We Got the Call!!

Today, at 6:30pm, I got the call we have been waiting for! We have been matched with a birth mother who is due August 10th! She is having a boy! I am beyond excited!! I will post more later!

While I wait...

So, we still haven't heard anything. It is killing me! I am trying to just remember that God has the perfect child already picked out for us, so all I need to do is wait. But the waiting is the hardest part! So, I've been trying to stay busy. Since being laid off last Tuesday, and not hearing anything about the adoption, it has been hard to stay busy. Here is a picture of some of the stuff I have bought for our little one.

All gender neutral. I'm hoping I can start buying pink or blue really soon.

And if you know my husband at all, you will appreciate this little onesie I got yesterday.

I couldn't pass it up. Andrew loves it. He can't wait to have a little baby to put in it, and teach them all about Disney.

So, I guess I will get back to waiting! Any tips to help me pass the time would be greatly appreciated.

Father's Day

First, Happy Father's Day to my wonderful Dad! I am so blessed to have you ad my father.
Second, Happy Father's Day to my father-in-law, Jim. I am so happy to have married into such a wonderful family.
And last, Happy Father's Day to Andrew, the Daddy-to-be! I can't wait to see you with our Baby. I know you will be a wonderful father, and our children will be blessed to have you in their lives. I love you!

I finally made it to Hilton Head

That's right, yesterday put me over 280 miles! Here is a breakdown from last week, and the first part of this week:
Sunday: 1
Monday: 2.77
Tuesday: 3.24
Wednesday: 3.13
Thursday: 4.43
Friday: 1.57
Saturday: 2.74
Total for the week: 18.88
Sunday: 3.18
Monday: 2.45
Tuesday: 1.80
Wednesday: 1.03
Total walked: 280.28
It took me three and a half weeks longer then I would have liked, but I set out to walk 280 miles, and I did it!!
So, where should I walk to next? I'm thinking about maybe walking to my Baby. I just don't know how far that will be. It could be 20 miles,
or it could be 500 miles. I'll just start walking and wait to find out my destination.

Getting Ready For A Baby

This past weekend, I was in "getting ready" mode. I just want to have all of the basic necessities before we get the phone call saying we have a baby. Friday, I went shopping with my MIL for bedding for the cradle. I bought the cradle when I was pregnant, because I found it at a consignment sale, and it was too good to pass on. So, for the past 9 months, it has been sitting in our spare bedroom. Anyway, we found some really cute, super soft bedding, in a pale green. It is perfect for a boy or a girl. On Saturday night, Kelly and I went shopping, and I found this cute little frog. He matches the bedding perfectly.
I also found these cute little hats at the Children's Place. They were on clearance, so I got one for a boy and one for a girl.
Here is the swing that Kelly is letting me borrow. It is also very gender neutral.

Sunday afternoon was devoted to picking out a car seat / stroller travel system. Andrew was such a trooper, and didn't complain once. We went to 4 different stores, and here is what we decided on. We got it from Babies R Us. It is an Evenflo. There were around 350 reviews on-line, and it's overall rating was 4 out of 5. We looked into everything people complained about, and they weren't issues for us. The reason we picked this one, was because the car seat was lighter then the others. The handle on the car seat was a lot easier to carry. The storage bin under the stroller was bigger then all the others. Opening and closing the stroller was so easy, we could both easily do it with one hand. I really love the pattern to0, so that helped with choosing it also.

On Sunday, I also bought my first pack of diapers and wipes. I had a coupon for both, so I got huggies, since that was what the coupon was for. Now all we need are some bottles. Thanks to everyone who gave their input on facebook when I asked. I'm still not sure which ones to go with, but we will figure it out soon enough. Things are coming together. Now all we need is the baby!

Why Adoption?

Adoption has been something I have been passionate about for a long time. I have researched, read blogs, and followed many families during their adoption journey. I always knew that I would adopt one day, I just wasn't sure from where or when. I always thought I would be going to China to adopt a little girl, and if I were 30 years old right now, then that is probably where we would be heading. But I'm not, and won't be for 2 more years. So, we decided domestic adoption would be best for us.

