Levi's Birth Story: Part 1

Levi Joshua’s Birth Story, Part 1: Signs of Blue Before We Met You

I was able to see our sonographer again at my postpartum check-up appointment at my OB office. She came into the room exasperated, saying, “I have pored over the images of your child over and over again trying to figure out what happened!” She told me that she has been doing this line of work for 23 years and this has never happened!! We laughed,  we hugged, and I expressed to her just how delighted we are about our BOY surprise! I was able to assure her that while it was quite the shock and YES I had a lot of pink returns and exchanges to do, we were surprised in the best way possible and cannot imagine our child being anyone else now that he is here and with us!

When I look back at photos from our Gender Reveal party or at my super girly pink ballet themed baby shower last fall — I feel a strange detached feeling from it all. 

It was all so special and beautiful, yes but I see photos of myself pregnant and feel this odd sense of like “Levi, you were in there the whole time?” I was imagining this completely different little someone that doesn’t even exist! It’s all so bizarre!

Every time I see pregnant friends share a gender announcement now, I have this strange hesitancy about it and it makes me think, “I’ll believe it when I see it!” I joke that I’ve got some trust issues now!! If I were to get pregnant again, would we even bother finding out the gender? Would I be able to believe it and plan and prep? I’m ruined! It’s all wild and weird, and it’s not a big deal in the end… but it certainly was a lot to process and shift gears when we got this shock at birth! Sure, everyone has a story like this — but they’re all from 30 years or more ago! Heck, my own mother experienced something so similar with ME when she was pregnant; she already had 3 boys and when she was pregnant with me they told her that she had another boy! But towards the end of the pregnancy, she had another scan that revealed that I was a GIRL!! I guess this gender surprise thing is genetic!

As we look back at the journey to our precious son, we can see some cool prophetic signs pointing to a sweet boy coming our way! I love to recognize and reflect on how the Lord was speaking and planting little treasures along the way in this story.

Signs of Blue

🩵 By April of 2017, Steven and I were in our second year of trying to conceive and each month that went by without any success became emotionally harder and harder. We had gone on a mission trip to Peru that month with a small team from our church and an older gentleman on our team shared some words that he felt like the Lord wanted to encourage us with. He said, “I had a vision that you will have three children: two boys and one girl.” I wept immediately and felt the Holy Spirit so strongly when he spoke it over us. It wasn’t until we found out that we were pregnant with our 3rd child (and had one boy and one girl) that I remembered the word from so many years ago! After our gender reveal party, I was a little confused when it seemed like we were going to have one boy and two girls instead… but then when a dear friend of mine met our surprise son in the hospital room the day after he was born, she exclaimed, “Remember the word?! You have two boys and a girl!” Wow. Only God.

🩵From the beginning of the pregnancy, I felt SO strongly that I had a BOY growing inside of me. Not because I “wanted” it to be, nor because mine and Steven’s families are both ALL boys!! (He had 3 brothers and I had 5!!) At our gender reveal party the shock I felt about it being a GIRL was so strong. I will admit that it felt pretty validating of my motherly intuition when it turned out to be a boy after all! 

🩵At the gender reveal party, after we heard that it was going to be a girl, later in the party, Aaro took the outer part of the ornament that said “He or She, what will baby be?” and he brought it to me with the GREEN boy ornament inside and had me open it. I laughed and felt some sadness in my heart for him because he was so set on it being a boy! He said, “Well, it could still change and be a boy.” We laughed and tried to gingerly tell him, “Well, it doesn’t quite work like that.” But many, many times after that day Aaro called the baby a “he” and insisted that it could still be a boy! I always dismissed it and laughed. Turns out that the Lord was on Team Aaro and wanted to give him a baby brother! (And a little sister - all in one year!)

