"Life as I know it has changed."

When I posted in February I was struggling with the loss of a young wife, mother, sister, daughter and friend. The truth is I went to too many funerals in 2010. When I stopped to think about it the number was 8! That is too many! But in all of the loss, God opened my eyes to another part of His love, the miracle of the creation of life. In May, Kristi and I learned that we were going to be parents. The elation was more than I could say. Having a baby was something that we new we were ready for and very excited about. Unfortunatly, just five weeks into the pregnancy Kristi miscarried. It was another time of great loss in our house. The blessing was that Kristi was healthy and that a baby had not actually formed. Putting our sadness aside we placed our faith in God that He would give us a child in His time. Well, His time was efficient. Just a few months later we learned again that we would be having a baby. We vowed immediatly to not live our lives in fear that we may lose the child. Instead we were going to have faith and enjoy the growth of the life she was carrying. That decision has meant everything to the smoothness in which the pregnancy has gone. I am thrilled that we are approaching 19 weeks and little Carter Ashton Belt will be here around June 3.

Now what does that mean for me? Well, as Kristi and I have been on this journey of pregnancy a lot of things have changed. Obviously, her body is changing and all of the hormones raging inside her are causing some emotional changes as well. It's the changes inside of me that have me the most facinated by this experience. I confessed to Kristi a few weeks ago that I was longing for something real in the pregnancy. I was struggling with the fact that I didn't feel any different and that Carter's growth was not having that big an impact on me. Now let's stop for a second while I address all of you parents who are laughing at the thought of "oh your changes are coming just you wait and see." I appreciate that my role in this adventure is to take care of my wife during the pregnancy and then take care of the child and my wife after the pregnancy. I accept that role with excitment. But, in the mean time I was wanting something I could share in with her while she was pregnant. It was not until just this last week as we sat in the doctor's office having a sonogram that the reality hit me. As the sonographer was looking at Carter she froze on an image that left me in tears. For just a passing second his face was on the screen. She had zoomed in the machine to get some shots of his heart and in the process we got to see his face. There it was on the screen, a perfect shot of my son's face. Needless to say I was a blubbering mess. It was in that moment that God showed me the magnitude of this situation. I knew my son had arms, legs, fingers, toes, a brain and even teeth so why wouldn't he have a face? It's just that I had not seen it that close until then. Once I had seen his face then every other part of him was all of the sudden new and amazing. I cried for a good portion of the sonogram. When we got in the car I told Kristi that it was very real to me now. I know that as we continue I will be able to feel him move and kick and those are days that I am awaiting anxiously but it may not compare to the day I saw his face. That's when I knew, life as I know it has changed.