Between her birth story and the first in a series about hypotonia, it seems my girl is stealing the show around here! Part of my mission in motherhood is sharing the details along the way, so I think it’s important not only to share the struggles but also the progress and the wins as well. The only way I’m surviving three kids, special needs, and a pandemic anyway is all the solidarity. So, might as well pay it forward, right?!

About two months after she was first referred to PT, Olivia saw the pediatrician again to check her tone, progress, and joints. We were hearing a lot of popping and cracking, which seemed to be getting worse but she was not in pain or seeming bothered by it so we were told it’s just the tendon sliding over joints; it’s apparently common for kids with low tone to have hyper mobility in their joints.

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.