21 Weeks Pregnant - Halfway There

How Far Along:  21 weeks and 1 day
Total Weight Gain/Loss: At this point I have gained about 4ish pounds. Maybe more with Christmas cookies making their way into my life.
Maternity Clothes: Absolutely. I am embracing them at this point.

Best Moment This Week: Christmas was fantastic and seeing our families love on Gray without him even being here, was wonderful. 
Movement This Week: TONS of movement once I slow down and pay attention.

Food Cravings: Recently I've been craving anything sweet.
Anything Make You Queasy or Sick: Not really.
Have You Started to Show Yet: Definitely!
Gender: a baby boy!
Symptoms: Not really anything major.
Labor Signs: Nope
Belly Button IN or OUT: It's so deep, I don't know if it will become an outie.
Looking Forward To: My ultrasound in a few weeks and enjoying the rest of winter vacation.

19 Weeks Along, Almost Halfway!

How Far Along:  19 weeks and 1 day
Total Weight Gain/Loss: At this point I have gained about 4 pounds.
Maternity Clothes: Leggings and Maternity Shirts or bulky sweaters

Best Moment This Week: Feeling the flutters at least once a day.
Movement This Week: TONS of movement once I slow down and pay attention.

Food Cravings: Recently I've been craving sweet potato fries.
Anything Make You Queasy or Sick: Not really.
Have You Started to Show Yet: I definitely popped in the past week or two.
Gender: a baby boy!
Symptoms: I'm sick right now so not sure which symptom is for which cause.
Labor Signs: Nope
Belly Button IN or OUT: It's so deep, I don't know if it will become an outie.
Looking Forward To: My ultrasound in a few days and winter vacation starting in a week!

18 Weeks :)

How Far Along:  18 and a half weeks
Total Weight Gain/Loss: At this point I have gained about 3 pounds.
Maternity Clothes: Thank goodness for friends who have let me borrow their maternity clothes. But so far leggings are the most comfortable!

Best Moment This Week: Feeling the flutters more often. He moves around quite a bit after I get home from work.
Movement This Week: Lots of movement at night but not as much when I'm laying in bed.

Food Cravings: Tuna fish, pickles, and sweets!
Anything Make You Queasy or Sick: Not really.
Have You Started to Show Yet: I definitely popped in the past week or two.
Gender: a baby boy!
Symptoms:The crampiness is still there and really annoying.
Labor Signs: Nope
Belly Button IN or OUT: It's so deep, I don't know if it will become an outie.
Looking Forward To: My ultrasound next week :) and game night this weekend with my friends.

15 weeks

How Far Along:  15 weeks
Total Weight Gain/Loss: Last time I weighed myself I had gained 1 pound since finding out I was pregnant.
Maternity Clothes: Leggings and bigger sweaters so far. Some maternity tops too.

Best Moment This Week: Definitely going to Trans Siberian Orchestra with Andrew, my mom and Barry.
Movement This Week: Little flutters every now and then...

Food Cravings: No cravings really.
Anything Make You Queasy or Sick: Just my sense of smell being picky. 
Have You Started to Show Yet: A little bit.
Gender: a baby boy!
Symptoms: Headaches and cramps or twinges every now and then.
Labor Signs: Nope
Belly Button IN or OUT: It's so deep, I don't know if it will become an outie.
Looking Forward To: My appointment next week, hearing the heartbeat again, spending thanksgiving with family & spending the weekend in Vermont.

Positive!

The morning of August 30th I woke up early (at like 4 A.M.) to go to the bathroom and decided to take a pregnancy test just in case, to see if maybe... just maybe this cycle had worked. Well after waiting the dreaded three minutes, TWO LINES APPEARED! I was ecstatic and immediately started crying. I raced upstairs to wake Andrew up and fill him in that he was going to be a father! He was so happy, and sort of delirious, but he decided to go back to sleep. I couldn't stand it anymore... I could not sleep when I was so excited. So I went downstairs and watched television and texted/called Laurel, my mom, and Betsy. I was honestly beside myself and couldn't believe that our dream of becoming parents was becoming a reality. But of course, my mom wouldn't answer her phone!

A few hours later Andrew's dad came over to help finish the patio. When he arrived I could tell that he was kind of down and was having a bad day. So I decided that we would cheer him up. I told him that he had so much to be happy about especially because he was going to be a grandfather. Of course, that made him cheer up very quickly! Later on I finally reached my mom who was so incredibly happy and couldn't believe that she didn't answer her phone.

A few hours later we were picked up by Andrew's mom and dad to head to Mike and Maria's wedding. In the car I couldn't contain myself and we told Andrew's mom. She was also very excited.

We also told Sarah and Leon when we got to Andrew's parent's house and then we all headed to the hotel that we would be staying at that night.

After we got ready for the wedding we headed over to the facility that the wedding was held at. It was quite beautiful but my mind was only on the fact that I was finally pregnant!