A little back story. When we got married, we had talked about how long we wanted to wait to have children. We thought that 5 years would be a good amount of time to wait. Well, after being married for almost 4 year, I got bit by the baby bug. So we decided to start trying on our 4 year anniversary, May 2008. We were going to Mexico for our anniversary, and I had stopped taking birth control at the beginning of May. My plan was to come home from Mexico pregnant. HA! Well, I didn't get too discouraged about not being pregnant for the first 9 months. Andrew was traveling a lot, and we were just "seeing if it would happen." Then in March, 2009 we got serious about trying. By the way, this whole time, none of our family knew that we were trying. So every time I got asked when we were going to have kids, I would just brush it off. I never thought we would have problems, and so after trying for so long, there just wasn't a right time to tell them. By May of 2009, I thought something might be wrong. My sisters never had any problems getting pregnant, why was it taking us so long. Finally in August, I told my parents. Of course they were shocked and committed the situation to prayer. I also told Andrew's parents what was going on. Then, just a few weeks later, I found out I was pregnant! Complete Shock! We only told our immediate family, but we were so excited. Then, not even two weeks later, I miscarried. I was so broken hearted. But everyone saw this as "at least you know you can get pregnant now." Well, that wasn't what I wanted to hear. Andrew and I decided to give it until January, and then look into testing, and our options. The next few months pasted without any pregnancy, and the entire time, I just wanted to be done with it. I wanted to stop trying, and just move on to Adoption. We both knew that was the next step, but Andrew just wasn't ready to move on to adoption yet. He wanted to give trying our full attention. After some trips to the Dr's office, we decided to give it until May 2010. If I wasn't pregnant by then, we would start the adoption process. We decided to forgo any infertility treatment. They are all very expensive, and if we were going to spend a lot of money, we would rather put it towards definitely getting a baby, then just hoping that the procedure works, and possibly getting a baby.

To answer the question, a lot of people are wondering, I don't know if we can have biological children. From everything we can tell, yes, we should be able to. But for some reason, God is taking us down a different path to parenthood, and we are excited about where HE is leading us.

The whole process is going so much faster then we thought it would. Here is our basic timeline. We made the decision May 1st. I met with two different agencies the second week in May, and decided on which one we wanted to use. Then it was just a matter of filling out paper work, and completing our home study. We had our homestudy June 9th, and got the preliminary approval that night. The only things pending were our background checks. I found out today, that our homestudy is 100% and approved. We are so excited that things are moving quickly, and are just waiting for a phone call to let us know that we have a baby. We don't know when that phone call will come, but MY GOD does know when it will come, and He has it all planned out. It is so nice not worrying about any of this, and having the reassurance that God has a plan, and that He loves us, and nothing has happened, or will happen that will take Him by surprise.

EXCITING NEWS!!

We completed our homestudy last night and were approved!

That means...

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WE'RE ADOPTING!!!

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We are so excited!! I have been wanting to share this on my blog for so long, but thought it would be best to wait until it was official. This explains all of the lack of blogging lately. We have been busy!

Not Much Going On

But here are my walking totals from last week:
Sunday: 2.17
Monday: 1.37
Tuesday: 2.08
Wednesday: 2.56
Thursday: 0.87
Friday: 0.96
Saturday: 2.41
Total: 12.42
Not feeling too good this past week, so I only did the minimum, as you can see. I had the most bizarre sickness. Around 6:00 pm each evening, I would get a fever and just feel miserable. So when I would get home from work, I would take a Tylenol PM and go to bed. Work is crazy right now, and I think the stress is making me physically ill. Things are not looking good at work, and I'm just waiting to get laid off. They cancelled our insurance last Tuesday, and things have gone down hill from there. So, if you know anyone hiring, please let me know.
Anyway, this week, I'm getting my butt back in gear, and will be walking a lot more, hopefully back up to 20 miles a week.

I'm still walking

I forgot to post my walking totals for last week. Yes, I actually walked while on vacation. It may have been from the room to the pool, or a nice long walk on the beach, but it was still walking.
Sunday: 4.12
Monday: 4.84
Tuesday: 2.90
Wednesday: 1.80
Thursday: 1.00
Friday: 2.88
Saturday: 2.42
Total: 19.96
Not to shabby for being on vacation, huh?