretty boring post, so I thougth I should at least put some pictures in here and talk about what else is going on in life. (Not that anything is more important than what is going on in the bible!) Here is a picture of the first little shirt Caleb and I bought Si. We had mistakenly been under the impression that there were no cute boy clothes out there, but we are starting to come around. I know this hoodie isn't very "AZ" but hopefully it will get some good wear when we are home for Christmas.

Here is another updated belly-pic. Getting bigger! I promised myself and most of my friends that I was not going to be a complainer after all we went through to get pregnant in the first place. I truely am so thankful for the breeze of a pregnancy I have had and the incredible joy I feel for getting the privilage of experiencing it. However....due to Caleb's back problem we have a very firm matress which is totally fine with me (although pregnant or not, I would prefer to sleep on a soft fluffy cloud anyday)! but now that I am pregnant is it okay to complain about the fact that my hips are soooo sore!? Firm matress was fine when I could sleep on my stomach or back but now with only the sides as options, it has been pretty hard to sleep. I even tried sleeping in the guest room last night (mmmm...remember my college bed, Laura? Didn't you want to sleep forever on that fluffy cloud!?) So I slept there for one night, but missed Caleb too much so I won't be doing that again. It was a nice break for my hips but who wants to sleep alone? Actually it was really not even a better night sleep due to the printer noises and water heater turning on, not to mention the few glow in the dark stars that still remain on the ceiling from the last homeowners. Printer noises? you might ask... my printer started making noises in the middle of the night. I woke up and almost became convinced that it was going to feed the paper and print me some creepy ghost message, but thankfully it stopped short of a terrible horror film I'm sure someone's made. I guess we have a few modifications to make before the guest room/office will be guest ready. Sorry to all of you who've already had to endure the stars.

IT'S A BOY!!!!

I didn't want anyone to miss my story about finding out because they were trying to scan the blog to find out, so I decided to just lay the good news out there in the beginning! After almost 20 weeks of calling baby he/she we finally have our answer! And we couldn't be happier! As my father stated when we told him...we are really just concerned about his health and would be so happy with a boy or a girl...but a BOY is just a little bit BETTER!

We had been looking forward to this day happening on Wednesday. In fact we took the afternoon off work and planned to go out to an early dinner before youth group to celebrate our findings. I also had intentions of recording the whole thing via photo and video so that I could share our whole experience with you all. So we got to our OB's offce right on time and sat in the waiting room for about 40 minutes. Despite our embarrasment, we had a nice lady take pictures of us "anxiously waiting the big news". It's no surprise to you, I'm sure that several women laughed out loud at us and our "photographer" commented that this must be our first child. What's a little embarrasment in exchange for good memories?!

I had this whole thing planned that I was going to picture-introduce you to our doc (who was out delivering a baby that day, hense our 40 minute wait), take you on a tour of the office, and take both video and pictures to help you feel like you were there with us... but then our dreams were dashed and I lost my motivation.

We were escorted into the exam room and I inocently asked when the ultrasound takes place so I would know how much water to keep drinking (I was already at capasity). And the nurse gave us the weirdest look in the world, right before she informed us that they did not have us scheduled for an ultrasound on that day...and that the ultrasound tech had never ever in her career ever worked on a Wednesday: Someone screwed up and I so badly wanted to take it out on this flustered lady...she must have felt so awkward standing in front of two grown people who were tearing up and about to throw a tantrum. So I didn't take it out on her. We just took it for the unexplainable injustice that it was and tried to wait quietly and patiently for them to figure out what went wrong. And then our good behavior was rewarded when they were able to get us in at 7 am the next morning. I think they could tell that we were not able to handle even 24 more hours!

So for the moment we were forced to settle for a "regular" appointment. We did get to hear the hearbeat again. Cool I guess, except that we already new he had a heart...it was the other parts we were interested in! The heartbeat was just a little anticlimactic at that point. No offence, my son, it was still great. Your mom and dad were just a little hard to please on our big day: Take 1.


Which is why I am wearing a different outfit for our big day: take 2. Thankfully our wonderful tech skipped breakfast, I'm sure, to get us in before her shift was even supposed to start. We decided not to test our luck by trying to take a video in the ultrasound room: I've heard that's a no no. So Caleb got this rather flattering picture instead! The screen babe, take a picture of the baby! that's what I meant to say.

We did get lots of great pics of the baby. See below! Our little man listened to the advice that we have been imparting on him for weeks now: Modesty is very important...except for today! He did not disappoint! Good job, Love! We could tell (read: our ultrasound tech could tell) almost immediately that we have a man in here. She also could tell that he had 10 toes and fingers (the split screen photo is of his cute toesies if you can't tell), and all the vital organs appeared to be perfect and cooking right on schedule. He weighs 8 oz!

The two at the bottom are my favorite! I love seeing his little profile! Doesn't it look like, from the profile one, that all his facial features are proportional!? He is perfect! The one second-from-the-bottom is of his little face-facing us. Caleb and I have been joking for months about the fields nose. Judging by that face pic, it looks like we might have passed that gene along. Sorry, little one. Who are we kidding, he didn't stand much of a chance: See pictures of parents above. We may have to teach our child that, although they fit, quarters should never be placed in your nostrils. It's important to start thinking through those valuable lessons.

We have been thinking a lot about names of course and hoping that by the time this day came, we would have firmly established what we will be calling him. I think we have narrowed the field now to 2 possibilites. Caiden Elijah and
Josiah David. Those names are not similar in the least so I am hoping one floats to the surface sometime soon. We have really hoped to be able to call him by name and pray for him by name for the rest of this pregnancy, but we may just have to wait until we meet him to be sure.
It was an exciting day and very fun to connect with some of you over the phone. We are so thankful for all of you
and can't wait for you all to meet our son! We are even more excited to think about all the ways so many of you will love and support our little man throughout his life! Thanks for joining us in this part of the journey!