This Profound Mystery: Olivia Kathleen Helms

In the beginning of February, Daniel and I got by far the biggest surprise of our married life. Sometimes calling it a surprise can come off with a bad connotation - but it was most definitely a surprise. A wonderful, exciting, gigantic, unforgettable, awe-inspiring surprise ---- we were pregnant. Just a few short months after Daniel and I heard and accepted the call to move for seminary and literally one week after announcing to our church that we would be moving to North Carolina in the summer, God blessed us with a little icing on the cake --- who we now affectionately call Livi.

**As a side note - there is a reason why we chose the name Olivia Kathleen and I'm sure some inquiring minds still want to know. Daniel and I had a list of names that we both liked for boys and girls (first and middle) but we didn't want have the names paired up as first and middle and we had no idea which we were going to choose. I knew if we had a girl, I wanted her to have a name like mine - something "timeless" (aka old fashioned in a good way). We also needed names that we loved the shortening of because no Helms is ever called by their full name - case in point - Steve, Sher, Bry, Kris, Dan, Aud, Mike, Mar, Kam, Bryce.. you get the picture... so we needed a name that we wouldn't mind people shortening. Olivia became more and more the front runner of the girl names (we also had a boy named picked out because this was well before we knew the gender - but I am not going to reveal that here unless we have a little boy one day). I also liked the name Kathleen - because a) it is also old fashioned and b) it reminds me of a very dear friend. One day in passing I mentioned to Sherri (Daniel's mom) that I liked Kathleen as a middle name and I was campaigning for Olivia Kathleen - and she was so excited because unbeknownst to me- Kathleen was her mother's middle name. So - there you have it.

Sorry for the rabbit trail - back to the original post.

Those that know me well know that I have been pretty adamantly against posting pictures of my pregnancy progress on facebook ---- I am not against it for others, don't get me wrong - I definitely look at all of those pictures of my friends - but I am just not comfortable doing it for myself. That being said, I feel like I can control the "traffic" more on this blog, so I will post my pregnancy progress here for those family and friends who are so interested in how exponentially my belly is growing (especially these last few weeks).

So with all that being said - for your viewing pleasure...

Our First Test

Our Second Test

Daniel was not fully convinced with the faintness of the line the first time despite my assurance ---- so we went digital :)

Our first ultrasound

I literally cannot fathom the fact that that now has her foot in my ribs. God is amazing.

Livi's very first outfit

(she's gotten a few more since then....)

Although Kristy did not know that we were going to announce our pregnancy (I promise Sherri!), she had a sneaking suspicion and brought this our for us after we broke the news.