Matthew's little sibling

                                        It's a boy!!!!

We went to our 20 week ultrasound yesterday and everything looks great! Our little muchkin has been kicking around a lot lately (I am super grateful for that!) so I couldn't wait to see him on the screen.

 

Here is his profile picture.  He was a super huge stinker, always moving when she (the tech) needed him still and not moving when she needed him to move! It looks like we are going to have a very active youngster in our house come August :)

 

Here are his sweet feet. Being able to see the bottoms of both feet at the same time is a good sign of normal feet :) 

Here is what I looked like a few weeks ago :)

We also have some other news: Matthew's gravestone was placed on his grave last week! Here it is:

We wanted the whole 4 verses (they were the verses we chose for him) on his gravestone but couldn't afford to make the stone big enough to fit all of it so we picked our favorite (or the most meaningful to us) parts and put them there. The little monkey drawing is one I drew to look exactly like the one that is on the last blanket we held him in (other than the one he was buried in).

The monkey I designed it from

God has been good to us (as usual) and has held our hearts gently. We are through much of the grief, though there are times when I have things trigger memories and it all comes back. Going to the ultrasound yesterday reminded me of hearing the news for the first time from the midwife about Matthew's diagnosis the evening after his ultrasound. I also struggle with grief when reading stories about anyone's death or anyone's family member's death, it brings back the pain of losing someone so dear to me. God is getting us through though and we are continuing to heal.

We are truly grateful for the gift that God has given us in this second son. Someone I met in January shared that since losing their little girl (their first baby) with T-18 in June last year at 28 weeks (only 6 months before I met her) she had had 2 more miscarriages. I can't imagine going through that. I have also heard of others who have had secondary infertility after losing a baby. We know that we are very blessed to have been able to conceive again and to continue to carry our little one. Thank you all for your prayers and support, it has meant a lot to us.