Love, Mr&MrsChu: We're going to be parents!

We can't believe it.

Still.

And time flies, we already made it by God's kindness to our second trimester with baby Chu!

It's unbelievable really, the whole process and already how much baby has grown. We have had 2 chances to see baby in the ultrasounds and also 2 chances to hear the heartbeat! The first time James was in tears! (He doesn't like to admit it though, but I saw the twinkle of the tears in his eyes.) And the second time we saw baby jumping up and down like it was a moon bounce in there and wacing its arms and fingers! James says baby was swimming. That would be good because I hope baby will be able to swim, because I still can't. But James is a great swimmer and I hope baby is like its dad :)

I love this guy. I really do. I'm so thankful for the journey God has taken on and still can't believe God's goodness to me in helping me to step out of my comfort zone and step out into faith and date this wonderful man. Of course, it was nothing I had ever dreamt up, ever. But all in all, better than my dreams. We have been praying since last summer that God would gift us a baby to call our own. Honestly, I had many fears! I don't know why but I just had this deep fear that I could not get pregnant so I prayed a lot to surrender this desire to have a child and be parents to a child I held and grew in my very own body. That's why we were so surprised and overwhelmed when we found out we really were pregnant! Was it late october or early november? I think early november! We stopped trying to have a child early this summer after we started praying because my heart was having anxiety and stress attacks (which felt like heart attacks!) and I had to go to the emergency room at night to get help breathing. I had chest pains for a few weeks and it was scary because I needed to take aspirin and therefore couldn't try to get pregnant because you can't take aspirin when you have a baby!

So this summer instead we took a trip with some friends to Turkey :) It was life-changing for us really. And when we got there, actually my heart pain stopped almost immediately. Except for one night. And we were thankful. We were thankful for much. Thankful for God's work in our hearts and our lives so far and for our growing love for each other. (Also for a chance to go on a hot air balloon ride over this beautiful city of Cappodocia, history of much Christian persecution, an encouraging place for our hearts.)

We loved it. Can you tell?

When we came back we took a week off to just be together and travel to nearby towns and cities and REST. Because oh, we were soooooo tired from the 2013-2014 year. It was a fun time :) And shortly afterwards, we started to pray again for God to give us a baby! We were so surprised when he answered our prayers so soon Fall 2014 :) It's still a funny story how we were going to take the test but then weren't really ready to know so we waited then just couldn't wait anymore, so we took the test. (Which we already had because I had tricked James and some friends and family back on April fools day.) I think James was ready for this good news for a long time even though I'm glad it's now, the perfect timing that God has. Because we are just that little bit wiser and more in love and more sure that we are together for life in this beautiful covenant of marriage than we were any earlier.

And there we looked and saw together, 2 dark lines saying YES, YOU ARE PREGNANT. We hugged and cried then because we are Friends-lovers. We decided to take the morning to celebrate, thank God and then watch friends, the episodes of Monica's wedding and where Rachel finds out she was pregnant. Long story short- I tried to trick James again like Phoebe did to Rachel, to see how he really felt. Maybe I got him a little. But actually, I think he already knows about my little jokes. Either way, we were thankful this wasn't a joke. These past months we've been sharing with friends and family little by little and we are so glad now it is the second trimester and we can openly share more with all our friends and family because it's too hard to keep the news just to ourselves. And also our baby needs your prayers! Actually, I prayed so much because I was worried a lot. But this almost-smooth first trimester (full of tiredness, headaches and not-so-bad-but-still-sensitive-nausea) has shown me not to be worried and to trust God. And again and again to know that life and death is in His hands and He is a good God. And he is kind. So, we surrender baby to You, God. Thank you for giving us baby. We will continue to pray for protection and care and wisdom because there are so many details we just don't know of! But ... we are thankful :)