34 weeks now... and much to tell!

34 weeks

32 weeks

Well, yesterday I completed 34 weeks of pregnancy. For the past 10-12 weeks I've been having this weird side effect of pregnancy with really itchy feet, and skin in general, but the feet have been the worst. We weren't thinking much of it until one of my nurse co-workers suggested that I might have something called Cholestasis of Pregnancy. So we did a little research last weekend, and talked to my midwife about testing for it and sure enough I was diagnosed with it this week. You can google it for more info, but more or less it has to do with the way pregnancy hormones are effecting my gallbladder and liver. They don't work properly due to those darn hormones, causing increased bile acids in my blood stream which are deposited in the skin causing extreme itching. Now, when I say extreme, I mean extreme... many nights awake for hours at a time just scratching my stupid feet and sometimes the rest of my skin too. Anyway, there really isn't any negative effect on me other than it being SUPER ANNOYING but there is a risk to the baby because it causes his liver to have to over compensate for what my liver is not doing. Basically the only cure is to deliver early, so now we will be induced no later than 38 weeks, and very likely sometime between 36-37! I'm headed into the hospital today for a few tests to check the baby's well-being right now, these are called a Non-Stress Test(watching his heartrate for about 20-30min or so to ensure proper oxygenation and movement) and a Biophysical Profile (an ultrasound that looks at several different components of fetal well-being - lungs, muscles, fluid, etc). I will also be receiving a steroid injection today and tomorrow to ensure that our son's lungs are developed by the time we have our induction. And along with all this, I am off of work and on bedrest to ensure my body is not having any other extra stressors... like working full time night shift! :o) I am thankful for the time to rest, although I'm sure I'll get a little stir crazy soon enough. I've got a good book to finish and several movie donations from friends, as well as a Baby Book to start of course!!! Prayers are greatly appreciated for the well-being of our boy, the sanity of his mother, and patience for his father (as Ev is being SUPER husband and picking up extra house work, working full time and going to school part time! Yikes!)

Oh, and it's a boy!!!

OK, now I blame this excuse on the prego brain!!! I just realized I hadn't announced on here that we did find out we're having a boy! We're super excited, either way we would have been excited, but it will be super fun to have two boys close in age once our adoption is complete! (which is just on hold until this son is 9 months old)

The Past 14 weeks... only 8 left 'til the due date!

30 weeks

So sorry everyone that I have been a total slacker at updating the blog for the past 14 weeks! I have no excuse other than procrastination and forgetfulness! I've been feeling pretty good. Growing more each week for sure! Baby Soup Campbell is moving lots and it has been so fun to be able to see him move now! Based on average fetal growth, he is around 17 inches long now and around 4 lbs in weight! Pretty exciting! A few weeks ago Evan's parents were here and they blessed us with the gift of our crib and rocker/glider chair for the nursery!!! Thanks Fath and Moth! We're working slowly but surely on the nursery, once we have things ready I'll be sure to post pics! So, here's the last several weeks of belly growth pics!!!

28 weeks

26 weeks

24 weeks here with my friend Diana who is 25 weeks, only it's her 3rd baby, so she shows a little more than me!

24 weeks

22 weeks

20 weeks

18 weeks and growing!

Here we are! We'll find out in about 8 days if it's Baby Boy or Baby Girl Campbell!!!

16 weeks!

Ok, the bump continues to grow, and I've been feeling movement now for about a week off and on! It's all so exciting! We'll find out if we're having a boy or girl in about 2-3 weeks! Yahoo!

14 Weeks!!!

14 Weeks today! No more buttoning of my pants! Time to go shopping!

Good News!

We found out yesterday we are officially approved by our adoption agency to postpone our adoption!!! This is a huge "Praise the Lord" because the agency had the option of canceling our adoption all together, and we did not want that at all! So, we'll be able to renew our paperwork once Baby Campbell #1 is 9 months old! Thank you Lord for such great news!!!

