I'm so excited I can hardly stand it

OK, I was going to hold off on posting this here until a certain South African friend called me so I could tell her personally, but I can't wait any longer or I will burst ...

Last Wednesday, in the middle of finals week, I took a different kind of test ... one which resulted in two pink lines! (Confirmed by the presence of lots of nausea and food aversions and cravings over the past week!) That's right, friends: TJ and I are expecting a little one in January!

Thank you all SO much for your prayers! I am still amazed, overjoyed and blown away that God has blessed us with a new life, and in the exact timing I had been praying for. This is wonderful timing for many reasons, especially that it was just in time for me to be able to tell my parents in person when they were here for my grad school graduation. :)

The words running through my head that morning after seeing the results were Mary's Song:

"My soul glorifies the Lord
47and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
49for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
50His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
51He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
52He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
53He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
54He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
55to Abraham and his descendants forever,
even as he said to our fathers."

TJ is thrilled, too. And now praying all the more fervently that one of his new jobs comes through quickly, because his current job has us on a very tight budget! (Yes, tighter even than on a pastor's salary! ;)) So please pray with us for God's provision as well as for the health and safety of the three of us. :) My 45% chance of miscarriage is a sobering statistic ... yet I praise God that He is bigger than any statistic. It is He who gives and takes away; blessed be His name.

Edited to add: For anyone who's new to this blog, I wanted to explain that, while a pregnancy is certainly thrilling for its own sake, there was a reason we were praying extra-hard this would happen soon: I have multiple sclerosis (MS), and I had to stop giving myself daily injections of a preventive drug for MS while trying to conceive (and I also need to stay off the drug while pregnant). Pregnancy actually has a protective effect against MS, but while trying to conceive, my health was at higher risk of another MS attack since I couldn't do the injections.