12 weeks pregnant and 4 months in

Heather
Apr 13, 2017
3 min read

We are now in our 4th month of full time house parenting.

How is it going?

Last weekend we traveled to San Pedro Soloma to begin working on the house building project for our oldest sons' family. We hired (and fired) a contractor then hired a new contractor. It was stressful, especially for Antonio who was translating for his mother in Q'an'jo'bal, or the contractor in Spanish, and for me in English. We have such a talented and stressed 14 year old. As of now the foundation has been finished. We are excited to see how things look and how it will help change daily life for this family!

Some of the parenting things we are learning right now is how to correct potty training behaviors in our 3-year-old, how to make sure all 12 boys are wearing clean clothes (especially socks) every day, and how to teach them to clean- actually clean.

The victories we have experienced lately is having some of the quieter boys open up and even request hugs at bedtime! We have been working to teach some of our boys (that struggle) to read. The two little boys now always call me mama and Bob is papi. The littlest one has now completely stopped abusing our animals and is showing kindness and gentleness instead. Angel (the littlest) also has stopped being terrified of people with white skin. All of the boys have also begun to use basic sign language to communicate with Milton. That has been SO cool to see!

I am TIRED but pregnancy will do that to you. I am fortunate to have a supportive husband that steps in when I am feeling worn. I am also fortunate to have a 14-year-old babysitting master to help both of us out. I'm 12 weeks pregnant and already having clothes that don't fit! For the past several weeks my diet has consisted of mostly oranges and orange juice and the past few days I've been able to eat a bit more.

We traveled to Guatemala city the beginning of the moth for our first baby appointment. We heard the baby's heartbeat and got to see a picture. I cried 3 times, it was so magical and and surreal. I also had to get blood drawn and cried because of that to! Our midwife Hannah is AMAZING and we feel so confident with her knowledge and experience. (For anyone curious about the clinic we chose you can check it out here.)

We are now working to save the $4,000 required to have a baby in the city. This amount will cover our living expenses, food costs, travel costs, and the cost of the clinic. We are currently living on our monthly fund raised amount of $233.88. Any business profits we use to make our student loan payments (we accrue over $500 a month in interest and have been unable to touch principal yet) and save for plane tickets to visit home twice a year.

Please pray for new monthly supporters for us and for wisdom to handle new parenting challenges that come up daily. If you are able to offer support, even $10.00/ month goes a long way here! All donations done through Story are 100% tax deductible! Click HERE to donate one-time or monthly.

If you have questions and would like me to write a post about it, ask them in the comments below!