The Silver Lining

God has an amazing way of reminding you of the important things in life. Inevitably, when we’re struggling through difficult times, we can always find the Lord in the silver lining.

We were looking forward to Tuesday because we were scheduled to have our 13 week checkup and ultrasound. However, on Monday night we were warned about the potential for bad weather with thunder storms and heavy winds due to strike High Point in the middle of the night.

Tuesday morning at 3 am, our NOAA weather radio went off announcing that we were under a tornado warning. As a little bit of historical reference, our area is prone to tornadoes and other weather related issues this time of year (three tornadoes and a weather-caused plane crash in High Point in the last two years). That’s why Courtney was sure to purchase a weather radio last spring. Needless to say, it’s come in handy thus far.

So, Tuesday we jumped out of bed, ran downstairs and piled the two dogs and cat into our downstairs bathroom. As you can imagine, two hyper dogs, a fussy cat and a pregnant and nauseous woman at 3 am created a fun little potty party. Thankfully, other than some high winds and a few downed trees in our area, everybody escaped relatively unscathed.

Unfortunately, the wind damage in Greensboro caused the City to implement its emergency action plan. That meant Donnie had to burn up the iPhone and e-mail most of the morning to coordinate the City’s media response – which got his day off to a stressful start, put him in a bit of a bad mood, and caused him to nearly miss the doctor’s appointment.

Once we finally made it to the doctor, we began the ultrasound and midway through, the power went out! The OB/GYN office is in High Point’s hospital, and evidently the whole hospital lost power. Scary stuff, hope nobody was in the middle of surgery when that happened!

The good part was that we got to do the ultrasound twice, which gave us more time to spend watching in amazement the little baby on the flat screen moving, hiccupping, yawning and covering up its little eyes with its hands (a little shy!).

Here we were, struggling through a hectic morning with crummy weather, stressful work and tired from an early morning wake-up call, and all of those issues just seemed to drift away watching that ultrasound. We were once-again reminded of the miracle of children, the sanctity of life and the joy that we will experience on that glorious day in October.

According to the doctors, the baby is perfect. Courtney is perfect (so says Donnie). Everybody is healthy. We go back in a few more weeks to find out if it’s a boy or a girl, but the ultrasound tech offered her professional opinion before we left. While it’s still very early, she said that her wager was that it was a _____. She claims she’s only been wrong once in 15 years when making the guess during the “early” ultrasound.

So, we think we know, and we saw a picture that leads us to believe that the ultrasound tech is correct. But, we’ll wait until our next ultrasound to make it official. Either way, we don’t care, we’re just looking forward to being parents.

But, it’s not too late to jump in with your guess. The baby pool starts at $20. So far, we have six girl guesses and three boy guesses. Winner gets to donate the funds to the baby’s college fund!

Exciting News To Share

Well, it’s been a while since we’ve posted to Turlington Times, but we have exciting news to share – we’re having a baby!

Man, that feels good to write and it’s been even more fun telling our family and friends. It’s been a long time coming, and we’re extremely thankful for the gift of life that has been bestowed upon us. God is great!

Because we have so many family and friends who live out of state, we thought the best way to share the news and subsequent updates would be through our blog. Sorry it’s impersonal, but in the 21^st Century it’s not a bad way to mass communicate.

Obviously, we’re extremely excited and can’t wait for the big day - October 16 is the due date. We’re trying not to be overwhelmed by the abundance of changes that will be taking place personally, physically and professionally. Courtney, as you can imagine, already has nursery themes picked out and a list of summer projects for Donnie – which he can’t wait to start (insert sarcasm here).

First and foremost, Courtney is doing great. She is starting her 11th week this week. We’re praying for a perfect pregnancy, delivery and a healthy and strong baby – and momma (please join us in this prayer). Thus far, things are going according to plan, with the usual onslaught of morning sickness and odd food cravings.

The morning sickness has not been fun, but folks tell us that it’s completely normal and, in fact, is a very good thing. Not that he expects anybody to feel sorry for him, but for those of you who know Donnie well, you understand that Courtney is not the only one affected by the queasiness. Nobody takes pleasure from the sights/sounds/motions of someone getting sick, but Donnie has a real problem being around it when it happens. So far, so good, for both of us – but please do keep Donnie in your prayers as well!

Where do things go from here? Well, we have our next ultrasound the week of April 4 and we’ll have a third ultrasound some time the end of May. We plan on finding out what the baby is going to be, so start placing your bets now. To help you figure the odds, Donnie has four nephews on his side of the family. Courtney has one niece and one nephew on her side of the family. And, in case it makes a difference in your figuring – and Donnie’s the only one who thinks it does – our two dogs and cat are all female.

We’ll give you one guess which one Donnie thinks it’s going to be!

Stay tuned!