The Power Ranger Baby

So Devin and I have always known that we wanted to expand our family...but what we didn't always see eye to eye on was timing.  With Ezra and Rylie only being 16.5 months apart I knew that I wanted a "break"  Then as the kids got older and we realized how much attention they needed I was certain that a break was the best thing to do.  When Ezra was first diagnosed with autism we knew that we would have a busier schedule than normal but we had no idea what it would really entitle.   Since Ezra was 18 months old we have had therapies in our home.  It started off with speech, then OT was added to it.  Then he went to preschool and we qualified for long term care which allowed us to continue speech and OT but in addition we all received one on one hab.  So at 3 years old Ezra was going to preschool 12 hours a week and at preschool he had a very specific IEP that included therapies.  At home he was receiving 1 hour a week of Speech, 1 hour a week of OT and about 15 hours a week of hab.  Most of it was with the state long term care but 7 hours a week we were very blessed to have our private insurance pay for his ABA program with a BCBA.  This is huge, insurance companies just don't pay for it, but military insurance does.  And to this day I know that Ezra wouldn't be where he is today if it wasn't for all the intensive therapy and great people we have worked with.  In the midst of all of this when Rylie turned 18 months old we realized she was not talking either.  So back to AZ early intervention and sure enough she qualified too for speech.  So between the two kids, needless to say our lives revolved around therapy.   So when we talked about getting pregnant again, as much as I wanted to have kids closer in age, I knew we needed to wait until the two we had were in a better place developmentally so that I could continue to give them my 100% focus on their needs.   Both of them are doing great.  Both are still receiving therapy, but are doing well enough that finally I felt the time was right again to get pregnant.  

Devin left in October for Qatar for a small deployment.  2 weeks after he left he received an email with the following picture (below)  That was a shocker!

 I wanted the kids to be super excited about the baby. Sometimes Ezra has a hard time with abstract things, so we decided to find out the sex of the baby to help them grasp it better.  When I went in for the ultrasound Devin couldn't be there with me and I didn't want to find out by myself so I had the technician write the sex down on a piece of paper. I gave the results to my friend (and I didn't peak) She then prepared a box for us.  This is how the kids found out...

 

 A girl!!!

 

 We also had a friend make us cupcakes and put the frosting in the middle to reveal what we were having.

 

 

 I wish I could remember how many weeks I am in these pictures, but I believe here I am 16 weeks.

 She would cover her face in every ultra sound that I ended up having to go to a specialist  to get clearer pictures of her face... 4 times we tried!

 18 weeks...this shirt hid my belly well :)

 I want to say i'm about 22 weeks here

about 28 weeks here....  I guess its time to take another picture.

 

You might be wondering why I titled this post the power ranger baby.  Well that is because when Devin and I couldn't decide on a name for her we decided to let the kids choose the name.   Both of them agreed and decided at the same time we should name her Mia after the pink power ranger.   To be honest with you I didn't love the name Mia for awhile, but the more we refer to her as Mia I can't picture her being named anything else.  So Mia JenNev (after her grandmas Jennifer and Neva) Baker will be making her debut into this world in less than 2 weeks! We are very excited and a little nervous too... Rylie is 4.5 years old, its been awhile since I've had a baby around.