During the reception there was a photo booth so we took a picture with a whiteboard sign that said "We're pregnant!" and then later on showed it to Andrew's family: Aunt Laura, Uncle Scott, Aunt Pam, Uncle Steve, Nana, Dorina and Liz. They were all so happy for us! I was very tired, nauseous because of the hamburger smell, and not hungry at all. So once the wedding reception was over we went back to the hotel and quickly went to sleep.

IVF... Take Two

This IVF cycle has been a bit different than the first cycle. The first cycle was picture perfect until the end when the embryos did not survive. This cycle was kind of a hot mess from the beginning. My insurance was, thankfully, a lot better during this cycle. But the medicine and my hormones were not cooperating with what the doctor wanted. It actually came down to the possibility of us not continuing through this cycle. Dr. Engmann had decided that depending on my ovaries they would do one of three things: cancel the cycle because I had OHSS, do the retrieval but postpone the transfer until the following cycle, or continue as planned. Thank goodness, we were able to continue as planned because I started drinking gatorade for the electrolytes and I took it as easy as I possibly could.

So on August 17th the doctors were able to retrieve multiple eggs and they fertilized them with ICSI (which they didn't do in the first cycle). But by day three, only three embryos had survived. So the doctor decided that they were going to push them to day five and hope that some of them made it. Unfortunately, only one of the embryos survived until day five. But we were so happy to see our little one make it to day five. We continued with the transfer and were able to put our one little embryo in and hope for the best.

Waiting the 10 days was torture...

Back in the saddle again

Back in the saddle again...

Andrew and I have decided that while we wait for a phone call from the adoption agency saying that we have been matched, we are going to try to conceive through IVF again. My plan is to keep a better record of both the good and the bad moments through this process. The plan right now is to wait for my period to begin and then on day 2 I have to get blood work done, on day 3 I begin birth control pills and July 7th is my official consult appointment to make a legit plan for my cycle. Fingers crossed it works... <3

A Waiting Game

The most difficult part of this journey of adoption is waiting. I feel like we have been waiting to get started then we hurry up and then we wait again. Of course once we reach the point of waiting again it means that we have accomplished something too. Well anyways, so much has happened since I last posted.

We had our home study visit and that went very well. We are so lucky to have a social worker who is so down to earth and understands all of our worries and excitement. Good news is, WE GOT APPROVED! Bad news is, now we just wait.

So in the meantime we are planning so many events to keep us busy over the months while we wait. Who knows, we could be matched tomorrow and we could be matched next year. So for now, we wait and we try to raise the money that we will need to bring our baby home. We have already paid $1,950 for our home study and will be signing a check for $1,500 to be shown to birth moms in the next couple of weeks. From there we just wait. And fundraise. Did I mention we need to fundraise?

In May we are going to host an ice cream social and in June we will have a tag sale. In July we will have a spaghetti supper and in August we will have another tag sale. Fingers crossed that we get chosen by a birth mom before Christmas!

Worth the wait

So we have been making great strides in the home study process! We completed our application and our adoption intake form for the agency. We signed the contract & paid the application fee. We have made copies of our birth certificates, marriage license, tax forms, and Charleigh's vaccination record. We have both been fingerprinted. We both took a six hour long day of classes and we are in the process of finishing up our online classes. We have scheduled our physicals and contacted our insurance company and we should be all done with our paperwork process by St. Patrick's Day. Also on St. Patrick's Day is our home study visit. This is the one where our case worker will come out to the house and do an assessment on the house and determine if we are fit to be parents. It's amazing to me how much we have to go through in order to be "allowed" to be parents. In the meantime, so many people that I know are getting pregnant and don't even want the kids.

Anyways, I digress. We are very excited that our home study process will be finished on March 17th and then we just wait for the clearances to get back to the agency and for our home study to be written and finalized. After that we just wait for a birth mom to pick us :)

So in the meantime we have many things planned to keep us busy and to help us enjoy the wait.

March:
We have our adoption "maternity" photo shoot next weekend with a friend of ours.
We have our home visit with the case worker.
We have a game night for the end of this month.

April:
Easter celebration with our families.
*Crossing our fingers our home study will be done this month!*

May:
Celebrating our anniversary with a weekend away hopefully.
The Annual May Fair at our church.

June:
Our friends' wedding.
Our cousin's shower and stag.
Andrew's birthday.
Our fundraiser tag sale
Hopefully a night away to Vermont.

July:
Beach day trips.
A Camping trip.
Wine festival.

August:
More beach day trips.

Our cousin's wedding.

Hopefully this process continues to go so smoothly. We would love to have a match before next Christmas. That would make the holidays a lot easier...

Long Time, No Post... Sorry!

So incredibly much has changed since I last posted on here. The last post was on New Years Eve and we were still considering three agencies and we had just gotten our heads wrapped around this whole fundraising deal. Well... A LOT HAS CHANGED!

