A Fun Week: An Anniversary and Exciting News!

I'll get the exciting news out first:  IT'S A BOY!


Sorry about the quality of these photos, y'all:  my limited technological skills are no good for trying to add pics onto the blog - this is the best you're gonna get (believe me, I tried everything I knew to do to get the original scanned photos on here, but it's beyond my capabilities - sorry!)  This is the baby's profile.

 

Profile - is that the Ward nose I see?

Almost impossible to tell, but this is the money shot - it's definitely a boy!

Honestly, I think I already knew this going into it ... I just had a feeling.  Originally, in the first few weeks of my pregnancy, I truly believed it was a girl.  As time passed, I just got a different feeling (and I had all of the "symptoms" of having a boy - no morning sickness, no real symptoms at all, heart rate of baby, Sheryl's prophetic dream (ha!), no cravings for anything sweet ... so, you know:  really scientific stuff).  When the ultrasound technician announced (almost immediately upon beginning the ultrasound) that it was a boy, I was not really all that surprised.  Alan, I think, was in shock ... probably because knowing the gender makes it so much more real - you can finally start talking about names, nursery decor, you can start buying stuff for the baby ... it just becomes a person instead of the idea of a person.  Plus, this means that Alan's responsibility is a little bit greater - he's really going to be a role model for Baby Ward (not that he wouldn't have been for a little girl, but with a little boy, Alan is the main male presence in his life, and therefore a huge influence ... and that's a huge responsibility).  Alan will be a great dad - think of all of the golf and sports and hunting wisdom he'll get to impart (among other life lessons)! 

We are still discussing the name - we have about 4 names that we like, so theoretically the name will be some combination of those four (and yes, Riker is one of those 4 names).  The other 3 are family names:  Harrison, Hayes, and James (Harrison and Hayes are both way back in my family tree - great grandfathers or great-great grandfathers, and James is Alan's middle name).  I think we're going to be those people that take awhile in coming up with a name for certain - there'll surely be rigorous debate ... maybe I'll start a poll on it on the blog!

Yesterday (December 9th) was our 4th wedding anniversary - 4 years ago today we were on our honeymoon in Jamaica (ssssiiiigggghhhh ... wish I was in Jamaica right now ... we're hoping to go back there next year for our 5th wedding anniversary).  I loved our wedding - I had wanted a winter/Christmas time wedding because my hometown church is always very pretty and beautifully decorated during the holiday season, and it worked out really well time-wise for wedding planning.  Alan and I got engaged on February 14, 2006, so that gave me 10 months to plan everything, and allowed lots of leeway for graduating from law school and studying for and taking the bar exam.  2006 was a busy year!  Alan and I have been together for nearly 9 years and married for 4 - after all that time, we're still learning and growing together, and now we get to embark on another big journey together:  parenthood!  Should be fun, at the very least (ha!).  I know raising a child will be a roller coaster ride, full of ups and downs, highs and lows, but there's nobody else in the world that I'd rather take on that challenge with than Alan.  I don't want to get all schmoopy (I'm just not that way, I guess), but I'll sign off with two of my favorite Bible verses about love, which sum up the way I feel that love is or should be, and that always make me think of Alan.

Awwww ... outside the church on December 9, 2006

Ruth 1: 16 - 17 (this was the verse that was read at my wedding and my parents' wedding)

           "Entreat me not to leave you
            or to turn back from following you;
            For wherever you go, I will go;
            And wherever you lodge, I will lodge;
            Your people shall be my people,
            And your God, my God

            Where you die, I will die,
            And there will I be buried;
            The Lord do so to me, and more also
            If anything but death parts you and me."        

Song of Soloman 8: 6-7

           "Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm:  for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave:  the coals thereof are coals of fire, which have a most vehement flame.
           Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it:  if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would be utterly contemned."