In case you missed the announcement (since I’ve been kinda quiet around here), we’re expecting in April! After learning we’re pregnant with our third girl, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that every pregnancy is different!

I started compiling a list of the weirdest pregnancy symptoms I’ve experienced, because I honestly wish someone would have told me about some of these and less about stretch marks!

The mothers ministry at my church began back in 2016 when my oldest wasn’t yet a year old, and we’re now almost halfway into our 3rd year!

I previously wrote about starting a mothers ministry at my church here, and since then I also created a page to compile all the resources I’d been sharing on Instagram that proved to be encouraging to moms/leaders or helpful in planning some content. You can check that page out here.

Now that it’s been a well over a year since that first post on starting a mothers ministry (which was then a year into itself), I thought I’d fill you in on what we’ve been up to, what has been helpful, and what challenges we still face. At the end, please feel free to comment if you have anything to add, or have any questions. This is a safe place and I appreciate and welcome the input!

Our first birth experience was a long, natural, hospital delivery of our rainbow baby, Claire. It was amazing, hard, and beautiful. Before becoming pregnant with Claire, we suffered a miscarriage at 10 weeks. I was devastated by that experience, so when we got pregnant again, I was grateful but extremely anxious. All pregnancy loss is sad, but there’s something especially tragic about losing your first because it forever taints your experience. When your only frame of reference up to that point is a loss, even a healthy pregnancy has an extra layer of fear and anxiety.

Three years later, I can still remember the most vivid details of this eventful day. Things like what songs I sang, what I ate for dinner, and where we parked at the hospital.

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In September 2015 I began attending a MOPS (Mothers of Pre Schoolers) group near my house. It was hosted by a local church, but not the church we called home. I attended for about a year (well, 2 semesters), but in May 2016 when the year ended, the leader stepped down and a new leader could not be found (and MOPS appeared to have taken several steps away from their roots as a gospel-centered ministry), and the ministry at that church disbanded. It was then that I began to realize I couldn’t possibly be the only mom at my church who felt the need for this vital ministry and fellowship.