Sister love.

I'm pretty sure E's already in love with her little sister. She asks about her, waves at her (at my belly), kisses her (my belly), has named some of her stuffed animals after her, and continuously asks if it's summer yet (since that's her only concept of the time frame for when N will arrive). I even walked into her room one night to find her up and out of bed, doing something I couldn't see because her back was turned. When I started to raise my voice with a stern reminder, "E, why are you out of bed...," she moved out of the way and I realized she was tucking one of her very special blankies around a doll she had placed in the other twin bed in her room. "But mom, the baby was crying so I had to give her one of my blankies." Heart...melted.

I know it won't be all (or even mostly) kisses and hugs around here, but I am looking forward to seeing my big girl interact with her little sis, and already scheming on if there's a right way to parent so that they can one day truly be best friends.

This same sweet bond has caused me probably the most apprehension about this pregnancy though. E talks rather frequently about the brother and sister that she has in heaven, and even announced to me one day in the car as we were driving, "You know my brother and sister in heaven, mama? One day God is going to give us our brother and sister back and we are going to see them and hold them and love them." What goes on in their little hearts and minds is truly amazing sometimes.

In fact, though I've held a lot of anxiety in my heart about this pregnancy, there's only been a few days that I've "lost it" and just cried my heart out before the Lord. And one of those days was a moment where I just simply broke down and begged the Lord not to take another sibling away from my little E. Because both of my previous pregnancies had progressed so far, she was already aware that I was pregnant and we had already talked about her being a "big sister." Though, maybe because of age or the Lord's good grace, she never really bonded to her brother or sister in my belly those times. But this time around - whether because she's older or because she's more sensitive to the fragility of it all or both - she's been so interested, so bonded, so quickly. And part of my fear for this pregnancy has been for how it will mark her and shape her understanding of the Lord if things don't "work out" the way she hopes and dreams.

But it definitely helped to admit that to the Lord and to myself that day, and I have started to trust a little more each day in N's future. And this past Thursday, when we went to the midwife clinic, I experienced another little moment between two sisters that I will cherish. When it came time for the midwife to measure my belly and listen to the heartbeat, she turned to E, "Want to help me measure your baby sister and find her heartbeat?" E perked up and they pulled a chair over to the table where I was sitting so that E could stand at the right level. The midwife assisted E in stretching out the tape over my belly, measuring my size in cm, and then comparing it to the circumference of E's head just for fun. Then she handed E the bottle of gel and E squeezed so gel onto the dopplar wand. Hand over hand, the midwife helped E place the wand on the right spot on my belly, and the heartbeat (and E's face) came to life. "There's your baby sister's heartbeat," the midwife said. E responded with a giggle and N with a kick. Me - my heart simply overflowed as I tried to blink back the tears.