🩵Three weeks before I had the baby I was at church, and I was headed to the bathroom (where I had a frequent flier card) and a stranger stopped me in the hallway. She didn’t know anything about my story or the baby, but she said that she saw me across the room worshipping and pregnant and she was praying for me. She had a vision of a baby boy that loved God all the days of his life and had the heart of David! She also saw a seed that had been trampled on and was never supposed to be able to grow. But it took root and grew. After she shared, I thanked her and placed my hand on my oversized belly and politely expressed that this was a girl, but that maybe the word was for my older son or for a future baby possibly? But I went home and told Steven about her words and I literally asked him, “Do you think that we should have a boy name ready?” We both laughed it off and didn’t think anything more of it! How wild that it turned out to be a little prophetic glimpse at what was actually to come…

🩵There is a wonderful animated film called “David” that came out right before Christmas that we got to take the kids to see in theaters on my due date! (December 19th) It was such a beautiful, faith-inspiring film and the kids loved it so much! There is a soundtrack for the movie that we all listened to nonstop over Christmas break, and we all know the words to every song! Who would have known that on the due date for baby Levi, we were watching a film about the life of David from the Bible - after getting that word about a boy that has a heart of David! What a perfectly appropriate due date film to have enjoyed as my little BOY was about to make his debut two days later. 

🩵I thrifted a blanket last February in the beginning of my changes to materials in our home. It was the cutest find for an organic cotton blanket! But I only saw the blue stripes and pretty cream color. It wasn’t until I brought it home and opened it all the way to wash it that I saw the inscription! 

“For this child we have prayed.”

Later, when we got pregnant I told Steven “Oh that would be so cool if it’s a boy and this blanket with the blue stripes would be so perfect!”

🩵I had the name Levi Joshua as a boy name contender alongside a couple of girl names before we knew gender. Steven and I never discussed baby names until well after the gender reveal. And then choosing a name was belabored for many weeks. We eventually felt unity about the name choice for our girl, and then we decided to keep it a secret. We didn’t tell a soul. Steven and I kept it between the two of us and didn’t even tell it to the kids or slip up and let them accidentally hear. It was always just “baby sister” with them or “baby pink link” with others. I was 35 weeks when we finally pulled the trigger and I ordered an embroidered pink onesie and a little wooden announcement card with the name! Now we know why a girl name was so hard for us to choose!! 😜

🩵I had ordered Christmas stockings for our family with everyone’s names stitched on them. It was the perfect gift for our family as our little Christmas baby would be joining us and making us a family of 5! Well, the shipment got lost in the mail and was taking weeks longer than it should have. I was able to request a refund but was feeling so bummed that they would not be here for Christmas. They were so cute and I was so looking forward to seeing these all hanging up and reflecting the size of our new family of 5!! It was Liddy and baby’s first Christmas. But it turns out that we wouldn’t need one of those stockings after all!

Even though the company issued a full refund, the shipment still arrived late in January and I just laughed when it showed up at our doorstep!! I felt a little sorrow as I saw the beautiful girl name on the one not needed stocking. But I immediately ordered one for Levi so that we could have them all hanging up together for this Christmas! Baby girl's stocking is stored away with so many other items now in our "Maybe Baby" box... 😆

🩵We never got the nursery finalized or ready for this baby. We put more of our focus on getting our master bedroom ready for baby since the nursery would not be a space we would need until crib sleeping. I’m so glad now that we didn’t put all kinds of time, energy, and funds into a pretty pink nursery!! I think it would be harder to walk in there and see all of that and know we have to undo it and redecorate! Glad we’re third time parents on the fly over here just rolling with the punches. Yes, he will eventually have a nursery ready and it will be properly decorated for a young man!

🩵My first week back to church postpartum a young lady in our church family approached me before worship. She said, “I’ve been waiting to share something with you when I could see you in person! It’s not something I wanted to tell you through text.” She peaked at little Levi’s face as he was sleeping in my arms and she shared, “I had a dream before you had the baby that I was telling you that you should name the baby Joshua.” Wow. Chills went down my spine. “When did you have the dream?” I asked. She told me that she had the dream some time in December, and she woke up from that dream saying: 1) I’m not going to tell someone what they’re going to name their baby! and 2) it’s a GIRL!! Imagine her surprise when she found out that A) it was a BOY and B) We chose Joshua as the middle name!!!! 

So many sweet little prophetic signs that a baby boy was on his way all along!