We have chosen an agency. It's a small one that only deals with birth mothers who live in our state. The positives of using a small agency outweigh the negatives. We are happy to be dealing with an agency that does nonprofit work for all of our state, specifically in the urban cities. Our agency has three locations and one of them is literally 15 minutes from our house. This agency only has a dozen adoptive families waiting at a time. This means you get their undivided attention and they are committed to finding families for each waiting family. Our birth mom will be living in our state. This means that we will not have to travel for the birth of our child, barring the birth mom does not move out of state during the pregnancy. Also, we will have more of an opportunity for our birth mom to build a positive relationship with our child(ren). This will create a closer relationship than if the birth mom lived across the country. Also, our case worker is extremely sweet. She is one of those people you just cannot be worried or anxious with. She answers all of my questions before the day is through and always makes me feel like things will go smoothly, even when I am anxious and nervous about next steps.The only negative that stands out to me is that because our agency only works with birth moms in our state, the amount of birth moms that we will be presented to is smaller than if we were working with a larger agency. Regardless, we are very excited to be working with our agency. From now on I will call them F&C.

So to take a step back here's the timeline so far of what has happened for our adoption:

December 30th - Started our puzzle piece fundraiser on GoFundMe.com
January 1st - Reached $100 towards our fundraiser!
January 3rd - Reached $500 towards our fundraiser!
February 1st - Reached $1000 towards our fundraiser!
February 2nd - Opened an etsy account to raise money for our adoption

February 4th - We attended an informational meeting with F&C. We asked a lot of questions, got many more answers, and felt confident in our decision to adopt through them.
February 14th - Mailed our autobiographies, application, and application fee.

We are very excited to be in the next steps of our adoption journey. We are officially in the "first trimester" of the adoption process. This trimester includes: our home study, adoption classes, and getting our home ready to bring a little one home!

We are planning a spaghetti dinner for April and a tag sale for June so that we can continue to raise money towards our adoption. It's going to be a long journey but the end result is so so so worth it. Just imagine, we might be matched by Christmas. If we get matched by Christmas I honestly would erupt with joy. I cannot wait to have a little stocking hung on our mantle, to get to teach my child about the meaning of Christmas, and to spend the holidays loving on our little one.

Almost [Paper] Pregnant!

So we have the application completed and a bunch of other papers to be completed. We also need to get our physicals done and fingerprints. We need to file our taxes and update the financial portion of the application. But in all reality, we are almost paper pregnant! I cannot wait for that moment when we hand in all of the paperwork and are just waiting to complete our home study. Once we reach that point, all we have to do is complete our home study and then we are waiting to be matched.

Last night Andrew and I babysat for our friend's little boys. They are like family to us at this point and spending the night with them reminded me of how much I want to be a mom. It's not a matter of being pregnant that I long to experience, it is simply being a mom. I want to have a son or daughter. I want to see Andrew be a father. I want to fall in love with our little ones over and over again. I cannot wait for that all to happen.

In the meantime, we are trying to raise enough money to begin our home study which means we need about $1900. At this point we have reached $830 through the amazing support of family and friends. One family member promised to donate $1000 in February. That means we are EXTREMELY close to having our home study paid for. We are hoping that with the money that we get back from our taxes we can pay off some of the debt that we incurred trying to do an IVF procedure. :/ Luckily, it isn't too much and we will be able to focus on setting up our nursery once that is paid off.

I am most definitely looking forward to decorating the nursery. I already know that I want to decorate in a nautical theme if we are blessed with a baby boy and a shabby chic theme if we are blessed with a baby girl! So exciting!

So for now we are continuing our efforts to fundraise, sending a letter out to all of our family and friends to tell them we are "paper pregnant" and getting our physicals and fingerprinting done! :)

Also, I am knitting and selling infinity scarves. If anyone is interested they will be $25 and you can select any color! :) Please please please support our adoption & keep warm this winter with one of my hand-knit infinity scarves!

<3

Have a little faith

So earlier today I was having one of those moments that we all have. A moment of doubt. Pure doubt. I knew going into the adoption process that it would be extremely difficult. I knew that it would be a roller coaster of emotions. I knew that there were so many unknowns. But I also knew that at the end there would be a precious little baby for us to love on. What I didn't really focus on was the financial aspect of it. I knew... I knew that somehow it would fall into place. I didn't want to not do adoption just because the financial aspect scared me. So I jumped in. Whole-heartedly. But today, I felt doubt. I was researching different adoption agencies, looking at blogs by families who have adopted or are in the process, and listening to music and I just completely broke down. I looked on our fundraiser page and saw that we were at $205.00 and my heart broke. I was extremely happy that we reached that number but knew that if we were going to submit our application then we would need to have $500.00.

God knew. God knew that I was in doubt. Because somehow my nana touched my mom and she reminded my mom of her love for us and my mom donated in memory of my nana. The two women who raised me for most of my life are once again raising me up and reminding me to have a little faith. I know that when times get tough and I want to give up it is always my mom who is there for me. What I forgot, was that this applies in all cases. My mom had no idea that I was filled with doubt today and yet, somehow she felt that she should donate to our adoption fundraiser in memory of my nana.

So everyone, have a little faith :)