Baby Campbell 10 weeks 5 days

Here's Baby Campbell!!! This is actually the ultrasound picture from our appointment 2 weeks ago. The baby was 42.5mm from head to hind end, which is about 1.75in. Measuring tall already for the average at that gestation, so I think we're going to have a tall child. Not surprising when you see their father!!! The head is to the right, bottom on the left and the right hand is showing too!
I'm now at 12 weeks 5 days gestation and our next appointment is at 15 weeks. Today however, we got to HEAR the baby's heartbeat for the first time, which was incredible! Tears came to my eyes once again of course! Thankfully I am getting a bit more energy back as I'm heading into the 2nd trimester, and the nausea seems to be coming a little less often, which is wonderful of course!!! My belly is sticking out slightly more, and my pants are definitely tight and not "buttonable. " Once my belly is obviously showing a baby bump, I'm sure I'll add pics of that too!

The first 10 weeks

Wow! First of all I must apologize for not writing for a whole month, but I think what I explain below will be at least a half good excuse :o)
To put it kindly, the first 10 weeks of pregnancy have been rough. I have been pretty sick, initially throwing up multiple times a day. After trying one anti-nausea med unsuccessfully, I started what I call my miracle meds. They don't work all the time, I still have to throw up a few times a week, but at least it isn't every day, and for the most part they do actually take away the nauseated feeling, which as you can imagine gets old really quickly! Evan has been a saint... taking care of me and serving me as every good husband should :o) He brings me just about everything I ask for, right when I need it and comforts me when I feel crummy. He's even very cheerfully gone on food runs for me when I get a craving of something that sounds like I can actually eat it and keep it down!!! And most importantly he tells me every day he loves me and thanks me often for carrying our baby! (sniff, sniff ;o)
OK, enough of the sap... We had our first OB appointment with the wonderful midwife who I go to on March 31st. With the first ultrasound at that appointment we were able to see the heartbeat, which was SO awesome!. She was also able to measure the baby's length which came out to 6 weeks 4 days, putting my due date around November 22nd! We have our second appointment this Tuesday and we'll have another ultrasound(US) then as well. This time we should be able to see and hear the heartbeat, as well as make out the arms, legs, head and body of the tiny little one! I hope to post a pic of this US once we have it done!
That's all for now. Please continue to pray for the approval of our adoption postponement. We will be writing the letter of postponement request in about a week and we could really use God's guidance and your prayers for how to word it all properly, etc.
Thanks as always for your love, support and kind words! We are so excited to share this wonderful journey of life and miracles with you all!
Cori

Adoption Update - Adoption on hold

So we have a strange and miraculous story to share with you all. One of joy and heartache. This past Wednesday, March 18th, Evan and I found out I am pregnant. This came as a huge shock as we had fertility testing done before we ever decided to go the adoption route and truly believed I could not get pregnant without medical intervention or, of course, a miracle from God. Well God decided to perform such a miracle. After having the pregnancy confirmed at my midwifes office, I wrote an email to our case worker on at our adoption agency letting her know we had something we wanted to discuss with her that day (Thursday). She called around 11am and said, "well good timing for wanting to talk, I have your referral for you as well. Do you want to go first or should I?" and we replied, "we should probably talk first." We told her the news and she let us know she could not give us our referral due to the circumstances. After many hours of tears, phone conversations with agency employees and mourning, we were told the following conclusion. Due to the best interest of the to be adopted child, our adoption is on hold. If I were to miscarry this pregnancy in the first 12 weeks, then we can continue with the adoption and be back at the front of the list. If I don't miscarry, then the agency has the option of totally terminating our adoption. However, at this same time we will request, formally, a postponement of the adoption and hope the agency will approve this postponement. If it is approved then we would be able to continue next year, when our biological child is about 6months old. We want desperately to still adopt our Ethiopian son!!! Thursday was by far the hardest day of our lives ever. We had feelings of loss and joy back and forth all day. We know we have to trust God, we know He has the best plan for our lives and our family, but it is SO very hard to go through this when we were already attached to our future Ethiopian son. Please continue to pray for us! Please pray for a healthy pregnancy and birth, and for the agency to graciously allow us the postponement!!! We so appreciate your support and prayers!
Much Love,
Evan and Cori

Update 3/5/09 - "Rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS!"

