We're Gonna Be Parents!!!

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Originally uploaded by gkhamilton

The secret is out… our first baby is on the way, due on September 7th! After nearly 13 years of marriage and 36 countries visited, Kathy and I decided to finally take the plunge. We weren’t expecting Kathy to get pregnant so quickly (considering that we didn’t really start trying until the end of 2010), but we are both definitely ready for this to happen.

With the exception of the three guys in my SHAPE youth pastor cluster, our parents were the first to find out.

As I shared in my sermon a couple weeks ago, my parents were unable to contain their excitement when we shocked them with the news at the Cedar Hills Chipotle. The guy seated next to us (as well as everyone else in our section) overheard the commotion and he volunteered to take our picture. Without even asking if we were Christians, he even shared with us some encouraging words from Scripture. The hardest part for all four of our parents was keeping the secret until we went public with the news.

Then came our big announcement at Aloha Church of God… “We’re pregnant!!” Will Irwin, one of our sophomores, snapped this cell phone photo of Kathy and me breaking the news to our church. Employing a bit of intentional misdirection, I made it sound like our big news was the miraculously speedy results of our church family’s prayers during my recent mega bout with pneumonia, bronchitis, flu, and a high fever of 103.6 degrees. Of course I was genuinely grateful for the prayers, and this was significantly more genuine than the excuse I had previously fed my parents at Chipotle (we used the pretense of needing advice for chimney problems at our new house, also true).

That afternoon, the news went viral on Facebook.



On February 2nd, we had our first ultrasound, allowing us our first glimpse at our precious little one. Measuring only 2.5 cm, it looked like a tiny jelly bean. We heard its heartbeat, racing at 161 beats per minute. Our hearts were beating almost as fast!

To be continued...