It's A.....

March 10, has been a date Gabe and I have waited for, for what seems like an eternity. As the date drew near the waiting became more and more unbearable. Like being a kid and waiting for Christmas morning.

This was the date of my fetal survey. A little over an hour of looking at different parts of our baby, it was revealed with 99% certainty that we are having a baby girl. The one and only time we prayed for

Although it should have been quite a shock to me, in my heart I kind of already knew. A few weeks prior to the survey, I woke from a pretty heavy sleep and a peace came over me in which I just knew her name and that our baby was a girl. It was really strange, and could be a complete coincidence, but her name was decided before we knew she was a girl.

What name did we choose?
Abigail Laurel-Josephine Strine

Why this name?
For, what seems like forever, I have always thought I would name a girl Isabella. But as my pregnancy progressed it seemed that name wouldn’t suit. And then, like I said, I woke up and knew she was Abigail.

The more I pondered Abigail, I realized that this was the name that Gabe chose for his little sister. Unfortunately, his sister had fatal complications, came early and lived for only a few short hours.

So not only did I love the name, Gabe already chose it for someone close to him, and it is a way that we can honor his little sister.

The middle name Laurel-Josephine is hyphenated because it honors both of my grandmothers, Laurel (Joan Degerstrom, mom’s side) and Josephine (Joe Myers, dad’s side). Both of whom have made a substantial impact on my life and whom which I admire and idolize in many ways. They are very strong, caring, giving, and self-less, loving women that put family first. I am glad that they sound nice together.

I am getting excited about having a daughter. It will melt my heart to hear her call Gabe, “Daddy”. And I can’t wait to see my own dad with her. Thinking about that always get to me and it brings me such joy knowing that she will have two of the most amazing men I know in her life.

Other than finding out that we are having a girl, we learned that she is exactly where she should be for growth, weight, and all her development was normal with no visible abnormalities. It was really interesting to see the four chambers of her heart, her brain, kidneys, stomach, etc. My friend Nicole would have loved to see it (since she is in Med School right now learning how to save lives)!

The downfall is that my placenta has not moved AT ALL and I still have previa. Which means another ultrasound around 30 weeks to see if we will have “complications” with that. But I am not worried too much as long as Abigail stays healthy! The next ultrasound will hopefully give us a profile picture to show off. When we did the last ultrasound she was facing my back and moving around too much to get a good profile shot.

Make today count!