Well, we are officially a family of four. 
I certainly wouldn’t have expected to write that a year ago…or even 6 months ago.

About a year ago now we experienced our first pregnancy, which ended in miscarriage. We hadn’t told anyone we were expecting yet, so we grieved the loss of this tiny life quietly and privately, mostly because we didn’t know how to tell people that we were pregnant, but weren’t any longer. There was a rawness that I had never felt. Yet, in that time God was so good to allow me to cry and scream about the pain and unfairness of it all, and to speak to my broken heart, “I know.” This is not a 'God will fix everything every time' story, because I know that God's good is not always what we want or our version of good, but we are so thankful for the grace that He has shown us and the way He has shown it in the last year.

Baby #1…

Just after that baby would have been delivered, we received a most interesting phone call. Three days later, we brought the most beautiful baby boy home. Yes, we knew we were pregnant. We had found out that we were having a girl three days before the call. (I understand that this probably makes you sure that we are insane.) I wrote a little more about that here. Today, he’s 5 months old – and HUGE. Like 20 pounds huge and hugely adorable. We are still playing the waiting game, but it looks like he will become a Wiley in August or September. We’ll name him Caleb, and that’s another story of God’s grace for another day. And get ready. I’ll be backlogging lots of pictures since we can’t post his cute little face on social media until he’s legally our child. I literally cannot put into words how good God has been to us.

Welcoming Nora Kate…

Today, as I sit holding a two week old, I’m overwhelmed that God chose John and I to be this little girl’s parents and that God was so gracious to give us a safe labor and delivery. (I’m also just generally overwhelmed. Babies and recovery and hormones and no sleep, y’all.) I take back all the snarky things I said about how terrible pregnancy was because labor and delivery were actually really great and really beautiful (and really long, did I mention that?). How do people who birth children not so clearly see God’s handiwork in every little miracle? More on how God really showed out and had Nora Kate be born on the 15th later...

There’s plenty more to say about all of these things, but I felt like it was important to go ahead and get an update out there as a testimony to how blessed we feel. Also, I need a nap.