Being a stay at home mom has given me a ton of time to think. This can be very good and very bad ;) One good thing that I've thought a lot about is that I haven't written down our story of how Ben and I met, became friends, dated and got married. I love thinking about our story because I freaking love my husband and it is funny the way that WE began. Our story begins like most couples. Two people (who were very different) met and became friends. I'll walk you through it.

It was April of my Sophomore year at Baylor. My Sophomore year was my most extroverted year, I think. I did everything I could with my sorority, got together with friends/roommates/neighbors ALL THE TIME and really, I don't recall studying...ever. Sorry Mom and Dad. Well we get to the week of Dia Del Oso and that day I was mega thriving. Rollerblading everywhere, seeing all my friends, snow cones...you get the picture. The day after Dia is when I met Ben. Cue chorus of angels singing ahhh!

Me and my roomie Anna were planning on hanging out with our friend Grant who was a Senior at the time. We knew he was inviting one of his friends that he hung out with a bunch but we didn't know who he was. OoOoOoO oLdEr GuYs. Our plans were to go to a movie and then to a dance party outside at the Dr. Pepper museum. We had to pick up Grant's friend because he didn't have a car. We rode in Anna's car to LL Sams and picked up BEN in the parking lot. He walked up to the car with fluffy hair, cut off corduroys (I found out later he calls these "corts," like corduroy-shorts lol), Chacos, and a China Spring (a local high school) volleyball shirt. We drove to the Dollar General to pick up some candy before our movie, How to Train Your Dragon.


After the movie, we went to the dance party and this is when the fun REALLY started. That particular dance party ended up being a pillow fight and there were feathers everywhere. We danced forever, it seemed. Anna and I had gone to dance parties before and let's just say we let loose on the floor. We were craaaaazy weird dancers. While we were at the dance party, I began to notice Ben. In the midst of my crazy dancing, I noticed that he was really keeping up with us. He might have been an even crazier dancer than me! All 4 of us danced so much and sweat even more. We left and went back to our duplex since Grant's car was there. All of us went upstairs and were just talking and having
fun. I sat on the back of our blue leather couch (lol) and accidentally flipped backwards onto the glass coffee table and knocked off the incense oil thing that was there. Everyone was cracking up at me including myself but it was actually pretty painful!

Eventually Ben and Grant went home and I was left to thinking. My first impressions of Ben were that he had big hair, was a hilarious dancer and had oddly nerdy cute style. I really kinda loved the fact that he didn't care what people thought about what he wore or how he danced or which movies he liked. I am a CLASSIC people pleaser and so this quality immediately caught my attention. I also loved that he had this quiet peace about him. There was just something mysterious about this Ben Belz person. I never really had a friend like Ben. Someone so quiet and reserved, or so I thought at the time. All these first impressions caught my eye and I wanted to find out more.


I just texted Ben and he said his first impression of me was: "You were beautiful and funny and fun and just goofy/weird enough to handle my extreme weirdness. And especially after getting to hang out with you a couple times, I knew there was something special about you that I just wanted to be around more and more."

ALL THE HEART EYES. More on the next part of our story later... :)

judah kirk belz

Judah's Birth Story

I never thought I would write a birth story but here I am. Also I haven't updated my blog in so long, but YES we got pregnant and had a baby!!! Praise Jesus!!! I should tell you before I tell you our birth story that I have lots of maybe TMI details so if you're not into that sorta stuff, skip this post ;)

We waited for Judah for what felt like FOREVER. My doctor had told me that he would most likely come by my due date so we were ready in those last couple weeks. His due date came and went and at our doctor appointment the next week, we scheduled an induction for Friday which was 41 weeks. It helped me know there was an end in sight. My bestie Lauren came over that Thursday and we hung out all morning just talking. I felt kinda nauseous that morning and texted my friend Melissa about it too. I had a couple things happen that were "early labor signs" before and that day so I wasn't too concerned. I did feel different though, the nausea was new. When Lauren and I went to chick fil a for lunch, I didn't finish my meal which was a little abnormal considering I was super hungry and almost 41 weeks pregnant. When we got home, Lauren left and immediately after that I got SO SICK. My body was like, HA! GOODBYE CHICK FIL A. both. ends. I kid you not. My stomach was in a lot of pain and I thought OH YAY LABOR! But it kept getting worse and the pain increased as I was curled in a ball on our bed. I texted Ben and told him he needed to come home because I knew something was actually wrong and I was getting dehydrated (obviously bad but especially bad when pregnant!).

