Pregnancy Update

Today we are 18 weeks pregnant! It's hard to believe there are only 22 weeks before we get to meet our little one! This week has been an exciting one--I felt the baby's first movements in my belly! It was so awesome! A couple of weeks ago I thought I felt something but couldn't be sure--this week it has been obvious! Justin tries to feel my tummy but isn't able to feel anything yet. It will be great the day that he can feel his baby moving around! I am (clearly) gaining weight and hesitate to post pictures. But, after talking to my sweet (and super honest) husband, have come to the realization that this is the best I am going to look for the next 5 or so months! :) So, at this point I am choosing to embrace the "bigness".

17 Weeks

18 Weeks

I don't want to jinx things, but I have been sleeping really well the last couple of nights! Less waking up in the night to use the bathroom :) Only 2 or 3 times as opposed to the 6 or so trips I was making! I'll take it :) Our anatomy ultrasound is scheduled for October 19th. So looking forward to getting to see Frogger again soon!

On the Adoption Front

During the past week or so we have learned a lot about where our adoption is heading. We were told that our child from India will need to be younger than our biological child. India is apparently placing a lot of importance on birth order recently. While we respect this, this information has changed the game for us. We were anticipating a toddler and now are going to be welcoming a baby home. The worst part (especially for Justin) is the waiting. We were on the "fast track" if there is such thing in adoption--and now we are in for a HUGE wait. The wait, however, will be totally worth it. We are confident that God has a child for us already planned--he or she just isn't born (or even conceived yet)!

This is where we stand now:
Submit our home study to JOH for approval--October 2010
Bio baby born--March 2011
Amend our h/s (after birth of baby)--March/April 2011
Submit our I-800A (a form approving us to bring a child into the US)--June/July 2011
I-800A will be approved hopefully (making us able to accept a referral)--November 2011
Our Indian babe will be born--December 2011 (9 months after bio baby)
We accept a referral--December 2011/whoknowshowlong :)
We travel approx. 1 year from accepting a referral--hopefully early 2013

It has been said that an age difference should be good enough to fulfill India's requirement to maintain birth order. However, after giving it a lot of thought and researching "artificial twinning" quite a bit, we really feel it's best to allow a greater age gap between our kids. I think that giving them atleast 9 months between birthdays and having them in separate grade levels at school will help both of them have their own identity. If you have any thoughts on artificial twinning--please share them :)

Now for some AMAZING NEWS!! I asked the agency last week for an update on Henna--she has been matched with a family!! Justin and I feel such an amazing feeling of peace knowing that God had a family for Henna all along, maybe we were just extra prayer warriors for her and for them :) We will continue to pray that Henna be joined with her family as soon as possible and for God to keep her healthy while they wait to be united.

15 Weeks Belly Shot

Adoption Update

Yesterday was our final homestudy meeting. Our social worker came to our house and completed a safety inspection. She said everything looked great! We are waiting for the state of Ohio to finish our background checks and we'll be ready to submit our homestudy to our placing agency for approval :) We are excited to be moving right along in our journey to our babe in India--whoever he or she might be.

There is no update on Henna. We continue to pray for her each night asking God to keep her healthy and to give her a hug so that she knows she is loved. Justin and I still very much love Henna and think about her all of the time. There are so many people that pray for her--such a great feeling :)