Great news to share with you all again!!! We are now # 4 !!!!!!!!!! We can hardly believe how quickly we are moving along this waiting list! Praise the Lord!!! Our case worker said we should be ready to receive a referral call (pics/info) within the next few weeks!!! Now I really need to get to work on the room!!! Thankfully, our church, Grace Chapel, is having a rummage sale next week. So, I am going to take all the things we don't need and are in the way of rearranging the baby's room! I'll keep posting as we find out more, and one day I will have pics to post! Thanks for your continued prayers and support!!!

A good freak out!!!

So yesterday I (Cori) had a good freak out!!! This is an endearing term we use in the Campbell family when we want to express that someone is totally over-reacting to something and it is not necessary at all!!! Well, yesterday I was asleep on the love sac after working night shift and Evan hollered at me from across the room and said, "Sorry to wake you Cor, but we got our email update!" In my deep sleep fog, I replied, "What? We did?" To which Ev replied, "Yep, ready for it?" I shook my head yes, and to my disbelief Evan read the email to me, it went like this, "Evan and Cori, I hope your new year has been good... etc. etc... You are currently #10 on the Boy List. Of course, it is good to know that there are a few referrals that were recently made that have not yet been factored out of the lists as we are awaiting the official acceptances, but congratulations on your movement!" This is where the freak out comes, I said, "What! What! No way! No way! Number 10! What! Are you kidding me Evan?!?" Of course the answer was no, but he does enjoy teasing me every once in a while! I am still in shock, because this means if the pace continues this quickly, we have a lot of work to do! We could be hearing about a boy for us as early as the end of March!!! AHHHH!!! :o) So thank you all SO much for your prayers, they are working! And we are quickly experiencing our journey to parenthood!
Yesterday as I spurred into motion of writing a to-do list and getting started on it, I was able to contact the Adoption Clinic at OHSU and get us set up there! The secretary/receptionist was SO nice and helpful. This step is required in the acceptance of a child referral. Once you have the childs informatiton, you must review it with a doctor who specializes in international adoptions. It felt great to get at least one thing checked off our list of to-dos!
I'll hopefully write again soon with stories of shopping and registering adventures as we seek out the necessities!

More Praises!!!

Today we found out a few pieces of info that are very exciting! First of all my sister and brother-in-law are now also on the wait list!!! (For those of you who didn't know, they are also adopting from Ethiopia, same orphanage, etc.) Their first choice is a sibling group, and they are #11 on that list, and then they are also on the boy(#18) and girl(#28) individual lists!!! We are really hoping God will bless us with the opportunity to travel together to Ethiopia to bring back our children!!! So that was praise #1 for today!
#2 is that our bi-weekly email came today from our agency! There were up to 4 boy referrals made in the last two weeks, so our new number may be as low as 14!!!! Thank you Lord!!! We also found out that as of late, wait list to referral time is taking 5-6 months, rather than 6-8 months! So that means we should be receiving pictures and info of our son by May or June!!! Yahoo!!! We'll have our new official number the first week of February, we'll keep you posted! Thanks so much for all of your prayers and support!

"Commit to the LORD whatever you do,

and your plans will succeed."
Proverbs 16:3

#18 and counting!!!

So today we are number 18 on the waiting list!!! SO very exciting! And our case worker also informed us that they made several referrals last week that are awaiting formal acceptance. Once those are accepted this week, then our number will drop even lower!!! God is so good!
I think we are starting to feel a bit more anxious about it all. It is quite clear that in this year, 2009, we are becoming parents. If feels so very surreal! We continue to pray that God will be preparing us for our future son, and be preparing our son for us. It's so cool and strange to say that, "our son"! I'm sure many of you out there know what I mean, when you have wanted something so badly and yet don't have it to claim, but then you finally can! Wow, such a good feeling! A couple of weeks ago when we were praying for our son, Evan used the name we have chosen for him in the prayer... of course I became teary eyed! You know me! Anyway, it was that same surreal feeling. And now that you're probably curious about the name, here's the plan: We plan to keep his Ethiopian name either as a first or middle name, depending on it's ease of pronunciation. If it is difficult to pronounce then we will keep it as his middle name and give him the first name we have chosen. We will share the name we have chosen with others once we have accepted his referral and know his information and see his picture. Trust me, I'm sure it will be a blog title of something to the effect of "Introducing _________ __________ Campbell" !!!!! We'll have another update later this week, once we know how many referrals were accepted last week, so stay tuned! And thanks so much for all your prayers!