I had another u/s yesterday. The tech said the baby is about 6 lbs 8oz right now, give or take a pound (which seems kind of significant). So we're estimating that the baby will be between 8 and 10 lbs. The tech also said that the due date looked like April 2nd according to the baby's size. It's amazing all of the details they can figure out. I go to the doctor next week, so we'll see what he has to say.
















8 months (35 weeks)

Troy just started volunteering at an afterschool program run by the Mercy House. It's very similar to what he did last year in Atlanta, and he's really excited to interact with kids of that demographic again. I'm really excited for him, and may start to help out myself next year.

During the last 7 months since returning from Atlanta, we haven't been living the "Mission Year lifestyle" to the extent we really want to. We literally spent all of our free time the first few months back in Anderson working on our house. Now that we're mostly done with the house, we've been mentally preparing for this baby. I will say, however, it's been an incredible blessing to have some down time. For me, life has been a constant blur of activity for as long as I can remember. Right after college I went to grad school and was a youth minister for two years, and then an RD for three years, and then we did Mission Year. All of these things led to a full and sometimes frantic sort of lifestyle. For the past 7 months working part time has allowed me to just be for a little while. And it's the first time my job hasn't been in ministry. My stress level has been low (except for when we didn't have a kitchen for several weeks), and I've been able to emotionally prepare for this next phase of our life. Thinking of staying home full time with Baby C is exciting and scary. I feel blessed to have the opportunity, but a little nervous. I'm lucky to have a husband who is a total social butterfly, so I will be forced not to be a recluse.

Anyways, after having some time to process our experience last year and recooperate from the intense experience, Troy and I recently joined the community outreach team at our church. We're a little disappointed that there are only 4 other members of the team (anyone want to join??), but it's really cool to get to dream up ideas of how to reach out to the Anderson community. The location of our church isn't really conducive to outreach, so we're hoping to partner with area churches in more vulnerable areas of Anderson. We need to build actual relationships with the poor and downcast, and a yearly city-wide cleanup and things of that sort don't cut it. I don't know how to do this well, especially since we live in a nicer area of town where we aren't faced with poverty, and our church isn't located amongst the poor. Last year we were confronted with the poor on a daily basis because they were our neighbors, our friends, our co-workers. They went to our church and had us over for dinner. They had desperate needs, which made being in relationship with them hard, but they were real. We actually knew and spent time with our neighbors. We long for these relationships, but at the same time are scared to seek them out here in Anderson, where our life is easy and we feel safe.

So we're still processing all of this, and having a baby definitely puts a different spin on life. I'll let you know when I we figure out the answers!