Ellersley Grace III

Much to my dismay, we decided to wait to tell our families. The reason we decided to do this was that we were a month away from a trip to Hawaii to visit my brother and sister-in-law. We knew that would be the BEST way to tell my family...what's better than Hawaii and a baby? I mean really? We decided we would tell Wes's brother and our sister-in-law the Friday before we left for Hawaii, we would tell my family in Hawaii and we would tell Wesley's parents and his other brother when we got back from Hawaii. So we waited and waited and waited...if you know me at all, something like this is nearly IMPOSSIBLE for me to do. It was like Chinese torture or something, a slow painful process. You all should be very proud that I made it! Friday, March 11th we were 7 weeks and we had our first doctor appt. We were so happy, we could not stop smiling...we were about to be told we were officially pregnant, we were going to hear the heartbeat, we were about to have an ultrasound, we were going to be telling SOMEONE (anyone would've been great at this point) that night that we were pregnant and we were leaving for HAWAII the very next morning...I had more butterflies in my belly than I could count. We had the ultrasound and saw the little tiny peanut and saw that tiny peanut's little tiny heart beating so very fast. We heard the heartbeat, 130 beats that first time. I'm pretty sure I had tears and so did Mr. Deem. We just kept telling God how much we were in awe of his miracles. There was a life growing inside of me right alongside all of those butterflies.

If you follow natural disasters and are OCD enough to remember the dates of said natural disasters, you remember that there was a huge Earthquake in Japan on March 10th. This earthquake in Japan created a huge Tsunami scare in Hawaii. This tsunami scare in Hawaii induced multiple calls to us by friends and family making sure we were going to be ok and making sure Dan(my brother) and Sara ( my sister-in-law) were ok. These multiple calls and texts came at the same time we were at a doctor's appt looking at our first born child unbeknowst to anyone else on this Earth, besides our doctor of course. It was comical how Wesley tried to appease the callers and texters. He can't lie ya know? He kind of left that lifestyle behind with the previous posts. :) It was so fun and such an exciting time. We both look back on it fondly, we know God gave us all that joy and we are so thankful for it.

Well, that night we walked into Aaron (wes's brother) and Heather's (our sister-in-law) house. We were there to say goodbye to the boys before leaving for Hawaii and we were dropping our Sophie (dog) off so they could watch her for us while we were gone. They had no idea of the secret that we held. We walked in with a gift bag which contained some chocolates from Sophie (a thank you for watching her) and the ultrasound photos of our sweet baby. I handed it to Heather and said "Sophie has a present for you, just a thank you for watching her." She opened the bag and screamed, "NO, no no no!!!" and she shut the bag and got up, without even getting the pictures out, and hugged me so tight. Aaron was yelling, "what? what? what's in the bag?" She could not stop screaming and we could not stop laughing, crying, all of the above. She finally said "She's pregnant, she's pregnant!" and he smiled and laughed. JOY, we will never forget the joy Ellersley brought to our entire family. We left there feeling so overjoyed and so loved and so excited to tell everyone else. One butterfly down...

So the next day we were up before any other humans are awake and we were off to Maui with my family. Seriously, Maui...God's blessings in our life are just plain stinking ridiculous. We were going to be flying all day and I was a little concerned about nausea. I had not been sick at all, another amazing blessing from God. I would get pretty nauseous at times, like when I hadn't eaten for 2 hours or something, but other than that, no puke. My mom always packs snacks for all of us to have while on the planes so I just munched pretty much all day. They had no idea, we played the game pretty well. The closer we got to Maui the faster the butterflies fluttered. Also, I hate flying so I'm pretty sure that was probably another reason they were fluttering so fast. I have vowed to myself I will never go again, the flight is too long. Oh, but the whales and the sun and the turtles and the mountains and the ocean and the beach and the whales. Did i mention the whales? It's the closest thing we have to heaven...I'm sure of it.

We finally made it to Maui and to Dan and Sara's house. Once there, we took all of our stuff in the house and started unpacking. Wesley kept looking at me and I kept looking at him, we were waiting for the perfect time. We brought gift bags, one for Mom and Dad, one for Rachel (my sister) and one for Dan and Sara and in each would be one ultrasound picture. We got three that day at the doctor, how perfect is that? Did I mention yet that God is amazing? He knows every single detail of our lives, every single one. So everyone was gathered in Dan and Sara's room, they were talking about something. I have NO IDEA what, I was preoccupied with my butterflies. Wesley grabbed me and we went into our room and grabbed the bags and smiled the biggest smiles we've ever had. I probably squealed, I'm pretty sure I did. We walked into the bedroom with the bags and I said "We have presents! We just wanted to get you all something because we are here and it's Hawaii and who doesn't like presents?" We handed them out and Wesley said "DON'T look inside, you have to open them at the same time". We both said, "OK, open them!"

Rachel was the first one with a reaction. She screamed and instantly cried and then ran to me and jumped on me. It was wonderful, again that overwhelming joy. My mom was crying and screaming. Dan and Sara were elated and my Daddy, he is so sweet. He just stood and cried. He is such a soft, sweet grandpa. Both my parents were just so happy, they had waited so long for this blessed day. They, too, were full of that joy. Many hugs and kisses followed and of course, "You knew for HOW LONG???". They couldn't believe we had kept it a secret for a whole month, they were proud of me like you should be. We went on with our vacation, loving a new member of our family.

We needed a nickname for our new family member. We are the kings and queens of nicknames and this new baby was to be no exception. We tried out the normal stuff, baby and peanut and champ but none of those really fit. Well, since we were in Hawaii and we had been fascinated with turtles in the past, we decided on Honu. Honu means sea turtle in the Hawaiian language. It fit perfectly since we didn't yet know that she was a girl. She was baby Honu then and still is today. Our sweet baby Honu.

Well, we rested and relaxed our way through a week and then we found our way back home. We were ready to tell the rest of Wesley's family, our extended family, our church family and our friends. We got home on a Tuesday, I think, and we went straight to Wesley's parents house. We could not wait another second. We went over under the premise that we were showing them pictures from vacation. Of course, we did that but we also brought a gift bag! :) We did the same thing for them that we did with the others. Dan opened the bag and took the pictures out and he started laughing. "What, what is it?" Marcia said. Dan, through his joy, said "It's their baby!" She got up and hugged us and Dan just smiled and said "Are you kidding?" And then that joy came again, they were so happy. They had been praying so very hard, just like the rest of us. God had answered all of our cries and that is always a happy day.

Elle's Mommy