When Ben got home, I started vomiting non stop. I kid you not it has been a decade since I threw up! Before I vomited, Ben was trying to get me to drink water and I was crying because I didn't want to since I felt so awful. I thought he was so mean for trying to get me to drink water lol. When the vomit started, Ben went into go-mode. I've never seen him move that fast. He cleaned up the house and put everything into the car. We decided I was definitely dehydrated and called the hospital to tell them I'm coming. I told Ben, "GET ME THERE FAST." He said, "I've been training for this my whole life!!" LOL yeah right because he is the safest driver ever. But he drove very fast and there was zero traffic PRAISE JESUS!!! We got there in under 20 min, only possible by flying on angels wings hehe. The whole drive I felt awful and now know I was having contractions. Side bar: people said I would know when I had contractions and that was FALSE and I wanted to say "shove it" to them before I went into labor ;)

We got to hospital and went to triage. They got us in and checked my vitals. Meanwhile, still vomiting and having diarrhea. I was indeed dehydrated and they told me they thought I had a virus. How CONVENIENT!! They hooked me up to all the things and started IV fluids. They decided to keep me overnight so I didn't have to come back in the morning to be induced.

We got to our labor & delivery room and got settled. I started to feel worse and worse as my contractions got more intense and closer together. Our nurse checked me and I wasn't dilating much so they decided to start me on Pitocin earlier than our 5am induction time. I asked if I could shower before that since I still had vomit in my hair ;) After showering, they got Pitocin and Penicillin started (I had tested positive for group B strep). Meanwhile, I was still having the virus symptoms and having to walk to the bathroom with all my cords and IV pole every 2 minutes. I started to have pretty painful contractions 1 minute apart but when they checked me, I wasn't much further dilated. I told the nurse I wanted an epidural around 3am. I knew I wouldn't be able to contract every minute and still be going to the bathroom so much all night long. Stomach virus + labor = NOT FUN.

Okay here is where it gets good. After my epidural I finally got relief from my virus symptoms PTL!! EPIDURALS ARE FROM JESUS. I LOVE THEM AND I LOVE ANESTHESIOLOGISTS AND NURSES AND ALL THINGS. I felt amazing and so peaceful. Got some rest and they kept increasing my Pitocin as the morning went on. I developed a fever during labor (thanks stomach virus) so they had to give me medicine for that and would watch closely during the rest of labor. They checked my cervix about every hour to see how dilated I was. At one point I went from a 5 to a 9 and they told me I was going to start pushing soon. WHAT, YAY!!

My doctor came in and told me it would probably take me about 2 hours to push, so get ready! (Side note- we LOVE our doctor. Holy moly we love him so much and I hope every baby we have can be delivered by him!!! He is the BEST!) I started pushing around 2:15pm and it was great. Like, I love pushing. We had a lovely convo with our nurse the whole time about Nintendo (Ben's doing) and other meaningless things that I cannot recall :) After pushing for 30 minutes, our doctor came in again and said that Judah would be here in about 20-30 minutes. Again I was shocked, what!! Ben was doing a great job counting me down with pushing and fanning me with the room service menu haha.

I pushed and pushed and Judah was born at 3:14pm ❤️ Cue the tears!!! They put him on my chest and Ben and I just stared at each other with tears in our eyes. I kid you not, time stood still in that moment. I will never forget Ben's face!

The nurses weighed and measured Judah. He was 9 lbs 4 oz, 21 inches long. Our big boy!!! Everyone was so surprised and so were we. My Doctor made me feel like a superstar that I pushed out that big of a baby in an hour. I felt proud and still do :) Shortly after the initial things with Judah, they told us his blood sugar was low and that they would have to monitor it. If it didn't go up, he would have to go to NICU. I was feeling very emotional about this. Just the word "NICU" terrified me.

My mom came in to our room about an hour and a half after Judah was born. We then were transferred to a postpartum room. Judah ate so much immediately but his blood sugars never went up. He was admitted to the NICU a few hours after birth and we were so sad. It was really really hard to not be able to have him in our room ever. Ben went to watch them take Judah to the NICU and said it was super hard to watch. I got to go visit him around 11pm that night. It was very emotional to see our newborn with all those wires hooked up to him. You never want to see your baby like that! We felt so peaceful about his safety and care in the NICU though. We knew he was getting just what he needed.

Judah stayed in the NICU while we were in post partum. The nurses gave me a stool softener after labor which started up my virus symptoms again :( It was challenging with recovery and my virus to get over to the NICU every time we were able to feed him but I'm so thankful for that time too. Ben and I were discharged on Sunday and Judah was able to come home with us on Monday!! He was a champ the whole NICU stay and we always had good reports and improvements on his blood sugars.

We are SO THANKFUL for our son, Judah Kirk Belz. He has been an answer to prayer. Before he was born, we prayed he would be a good eater & sleeper and be a boy of peace. He is all that and MORE! Jesus is so faithful! We are so blessed to be his parents. I have wanted to be a mom for forever and I'm so thankful for this privilege to stay home with Judah every day. Ben is the greatest and most present father/husband. I have never felt more like a team with Ben than now! We are unstoppable!!! I am the most blessed woman to be a wife to Ben and a mom to Judah (and Fenway puppy!). Thank you Jesus!!

PS- Also if you made it this far, you are a superhero.