There's Love in the Air [Force]: Anxiety and Joy

Week 19

So I am 20 weeks today and half way there! For about the last two weeks, but most especially the last week, I've begun to feel very anxious and, some obscure emotion that I couldn't pinpoint until last night, depressed about feeling the baby move. I have more than a few friends who are pregnant either a little ahead of me or about the same who had started feeling their baby move by this point and I was feeling a little anxious and jealous. I know that everyone's different and it didn't necessarily mean that anything was wrong with baby, I just wanted to feel it and have that affirmation of a growing baby inside of me. I've especially felt depressed this past week and have frequently just tried sitting in the evenings concentrating inward on anything that might be happening inside of me. The anxiety was causing me to be resigned and irritable these last few days. Garrett was great, reminding me often that I am merely a hospitable host and I've been busy enough to keep the baby content and happy. Though those assurances have done wonders to keep my head up, it was getting hard. Then last night while we were laying in bed getting ready to turn out the light, I felt a little kick just at the base of my belly. It was a feeling that surely could not be mistaken for anything but. A few seconds later, another one rolled in just in the same place. Excitedly I turned to Garrett and told him that I had just felt the baby kick! I immediately started crying tears of joy and relief. I couldn't get over the feeling. After Garrett had made sure they were good tears and I was okay, we settled down and I enjoyed a few more minutes of baby kicking periodically. I am so glad to have felt our precious baby move inside me and to know that they're big and strong enough. Just on the eve of the half way mark and our gender ultrasound!

On Saturday Garrett and I realized that he had Silver Flag training this week, which is basically is quick-build training for deployments and Red Horse Squadron, and wouldn't be able to make it to the appointment. Usually this training is a week long overnight ordeal that takes place on part of Kadena. But they are in the process of moving it to Guam, so it is no longer overnight and Garrett gets to come home each night. Which is great for us this week especially so we don't have to wait until the weekend to find out the gender. That being said, when I went to my ultrasound this morning, I had the technician turn the screen away when it came time to find out the gender. She was great and even handed me all the previously printed pictures so that they could be separate. I had a bag ready to put the reveal in and we will find out this evening when Garrett gets home! It was great to see all the little parts of Baby. Through the whole thing Baby kept moving and staying curled up, sometimes making it hard to get pictures of everything. I got to see brain, heart, kidneys, diaphragm, arms, legs, and belly. I was a little afraid that I wouldn't be able to look at the screen at all through the appointment today, but was glad to discover I could and wouldn't just have to look at the pictures. Seeing Baby move all over was amazing! I can't wait to meet this little one when they come into the world! We will post a video of us opening the gender tonight for everyone to enjoy.

Another story or two I'd like to share have truly added to the love I have for the Gospel and helped me realize even more so in the last two weeks how absolutely amazing Heavenly Father and the Church is. First, I'll take you back to Mississippi where shortly before we moved Garrett met another trainee who had happened to read the Book of Mormon before Basic, but regretted not taking advantage of the Church/missionaries available at Basic. He shared a beautiful, strong testimony of knowing that the Book of Mormon was true and that The Church was true and he knew and believed there was a living prophet on the Earth. He knew it was the prophet of our Church, but just hadn't known his name. He shared this testimony with us when we were giving him a ride to another base for a few errands and I couldn't help but be floored by his simple but sure testimony. It touched my heart. Garrett and I immediately opened up our home to him for missionary discussions and were able to have a few lessons Unfortunately with school and duties, he was never able to come to church with us, and we weren't sure if he was able to keep up with the discussions after we left. A little while back, he messaged me on Facebook checking in and seeing how we were doing. He is stationed in Germany. After a short internal debate, I decided to breach the subject and ask if he had continued discussions or not. He told me that unfortunately he had not and now wasn't sure how to get in touch with the Church or if it was available where he was at. I hurriedly assured him that it was there, and I would find the information/get his information to the proper places. Using the amazing church networking system that we having I quickly had more than a few people to give his information to, including a Branch President or Bishop for the area. He messaged me shortly afterwards saying he was meeting with the missionaries and thanking me for getting them in contact with him. At the beginning of this month he messaged me again telling me that he had set a baptismal date for the following Saturday(this past Saturday). It was such a great feeling to know that even though he's in Germany and we're in Japan, we could still help with missionary work and bring just one more person to the Gospel, even though we really didn't do much at all.
The second I shared on Facebook as well, but it was just a quick story of the benefit of following the promptings of the Spirit. On Friday I was grabbing a change of clothes for Garrett to change into after work so we could immediately go and run some errands at the BX. I originally grabbed a jersey from our intramural soccer team, but changed my mind and took Garrett's BYU-I t-shirt instead. Garrett doesn't usually wear this shirt unless he's working out, and I know this, but I took it anyway. After walking around the BX for a while we were on our way downstairs when an older guy in uniform stopped us and asked if we were Members. We said yes and he immediately asked where the church was around here. It turned out he was here on TDY for a few months. He was having a hard time getting a church because when you use the church search engine with a military base it kind of gets all weird, same as searching Google Maps. We were able to set up a meeting place so he could follow us to church on Sunday. As we were walking away I remembered that I had originally picked a different shirt for Garrett and I felt extremely touched to know that by listening to the Spirit I was able to help a man to be able to enjoy the blessings of Sacrament, even while on a temporary assignment.

Well, I will sign off now, but check back soon for our gender reveal!!

And here are some pictures from celebrating our anniversary at a private beach cottage. I had a blast and got to ride a jet ski for the first time! (Not many pictures because I didn't want to ruin the camera while playing)