Wednesday, November 10, 2010

adoption & pregnancy updates

i haven't been much of a blogger lately but i'm beginning to feel the itch again so i thought that i'd just share some random updates on both our adoption and our pregnancy today. nothing super exciting but at least it's an update, right??


first things first - our adoption:
*we are currently just anxiously waiting to make our first trip to ethiopia on december 16th. our official countdown is 36 days until we board the plane! i CANNOT wait!! ...well, except for the whole part about being pregnant, uncomfortable, hungry, and unable to stretch my legs on an 18 hour plane ride. i can definitely wait on those things, but i'm sure they will be completely overshadowed by finally making it to our son's home country and getting to meet him :)

*today is the first time in about 2-3 weeks that i actually figured out how many days until our departure. my latest strategy for the wait has been just to think about how far away the trip is and push away my overwhelming urge to be planned, packed and ready to go. now any time i am in a store and see christmas decorations or hear christmas music, i laugh to myself and think about how silly it is that the stores are already thinking about christmas! i convince myself that there are still many weeks until christmas and not to get too excited. {kinda crazy, huh? don't judge me. it's sorta working}

*however, my above mentioned strategy was made difficult yesterday when our agency sent us our travel packet with all the info we needed to know for our travel. while it sent me into a relapse of wanting to leave yesterday, i'm seriously thankful for the information! i read the entire 18 page packet as soon as we got it just to be sure that we hadn't forgotten something important. it was very helpful and i'm thankful for our agency's great care of us throughout this journey.

*speaking of our agency, arise for children, this past weekend marked their 2 year anniversary! in the past 2 years, our small agency has been obedient to the Lord and helped bring 69 children into loving, godly families!! way to go! we got to celebrate this wonderful occasion with a reunion party for all the families who've previously adopted through arise, are in process, or are considering adoption. i missed a good portion of the beginning of the party, but i was lucky enough to still see many of the children who are now home. as i saw the kiddos playing and running around together, God just struck me again with the reminder that adoption is truly a miracle. just to see the faces of all those children whose circumstances used to be so different, now united with loving families who are able to provide for them was heart warming to say the least!

our pregnancy:
*it's hard to believe but i am currently already 12.5 weeks pregnant. it seems like just yesterday that we found out! this means that i will be almost 18 weeks when we leave for ethiopia the first time, and hopefully no later than 28 weeks when we go back. my doctor has said that i can travel back to ethiopia up until march 15, so we'll definitely be praying to receive our embassy appointment not long after we pass court in december so that me and baby #2 don't miss out on our second trip! sooner rather than later would be great.

*i wish i could say that i have overly enjoyed being pregnant so far, but that would be untrue. i keep telling myself that when i start feeling better, i will enjoy it more and i hope that's the case. it's not been too awful lately thanks to the wonder drug, zofran, but the first few weeks were really rough. more so than i expected because i hardly remembered my sister being sick with either of her pregnancies...except for once after smelling popcorn at the movie theater but i'll spare you the details :) the highlight of my pregnancy so far was definitely our first ultrasound last week. seeing our little girl or guy put things in perspective for sure, so now when i'm feeling sick i try to remember that it's for a great reason!

*there has been much debate, even long before we were pregnant, about whether or not ryan and i would find out the gender of our first biological child. ryan really didn't want to and i really did, so we both tried to stew on it for awhile before making any decisions. however, i think last week we finally reached a compromise and have decided that we will find out! i think ryan finally changed his mind after some convincing arguments from me about the expense of re-buying everything if it's a little girl. i mean, come on, i could not deal with dressing my little bundle of girlieness in green, yellow and orange for the first year of her life. plus, dresses, hair bows, and all things pink would not be cheap, so my sweet husband decided to concede on this one. my doctor wants to do another ultrasound on me before we leave for ethiopia so there is a good chance that on december 10, our wait will be over!

well that's about all i can think of for now. ryan keeps telling people that we've got "lots of irons in the fire right now" and that truly sums up how i'm feeling. there's a lot going on, but mostly a lot of great things that we are truly grateful for!! we are excited that now we can not only praise the Lord for the life of our sweet greer nathanel, but also for baby #2. blessings all around!

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